I’m somewhat surprised from all the firm optimism that electing again will magically solve such conflicts.
As I see it, many aspects of this remind me of state-level politics. Including the part that the community just isn’t able to get consensus on some topics. And as the SC is designed to represent the community somewhat well, it’s natural that it also won’t build consensus easily on those topics. If we reduced the SC size, consensus in the SC itself would be easier, but I don’t think it would make the community that much happier.
And I personally do like that Nixers are a very diverse set, even though it implies that we don’t share opinion on many topics. I still do think it’s worth trying to build consensus as far as possible and move in the directions that are shared widely. (regardless of how many SC members get kept this time) I believe the strong points should be in the technical aspects, not e.g. in world’s best discussion moderation system.
I think you and several others who have reached other conclusions might be missing why people are upset. We want transparency from the SC.
So, if they were like “this person’s vibes are bad and we vote to remove them” then what you must tell the community “this persons’ vibes are bad and we have removed them.” This would’ve still caused some concern, and the SC knew that, but at least they would’ve been transparent about the reasons.
You should not say “This person’s vibes are bad, we vote to remove them, now we must find actual evidence of the bad vibes to tell the community.” This is the wrong order of operations. You can not get rid of someone based on a feeling then go find reasons why you got rid of them. Is this is same SC who wanted to move towards more objective moderation?
What should’ve happened: “This person’s vibes are bad. Vibes are a feeling. Can I back that up with actual evidence?” Then find the evidence. If you don’t find evidence, then your feeling is bad. If you do find evidence, then you present the evidence and call for a vote.
I think it’s a struggle for individual humans to make decisions this way. The unitarity of our minds is, I think, a convenient illusion, and per studies of reaction times and nervous system activation, our decisions often precede our rational justifications. I try to fight my biases anyway, myself, and I hope that my leaders do likewise — but it’s one of quite a lot of things I hope for my leaders to do, and nobody’s perfect.
But for collectives of people? This is a wholly unreasonable expectation. Just read jtojnar’s and Gabriella’s accounts of these events again. There was a vote before there was a single, consistent, principled justification for the action. Do you want the SC never to vote until they’ve worked out the right thing to do from first principles? If so, have you ever been on a committee? In my experience, when time is any factor at all, committees will often push for votes as a way to cut through endless discussion and inaction. I fear you will be disappointed by leadership bodies with more than one member again and again if you hold them to that standard.
The SC knew that fpletz had resigned when they voted. Had the SC bought this argument by one more vote, it would have passed, but it did not. The counterfactual is inscrutable. If fpletz had not resigned, would there have been a hung vote for them to swing or would more of the current SC decided to soldier on?
I wouldn’t recommend fpletz as a future candidate because they are responsible for not having a vote and denying those who voted for them representation. The job wasn’t to win everything they wanted. The job was to make a process work. Good constitutional changes can be made a central issue to future elections. If won, those elections can create new legitimate authority to carry out those changes. Resignations and brigades of outrage are not the way. Popular sovereignty really becomes necessary when you won’t get a next fair election, not when you hate the outcome.
I read it. I understand the implications. Why doesn’t it strike me as mustache twirling evil? Not every thought that goes through my head is pristine, especially not at the inception. Creative entropy and willingness to pursue all angles is essential to unearthing new good things. A person would drive themselves mad treating every intermediate result as a final judgement of their own character. When we look for patterns of behavior, we look at actions, not considerations, not half-baked thoughts in the middle of drafting. I want to see the consciously chosen result of a person’s cooking. I also believe the words have been cherry picked and arranged so as to seem much more ominous than they are.
Secondly, it’s one member of the SC, whose job is to represent. If a representative I was most politically aligned against said something terrible, I would not demand their resignation because I understand that they represent someone besides me. That’s democracy. When a crowd is incited to march the torches after their political adversary, that’s populism and inevitably a prelude to something less democratic.
Finally, this thread, this intended campaign to exert spontaneously organized, activist power over the representative SC, is all less representative than the body it seeks to impose extra-democratic change upon. I use “extra-democratic” in the sense of “extra-judicial” as in outside the legitimate order. These threads are not representative. They inherently create massive selection bias and seek change through rash decisions under intense emotional pressure. This denies representation to those who were busy living and writing code. Asking thousands of NixOS users, again and again, to engage in extra-democratic pressure campaigns can only erode representation. It is the use of illegitimate, extra-democratic tactics to upset the democratic process, likely in hopes of some specific interests making gains in a renewed phase of chaos.
My overall recommendation to everyone:
focus on process, not outcomes
stop participating in these popular pressure campaigns designed to push the only representative process we have beyond the breaking point
embrace a bit of institutionalism and the inherent efficiency of representative systems, even when people we disagree with are also represented