On Sunday, February 20, 2022 5:24:47 PM EST Sam Hartman wrote: > >>>>> "Felix" == Felix Lechner <felix.lech...@lease-up.com> writes: > In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer have any affiliation > with DAM. > > Felix> With regard to disciplinary proceedings, however, Debian has > Felix> a long way to go in implementing basic precepts of > Felix> justice. For example, it would be good to hold hearings in > Felix> which the accused can make a statement before any action is > Felix> taken. > > I think phrasing this in terms of justice and rights for keeping > governments accountable is likely to get a knee-jerk reaction from a > number of people who do not want to think of things that. > It's fairly clear to a number of us that maintaining standards of a > private community is a very different problem than maintaining justice > for people who have the power to deny life and liberty. > > I do think there are standards of fairness and desirable conduct in > managing a community, but I don't think going back to the Magna Carta or > other documents of human rights is very productive in moving the > discussion forward. > > However, I do find there are areas where I agree with you. > I'm going to focus on DAM in this message rather than listmaster or the > community team. > I think the calculus for each group works out differently. > As an example, because the community team cannot (for the most part) > take formal action, I think it is desirable to avoid too much process > for them. > > > Having witnessed things from a number of angles, I agree with you if > that I think it would be an improvement if DAM agreed to ask > a member for input before taking decisions that affect them. > > DAM has long held that they don't do so as a matter of policy. > I don't have an explicit citation for this, but I'm fairly sure it was > discussed back in 2019. > As I understand it, the argument is roughly that by the time things get > to DAM, they are unambiguous. > > Unfortunately, it really rubs people the wrong way. > While I think it would be rare that it would change things, membership > actions are infrequent, and it actually is possible for there to be > understandings even late in a process that has gotten to DAM. > And while in theory DAM could change their decision if it became clear > their was a misunderstood, I think in practice the bar for changing a > decision after it is made will end up being higher than the bar for > making a different decision in the first place. > > > Figuring out how to accomplish requesting a statement is a little > tricky, but I think it is worth the effort. DAM takes membership > actions (including warnings) by consensus. It's fairly difficult to get > all the members of DAM together. > > I don't think it would work in practice for the request for a statement > to be a consensus action and to be followed shortly there after by > another consensus action to take a decision and to write it up. That > would require DAM to get together as a group twice in short succession; > given how hard it is to schedule DAM action, that would not work. > > > So, for this to be practical, the request for a statement would need to > be something that a single person, acting on their own (or with some > input but not full consensus) could do. > > As a result, it's not reasonable to expect DAM to communicate all the > factors of the case to someone, or even to communicate all the > potentially public evidence. It could include a description of the > triggering event in most cases. > > > A message might look something like: > > Hi Sam, > We are writing to you because we're concerned about your message to blah > with message-id blah-blah in which you said a bunch of bad things. We're > considering this is the context of your broader interactions with the > project and wanted to give you an > opportunity to give us any input either about that message or your > interactions with the project before we decide if we are going to take > any action. > We anticipate being able to consider any input in the next 72 hours. > > I honestly think it is achievable for DAM to send messages like that in > most situations and I think it would improve the perception of fairness. > > There are some cases where there's not a triggering event or where the > trigger that caused DAM to become focused is not something that can be > shared. In those cases, the request for a statement would be a lot more > vague. > > I appreciate that several in the project would desire that DAM put > together the level of detail that they would send to the NMC as part of > handling an appeal and send that to the person whose membership was being > considered. > Realistically, that's not achievable given the level of effort involved. > That's especially true for warnings. > > Felix> Disciplinary actions are sufficiently rare to make that a > Felix> small burden on the members. Without a jury system, it is the > Felix> best we can do to offer a trial by our peers. Thank you! > > A number of people over the years have talked about embodying some of > the processes and protections of a trial in community management actions > in Debian. That has included ideas like having the project as a whole > decide/affirm the decision, making evidence available, giving the > "accused" access to evidence and access to those who have made claims > against them. > > I think there's broad agreement among those who have actually worked on > community management in Debian that this would be a horrible idea and > would not make Debian a welcoming community. > Unfortunately, no one has actually taken the time to write up a good > explanation of why that's the case. > > Put another way, I don't think we want anything like a trial and I think > doing that would not accomplish goals we have for a community. > But I think the people who do want a trial are owed a good explanation > as to why the DPL and their delegates have consistently moved away from > such a system. > No, the DPL and project delegates are not required to do what vocal > members of the project suggest. > But I do think when a concern has been raised sufficiently, the DPL > and/or their delegates need to respond to this concern. > I think that "why don't we have trials for this sort of thing," has > long-sense reached that bar. > I tried to get people to volunteer to work on this during my DPL term. > I felt that given my position of privilege it would be better for people > who faced some of the issues more directly to try to answer the question. > I was not able to find someone both interested and motivated back then. > > Currently, I'm busy over on debian-vote. > If no one has written up a good answer to this by the time the secret > ballots GR is done, I'll give it my best effort.
While it is true that Debian is not a government and has no power to deprive someone of life or liberty, it's also not just a social club from which expulsion has no real consequences. For some people, their professional work is connected to Debian and being expelled from Debian effectively causes them to have to get a new job. Many Debian Developers have a lot of personal identity wrapped up in Debian (myself included). Being expelled from Debian would also be an emotional blow. Getting expelled from Debian is a big deal to anyone who has invested time, effort, and emotional labor on the project. While DAM decisions aren't the same as government decisions, they can have serious impacts on people and should not be treated lightly. I think you suggestion of giving people a chance to provide input prior to a decision being made is a good one. It may have been true at one point that there was no point because by the time something gets raised to DAM it's already clearly beyond the point of no return, but it's definitely not true now. DAM is, of course, free to define it's own processes and procedures, but I don't think the process for DAM warnings should be much different than for expulsion decisions. That only reason for something to be a DAM warning vice just one member of the project providing feedback to another member of the project is that it carries the threat of future expulsion with it. We have seen that there is a lower threshold for taking an expulsion decision in cases of people who have been warned before. If DAM is going to make a threat, then they need to be prepared to back it up later if the behavior repeats. Given that, I think it's important that such warnings be given the same kind of careful consideration that expulsions are given. Scott K
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