* Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2004-03-04 01:36]: > OK. Last I heard, irc.debian.org #debian is a project > resource. Here is an example of how women are treated in Debian; and > helix tells me that this is how they are treated all the time [...] > However, #debian on irc.debian.org has become a very > unfriendly place, and not just for women.
I've asked the #debian channel operators to comment on this and to explain how they'll handle situations like these in the future, and David B Harris kindly wrote the response below. From: David B Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> As background for this mail, I'd like to state just a few things for the record. Though I'm currently the #debian "Contact" (the person titularly responsible for an IRC channel), I am not the most active of the #debian channel operators. While this mail has my name on it, it was provided to other senior channel operators for review and editing before it was sent. The contents of this mail are primarily a written record of a set of conversation which occured in #debian-devel, and basically document the policies #debian channel operators have held themselves to for as long as I can remember. It was prepared at the request of the Debian Project Leader. On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:36:39 -0600 Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I should say, though, that the ops did handle the situation, > and promised to take action if they notice such behaviour in the > future. The policy is that anyone deliberately offensive to anyone > else , or persistent about non-delibrate offensiveness, will be > removed from the channel. Indeed. The policy of #debian channel operators is and always has been that anybody being deliberately offensive to another (or, within reason, somebody *not* being deliberately offensive, but being persistent about it), will be banned. In this context, "banned" means unable to contribute to further conversation in the channel. Such measures are, however, typically a last resort - we live in a large world, and something said in an innocent manner might be found amazingly offensive by another. As such, #debian channel operators attempt to encourage good communication between all parties, so that further incidents might be avoided. Only when this is unsuccessful, for whatever reason, are technical measures put in place. They are not meant as punishment, nor are they intended to satisfy the desire any one individual. Rather, they're put in place in order to preserve the usefulness of the channel to others. Those technical measures are rarely permanent, however - oftentimes, people simply need to "cool off". Only repeated offenses will result in a permanent ban, in most cases. > However, #debian on irc.debian.org has become a very > unfriendly place, and not just for women. I agree that the usefulness of the channel to others has been declining recently. There are currently 12 active channel operators, and it's a very rare occasion that there are *no* channel operators watching the channel at any one time. However, the users of #debian are wide and varied, and often have differing opinions. While one may wish to jump up and ban any who are being particularly forceful in the expression of their opinion, we shouldn't fail to recognise the possibly beneficial end-results of any given debate. One of the things which we attempt to do is to encourage communication, both amongst users and between users and channel operators. The #debian channel operators are generally quite skilled at lowering the temperature of a given conversation, and have enough experience to determine to a reasonable degree the intent of the various participants. Misunderstandings abound, and often it takes a bit of experience to sort through the mess. What's more, it is often the case that a channel operator simply stepping in and "taking care" of the problem is counter-productive; many people react negatively to such shows of force. As such, channel operators walk a fine line between acting as mediator, enforcer, policy-maker, and passive bystander. By far the best course of action for anybody who feels that they have been offended (whether deliberately or not) is to simply tell those who offended them what they were offended *by*. If the results thereafter aren't satisfactory to any one individual, contacting one of the channel operators is the appropriate course of action. The list of channel operators is available via "/msg chanserv access #debian list", but most #debian regulars are already familiar with the most active from that list. -- David B Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Martin Michlmayr [EMAIL PROTECTED]