Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 26/01/19 16:12, Sam Hartman wrote: > reasonably, I think that he's reached a level of The post wasn't intended to start a discussion about anybody specific, it is about the procedure. Please don't shoot the messenger. This tendency to make discussions personal, especially when somebody has a raised a challenging issue, contributes to a lot of the bad vibes that people subsequently complain about. If my view of this procedure is pretty dismal, that's just because I value the people who contribute to Debian and I don't think any of us are disposable. People are not packages and applying a `dpkg --purge person` attitude for arbitrary political purposes or differences in personalities in such a large organization is abhorrent. To put it bluntly, when a volunteer receives a threat email with a bunch of official-looking CCs, it feels like intimidation from gangsters. It is a disgrace for Debian to make that impression on people. Another blunt assessment of the situation, which can be deduced from the private emails: the DPL thought he could skip over meeting with people and talking to them and tried to simply sweep them under the carpet with 6 month "demotions" that would leave them for the next DPL to deal with. To save himself maybe a couple of hours investing in relationships, which is a basic responsibility of any leader, the DPL has cost many people a lot more time and hurt some long standing contributors in a bad way. If Debian wants credibility rather than a kangaroo court, it is essential to get the principles right, not only for fixing the current mistakes but also to avoid a repeat of anything remotely like that in future. If I didn't think this process could be improved I wouldn't have written about its flaws in such detail, so please don't accuse me of failing to be constructive. There have been numerous cases of communications breaking down with various people recently so please don't continue to make personal accusations or single people out. > constructive discussion. I think that Daniel's post would take a long > time to respond to for a lot of us who have recently spent a lot of > energy trying to work through some really hard issues. Not everybody has seen all those details but snippets of it, like this thread, have been selectively released into debian-project This is another example of why the procedure is morally bankrupt: if the DAM can take this guilty-until-proven-innocent approach, remove somebody from the debian-private mailing list and then use that forum to promote a version of events that the member can't see and rebut before a GR vote then the vote is biased against the member concerned. DAM can prove me wrong of course by guaranteeing that members subjected to this procedure will continue having access to debian-private right up to the end of any GR ballot on their membership. > Here's why I don't think the post is constructive. There are a lot of > reasons why you'd want to have rapid action for handling situations > other than questions of technical competence. There are significant > cases where maintaining the safety of the community requires rapid > action. There's a lot of thought put into antiharassment efforts that > argues for fairly rapid resolution of issues rather than the long > drawn-out processes that Daniel supports. For the record: you mention "safety of the community", but there was never any safety issue on the part of any of the people threatened, it was purely politics[1], scapegoating and some misunderstandings. The only safety issue is the sending of threats and defamation by Debian leadership figures. My post is not opposed to rapid action. I fully believe in rapid action to engage with people and improve relationships in the community, for example, people have asked[2] questions about mediation. Or simply meeting with people to talk about issues. Rapid action that may hurt people is to be avoided. Rapidly skipping over the former to attempt the latter is even more disturbing. Rapid action to find the cause of a problem is good too. Rapidly searching for a scapegoat or somebody to blame is not. In a number of cases this year, I've observed the DPL jumps into issues, and I'm even counting at least one technical issue here, where he takes a side without even asking for all sides of the story. In the technical issue that comes to mind, he had actually conflated two different pieces of work and formed an opinion about the discussion way too early. In a technical debate it may be possible to overlook lapses like that, but impartiality and neutrality are essential when dealing with grievances and personal disputes. This is a challenge for anybody in the DPL role. Sometimes I thought it was just a "clearing the inbox" mentality at work, a DPL rushing to tick everything off before the end of the day, giving every email a fast answer rather than the best answer. The type of DAM actions discussed in this and some related
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
While we're throwing around random wikipedia pages, I'd like to submit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning With respect, I don't think Daniel's comments are a constructive addition to the discussion. Whether or not daniel was treated reasonably, I think that he's reached a level of bitterness/upset/disappointment that is not going to lead to constructive discussion. I think that Daniel's post would take a long time to respond to for a lot of us who have recently spent a lot of energy trying to work through some really hard issues. For myself, I'm not going to respond in substance, and I don't want silence to be taken as agreement. Here's why I don't think the post is constructive. There are a lot of reasons why you'd want to have rapid action for handling situations other than questions of technical competence. There are significant cases where maintaining the safety of the community requires rapid action. There's a lot of thought put into antiharassment efforts that argues for fairly rapid resolution of issues rather than the long drawn-out processes that Daniel supports. You can be constructive and disagree with all that. There are really big questions of fairness and no good answers. However, constructively participating in a discussion involves learning enough of the history and enough of the positions (especially those of people you disagree with) that you can treat those positions with respect. You should be able to respond to their points and demonstrate empathy for the needs of others in the conversation. Daniel didn't do that, so I don't think he's being constructive here. Wheter it is actually sealioning or simply ignorance of other positions, the result is the same: he asks us to be drawn into a huge, painful, drawn-out discussion where we take on the duty of educating him and any trolls that are attracted by his impassioned language. I personally choose not to take on that burden here. That said, Daniel brought up one point I would like to discuss with anyone who would be interested in bringing about changes. He points out that we have events where we have face-to-face time and we could use them more effectively for working through disputes. I'm not interested in debating with Daniel about whether the process should require that. I am very eager to discuss how we can do more of that empathy building and dispute resolution at events. --Sam signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 07/01/2019 23:27, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> One of the things that emerged from the recent discussions around DAM
> actions is that we are missing a way to review or appeal DAM's
> decision. Currently the only way to do this is running a full-featured
> GR, with all the negative side effects such a process has.
>
> While a GR is a constitutional right, and the procedure we lay out here
> does NOT take that away, we feel there is a need for a less drastic
> procedure that would allow double-checking of DAM actions without
> escalating into a project-wide dispute.
>
> With this message we define a way to appeal a DAM action, that balances
> between involving other members in the review, and ensuring that we have
> sufficient independent oversight.
>
> Although this defines a pretty strict timeline for the procedure to
> avoid a long-running process, we waive the time limit defined in §1 for
> the cases from the last 6 months.
>
>
>
> 1. Appealing DAM decisions
> --
> Any person who had their Debian membership suspended or revoked by DAM
> may appeal the decision. They must request the appeal within 30 days,
> stating why they disagree with the decision in a mail to DAM. DAM will
> notify the New Members Committee (NMC)[1][2] and Front Desk.
>
> The original action taken by DAMs remains in force during the appeal.
>
Happy Australia Day everybody. Please take a moment to review the
Wikipedia definition[0] of a kangaroo court, many people have privately
commented on the irony of kangaroo courts in this situation. Various
points stand out and care is needed to avoid the perception that this
type of thing happens in Debian:
"proceedings are often held to give the appearance of a fair and just
trial, even though the verdict was already decided before the trial
actually began"
"A kangaroo court could also develop when the structure and operation of
the forum result in an inferior brand of adjudication. A common example
of this is when institutional disputants ("repeat players") have
excessive and unfair structural advantages over individual disputants
("one-shot players")"
The way that DAM has been making decisions without consulting the
members in question is a "shoot first ask questions later" approach.
Making a decision and asking people to appeal suggests they are "guilty
until proven innocent"
In the case in 2016, the member concerned was given 48 hours to answer
questions. Most DDs would struggle to respond in that period,
especially if they were on vacation or had other deadlines for their job.
Now DAM appears to have abandoned even that hint of due process and
decided that they don't even need to give that 48 hours. It is as if
people are being unceremoniously dumped out the back door.
The process needs to be much more reasonable, perhaps 90 days at each
step and not even making a first decision without reasonable time. The
process for accepting a member generally takes quite some time so it is
contradictory to have this lightning-strike expulsion process.
How can a decision that may unfairly impact somebody's work and
reputation be implemented before the member has exhausted all
opportunities for appeal?
If the reason is due to urgent questions about technical competence, DAM
have another option: they change somebody's status from Uploading to
non-Uploading developer. The member remains a member in the sense that
they can vote and their reputation is less likely to be jeopardized by a
decision that hasn't been confirmed by a full process.
>
> 2. DAM statement
>
> Within 72 hours DAM will provide a statement to the NMC and the appealer
> with their reasoning for the account status change.
>
Why the NMC?
Why not consider having an elected membership committee?
With the current proposal, DAM can watch the way that NMC evolves over
time and choose to make a decision at a time when they think the current
members of NMC are likely to support the decision.
This is one of those "structural advantages" of a kangaroo court.
> DAM may also send additional material to the NMC only, encrypted to the
> individual members, if they deem it necessary for the case, and if
> presenting this to a wider public might cause issues of confidentiality
> for involved third-parties. The NMC members are expected to avoid
> disclosing this material to anyone else, including the appealer.[3]
>
The presence of secret evidence is a showstopper here.
Another one of the "excessive and unfair structural advantages over
individual disputants" that typifies a kangaroo court.
If a member goes to a GR, they won't be contending with any secret
evidence because everybody (the member and the rest of the community)
will be working off the same public evidence and the member will be able
to challenge any of it as necessary.
In the current situation, "evidence" that is 100%
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 12:48 AM Jonathan Wiltshire wrote: > I have the very highest regard for both Joerg's and Enrico's integrity. I > hope that they would say likewise about me. We are trying hard to do the > right thing and not the subvertible thing, so please have a little faith > that we are not designing this appeals process purely so we can game it in > our favour. At least from my perspective, this is not about anyone's integrity; your integrity is beyond doubt. Yet, processes should be somewhat resilient. This is especially true if they are executed seldomly, have extreme consequences, might challenged, or are likely to face increased public scrutiny. In this case, all of those apply. Once again, thank you to all parties involved who took it upon themselves to weather this mudslinging contest, best, Richard
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 02:34:00PM +, Ulrike Uhlig wrote: > Hello! > > Karsten Merker: > > On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 11:17:02PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > >> On 15276 March 1977, Karsten Merker wrote: > >> > 4. NM Committee review > -- > The NMC has 7 days to review the received material and discuss the > matter in > private. They are expected not to solicit further input, as this is not > an > inquiry but a peer review of the DAM decision. > >>> I'm not sure whether I understand correctly what exactly is meant > >>> by "[The members of the NMC] are expected not to solicit further > >>> input" - does that mean that the members of the NMC are not > >>> allowed to ask questions about facts outside/above those > >>> explicitly presented by DAM and those contained in the written > >>> appealer statement, i.e. the NMC members are forbidden to do any > >>> sort of research about the situation on their own? If yes, that > >>> would seem like an inappropriate limitation to me. > >> > >> As written, it is not an inquiry. But a check of the decision > >> that DAMs have made. NMC should not need to dig around for > >> long. And should not be forced by someone claiming "but if you > >> only ask this one more, or this one, then you MAY see the > >> light". Nah. Its both sides giving their views, and the NMC > >> deciding on that. End. If one side can not present enough to > >> support their case, then their case fails, it shouldn't be up > >> to the NMC to dig out the stuff for them. > > > > That point would be perfectly valid if DAM would not be part of > > the NMC and would not take part in the discussions, so that the > > NMC members would only decide on the written statements from both > > sides. This isn't the case here, though. DAM is part of the > > NMC, takes part in the discussions and can (and probably will, > > because that's just natural in such a situation) provide further > > input from their viewpoint based on how the discussion proceeds, > > but that's (for obvious reasons) not the case for the appealer, > > It is written in the initial proposal that DAM is excluded from this > vote. Maybe they should also be excluded from discussion within the NMC > explicitly. Would that solve the issues you raised? It was always our intention that DAM does not have any part in or view of the NMC discussion or vote. We submit the review to them and we get back a result. End. I have the very highest regard for both Joerg's and Enrico's integrity. I hope that they would say likewise about me. We are trying hard to do the right thing and not the subvertible thing, so please have a little faith that we are not designing this appeals process purely so we can game it in our favour. > > > so this causes an asymmetry in the procedure. Denying the the > > Non-DAM NMC members the right to inquire about things intensifies > > this asymmetry. > > As said elsewhere, the sentence about inquiry needs clarification it seems. It is to focus the committee's attention onto the provided allegations and defence, and keep them from going off on a tangent. A review should not involve further evidence-gathering. -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
Hello! Karsten Merker: > On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 11:17:02PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: >> On 15276 March 1977, Karsten Merker wrote: >> 4. NM Committee review -- The NMC has 7 days to review the received material and discuss the matter in private. They are expected not to solicit further input, as this is not an inquiry but a peer review of the DAM decision. >>> I'm not sure whether I understand correctly what exactly is meant >>> by "[The members of the NMC] are expected not to solicit further >>> input" - does that mean that the members of the NMC are not >>> allowed to ask questions about facts outside/above those >>> explicitly presented by DAM and those contained in the written >>> appealer statement, i.e. the NMC members are forbidden to do any >>> sort of research about the situation on their own? If yes, that >>> would seem like an inappropriate limitation to me. >> >> As written, it is not an inquiry. But a check of the decision >> that DAMs have made. NMC should not need to dig around for >> long. And should not be forced by someone claiming "but if you >> only ask this one more, or this one, then you MAY see the >> light". Nah. Its both sides giving their views, and the NMC >> deciding on that. End. If one side can not present enough to >> support their case, then their case fails, it shouldn't be up >> to the NMC to dig out the stuff for them. > > That point would be perfectly valid if DAM would not be part of > the NMC and would not take part in the discussions, so that the > NMC members would only decide on the written statements from both > sides. This isn't the case here, though. DAM is part of the > NMC, takes part in the discussions and can (and probably will, > because that's just natural in such a situation) provide further > input from their viewpoint based on how the discussion proceeds, > but that's (for obvious reasons) not the case for the appealer, It is written in the initial proposal that DAM is excluded from this vote. Maybe they should also be excluded from discussion within the NMC explicitly. Would that solve the issues you raised? > so this causes an asymmetry in the procedure. Denying the the > Non-DAM NMC members the right to inquire about things intensifies > this asymmetry. As said elsewhere, the sentence about inquiry needs clarification it seems. Cheers, Ulrike
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
Hi! Richard Hartmann: > On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 11:27 AM Ulrike Uhlig wrote: > [...] >> Anthony Towns: > [...] > >>> Having the boss's decision reviewed by people who report directly to >>> the boss is kind of a dodgy structure; and people on the new member >>> committee will probably want to maintain good relations with DAM, at >>> least if they want to continue doing new member work. >> >> I cannot see a problem here. The vote of NMC will be secret, so there is >> no way that DAM could know about who voted what. > > [...] > >>> (Another difference between the proposed process and court appeals is >>> that appeals courts can provide detailed opinions as to why the original >>> decision was wrong which helps avoid making the same mistakes in future; >>> this process doesn't really have that feature). >> There could be a _non-mandatory_ reasoning written by the NMC to DAM if >> a decision is overturned. > > Those two are mutually exclusive. > > Assuming best case and that the text is piped through Secretary to > avoid sender addresses: It would be an undue burden for dissenting NMC > members to find each other in a truly secret ballot, let alone have > them write something in a way which ensures DAM can't deduct from the > style of writing, points raised, and timing who's among the set of > people. Add that everyone in that group would know how many dissenting > votes there were so you even know how many dissenters you would need > to find. Correct! Thanks for making it clear :) Cheers! u.
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 11:08:12AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 11:27:35PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > > With this message we define a way to appeal a DAM action, > > I'm treating this as if it's a first draft and open to comment. > > > 1. Appealing DAM decisions > > -- > > Any person who had their Debian membership suspended or revoked by DAM may > > appeal the decision. > > Based on the process you describe, I'd suggest phrasing this as "may > ask for the decision to be reviewed by the New Members Committee". > An "appeal" (at least in legal terms) usually goes to the more powerful > body, but in this case, DAM is the more powerful body. > > Having the boss's decision reviewed by people who report directly to > the boss is kind of a dodgy structure; and people on the new member > committee will probably want to maintain good relations with DAM, at > least if they want to continue doing new member work. Actually, to the NM committee, "the boss" is frontdesk, not the DAM. There is some overlap between the two (in fact, most DAMs get recruited from the NM frontdesk AIUI), but they're still separate. Having said that, "the boss" doesn't really exist in Debian, apart from the DPL... > > 2. DAM statement > > > > Within 72 hours DAM will provide a statement to the NMC and the appealer > > with their reasoning for the account status change. > > I think by this point DAM should have already provided the reasoning > for the expulsion to -private (or -project if the person being expelled > agreed), so this should be redundant. They might still want to provide a statement explaining some of the more private arguments, though. > > DAM may also send additional material to the NMC only, encrypted to the > > individual members, if they deem it necessary for the case, and if > > presenting this to a wider public might cause issues of confidentiality for > > involved third-parties. > > > [1] The NM-Committee is defined as: > >- All members of DAM and FrontDesk. > >- All application manager that are marked as active and > > processed at least one NM in the last 6 months. > >There is a mail alias which reaches all > > members, it is regularly regenerated by FrontDesk. > > All AMs that have processed an NM in the last 6 months is a fairly > broad group, and not one that's particularly selected for dealing with > particularly sensitive information. On the other hand, having an NM committee which gets selected semi-randomly like that means that the DAM can't really "play" the system as easily. [...no further disagreements...] -- To the thief who stole my anti-depressants: I hope you're happy -- seen somewhere on the Internet on a photo of a billboard
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 11:27 AM Ulrike Uhlig wrote: [...] > Anthony Towns: [...] > > Having the boss's decision reviewed by people who report directly to > > the boss is kind of a dodgy structure; and people on the new member > > committee will probably want to maintain good relations with DAM, at > > least if they want to continue doing new member work. > > I cannot see a problem here. The vote of NMC will be secret, so there is > no way that DAM could know about who voted what. [...] > > (Another difference between the proposed process and court appeals is > > that appeals courts can provide detailed opinions as to why the original > > decision was wrong which helps avoid making the same mistakes in future; > > this process doesn't really have that feature). > There could be a _non-mandatory_ reasoning written by the NMC to DAM if > a decision is overturned. Those two are mutually exclusive. Assuming best case and that the text is piped through Secretary to avoid sender addresses: It would be an undue burden for dissenting NMC members to find each other in a truly secret ballot, let alone have them write something in a way which ensures DAM can't deduct from the style of writing, points raised, and timing who's among the set of people. Add that everyone in that group would know how many dissenting votes there were so you even know how many dissenters you would need to find. Richard
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 7:46 PM Kurt Roeckx wrote: > I don't intend to use devotee for that. I don't think it can > currently handle such votes, nor do I want to spend time > implementing that. I have used CIVS[1] for various projects and for work. It's not very polished, but usually works well. It's Condorcet and you can choose the completion rules, amongst other options. Richard [1] https://civs.cs.cornell.edu/
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 09:43:27AM +0100, Kurt Roeckx wrote: > On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 11:53:38PM +0100, Karsten Merker wrote: > > > So while I agree there might be possible improvements in how the vote > > > goes, I > > > don't think just deleting that one sentence is it. > > > > I beg to differ :). I have taken a look at Ian's proposal with > > using sqrt(people allowed to vote) instead of a fixed ratio of > > 50%. That doesn't solve the general underlying problem of "not > > voting" generating a bias against the appealer, but it makes such > > a negative effect less likely, so I would consider this at least > > a lot better than a fixed 50% ratio. > > The problem with deleting the sentence is that only 1 person > voting can decide on the result. You really want to have a minimum > of people voting. And once you introduce some kind of quorum, > there is always a (small) advantage for the status quo, but it > assumes they organize themselves to try and take advantage of it. This isn't really correct. With Ian's proposal there is no way to vote tacticly, there is just a minimum amount of people that need to vote, but that's still in the advantage of the status quo. Kurt
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 11:53:38PM +0100, Karsten Merker wrote: > > So while I agree there might be possible improvements in how the vote goes, > > I > > don't think just deleting that one sentence is it. > > I beg to differ :). I have taken a look at Ian's proposal with > using sqrt(people allowed to vote) instead of a fixed ratio of > 50%. That doesn't solve the general underlying problem of "not > voting" generating a bias against the appealer, but it makes such > a negative effect less likely, so I would consider this at least > a lot better than a fixed 50% ratio. The problem with deleting the sentence is that only 1 person voting can decide on the result. You really want to have a minimum of people voting. And once you introduce some kind of quorum, there is always a (small) advantage for the status quo, but it assumes they organize themselves to try and take advantage of it. Kurt
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 15277 March 1977, Gunnar Wolf wrote: Thank you very much, Joerg (and DAM team) for coming up with this proposal. I have just returned to work after a month off, and my brain isn't yet 100% wired to be productive again (WAY off 100%, I'd say), but this really looks like a good (although perfectible - but what isn't?) answer to our current situation. I've had about 4 months off just end of last year (well, not vacation, sick leave), I know that thing. I hope this helps the current tensions (to name them mildly) to be relaxed and lets us sort out of the issue without further harm to the project. I don't think it will steer anyone away from pathes of destruction they seem hell bent on, but I do hope and assume it will make future cases less noisy. Together with the other stuff posted elsewhere. Now need to get some of the proposals for change included to make it better... -- bye, Joerg
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
Joerg Jaspert dijo [Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 11:27:35PM +0100]: > Hello everyone, > > One of the things that emerged from the recent discussions around DAM > actions is that we are missing a way to review or appeal DAM's decision. > Currently the only way to do this is running a full-featured GR, with all > the negative side effects such a process has. > (...) Thank you very much, Joerg (and DAM team) for coming up with this proposal. I have just returned to work after a month off, and my brain isn't yet 100% wired to be productive again (WAY off 100%, I'd say), but this really looks like a good (although perfectible - but what isn't?) answer to our current situation. I hope this helps the current tensions (to name them mildly) to be relaxed and lets us sort out of the issue without further harm to the project. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 07:28:34PM +0100, Luke Faraone wrote: > On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 19:07, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote: > > Le 9 janvier 2019 16:49:30 GMT+01:00, Kurt Roeckx a écrit : > > >I would try to use software that can run a vote like that, > > >where it's possible to provide proof that your vote was recorded > > >properly. I think there is such open source software, I just can't > > >remember it. > > > > French lab Loria has developped Belenios, an enhanced version of Helios. > > It was an oblique reference to devotee[1], the Debian voting software. > We already have secret ballots for DPL elections. I don't intend to use devotee for that. I don't think it can currently handle such votes, nor do I want to spend time implementing that. Kurt
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 19:07, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote: > Le 9 janvier 2019 16:49:30 GMT+01:00, Kurt Roeckx a écrit : > >I would try to use software that can run a vote like that, > >where it's possible to provide proof that your vote was recorded > >properly. I think there is such open source software, I just can't > >remember it. > > French lab Loria has developped Belenios, an enhanced version of Helios. It was an oblique reference to devotee[1], the Debian voting software. We already have secret ballots for DPL elections. [1]: https://www.debian.org/vote/ -- Luke Faraone;; Debian & Ubuntu Developer; Sugar Labs; MIT SIPB lfaraone on irc.[freenode,oftc].net -- https://luke.wf/ohhello PGP fprint: 8C82 3DED 10AA 8041 639E 1210 5ACE 8D6E 0C14 A470
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
Le 9 janvier 2019 16:49:30 GMT+01:00, Kurt Roeckx a écrit : >On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 04:28:41PM +0100, Thomas Goirand wrote: >> >> Would this vote be secret? In some situation, I'd rather not vote >than >> having my vote disclosed. I'm very much OK for the secretary to see >what >> I voted for though. > >The voting would be secret. I think the only output should be the >number of yes/no/abstain. > >I would try to use software that can run a vote like that, >where it's possible to provide proof that your vote was recorded >properly. I think there is such open source software, I just can't >remember it. > > >Kurt French lab Loria has developped Belenios, an enhanced version of Helios. HTH. -- PEB
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 04:28:41PM +0100, Thomas Goirand wrote: > > Would this vote be secret? In some situation, I'd rather not vote than > having my vote disclosed. I'm very much OK for the secretary to see what > I voted for though. The voting would be secret. I think the only output should be the number of yes/no/abstain. I would try to use software that can run a vote like that, where it's possible to provide proof that your vote was recorded properly. I think there is such open source software, I just can't remember it. Kurt
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 04:28:41PM +0100, Thomas Goirand wrote: > On 1/7/19 11:27 PM, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > > 5. NM-Committee vote > > > > After 7 days discussion, or earlier if unanimously agreed by the NMC, > > NM-Frontdesk will ask the secretary to conduct a secret, 3-day-long > > vote, with the following options: > > [snip] > Would this vote be secret? Yes, as the proposal you quoted specifies. -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 1/7/19 11:27 PM, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > 5. NM-Committee vote > > After 7 days discussion, or earlier if unanimously agreed by the NMC, > NM-Frontdesk will ask the secretary to conduct a secret, 3-day-long > vote, with the following options: > > 1. Uphold the decision of the DAMs > 2. Overturn the decision of the DAMs > > Committee members otherwise involved in a case must abstain. > DAM members are not allowed to partake in the vote. > > A simple majority decides the vote; in the event of a tie, the decision > is not overturned. > > Abstained or absent votes are not counted. If more than half of the NMC > (excluding DAM) abstain or do not vote, the decision is not overturned. > > An independent Developer, usually the project secretary, conducts the > vote. In the event that the secretary is a partly involved in the case, > DAMs will work with the DPL to identify a suitable developer. > > [...] > > [1] The NM-Committee is defined as: > - All members of DAM and FrontDesk. > - All application manager that are marked as active and > processed at least one NM in the last 6 months. > There is a mail alias which reaches all > members, it is regularly regenerated by FrontDesk. Hi, Would this vote be secret? In some situation, I'd rather not vote than having my vote disclosed. I'm very much OK for the secretary to see what I voted for though. Going further, someone in the NMC may have his vote influenced by how it would be received by the community. I wouldn't do that, again, I'd prefer not voting at all, but that's just me... Thoughts anyone? Cheers, Thomas Goirand (zigo)
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
Joerg Jaspert writes ("Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions"):
> On 15276 March 1977, Karsten Merker wrote:
> > Therefore the clause "If more than half of the NMC (excluding DAM) abstain
> > or do not vote, the decision is not overturned" would IMHO need to be
> > removed completely from the rules.
...
> So while I agree there might be possible improvements in how the
> vote goes, I don't think just deleting that one sentence is it. But
> I'm not an expert in voting systems, so am happy for any
> input. Could go with a quorum (and then count abstains for it) and
> requiring a (3 quarter?) majority of voters?! Could go with
> something else? Somebody come up with a nice thing, please. :)
I'll bit. Having some kind of quorum requirement is a good idea.
Yours is not ideal because it is non-monotonic. Specifically, the
sometimes best way to defeat something would be to simply not vote, so
that the 50% quorum is not reached.
I suggest instead that you say that the decision is not overturned
unless supported by (i) at least sqrt() of the eligible voters
(ii) strictly more than 50% of the people voting.
sqrt is a good function here because it adjust the quorum proportion
according to the voting pool. If for some reason only a small number
of people are available/eligible, the quorum is most of them.
Currently you say there are 17 so a revocation decision would have to
be supported by at least ~4.123 people, ie (since supporters only come
in whole numbers) at least 5. That is close to the implied 25% of
your proposal.
Ian.
--
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
Hello, Anthony Towns: > On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 11:27:35PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: >> 1. Appealing DAM decisions >> -- >> Any person who had their Debian membership suspended or revoked by DAM may >> appeal the decision. > > Based on the process you describe, I'd suggest phrasing this as "may > ask for the decision to be reviewed by the New Members Committee". > An "appeal" (at least in legal terms) usually goes to the more powerful > body, but in this case, DAM is the more powerful body. > > Having the boss's decision reviewed by people who report directly to > the boss is kind of a dodgy structure; and people on the new member > committee will probably want to maintain good relations with DAM, at > least if they want to continue doing new member work. I cannot see a problem here. The vote of NMC will be secret, so there is no way that DAM could know about who voted what. >> 2. DAM statement >> >> Within 72 hours DAM will provide a statement to the NMC and the appealer >> with their reasoning for the account status change. > > I think by this point DAM should have already provided the reasoning > for the expulsion to -private (or -project if the person being expelled > agreed), so this should be redundant. No, you might have read below that the idea is to leave it to the concerned person to disclose why they've been suspended or expelled. Also see mail sent by Jonathan Wiltshire yesterday to d-d-a. >> DAM may also send additional material to the NMC only, encrypted to the >> individual members, if they deem it necessary for the case, and if >> presenting this to a wider public might cause issues of confidentiality for >> involved third-parties. > >> [1] The NM-Committee is defined as: >>- All members of DAM and FrontDesk. >>- All application manager that are marked as active and >> processed at least one NM in the last 6 months. >>There is a mail alias which reaches all >> members, it is regularly regenerated by FrontDesk. > > All AMs that have processed an NM in the last 6 months is a fairly > broad group, and not one that's particularly selected for dealing with > particularly sensitive information. It doesn't seem like a great idea to > send sensitive info to them that you wouldn't feel comfortable sending > to any random developer to me, so again sending the detailed reasoning > to -private still seems like the right approach, removing personally > identifying details in the rare cases where that's necessary. So sending this info to a number of AMs is less privacy sensitive than sending it to ~1000 people on -private? I don't think this is useful and I don't understand why you are proposing such a thing. We've repeatedly seen information from -private forwarded and shared with the outside world. There are archives accessible to each DD, even new DDs can read the archives from years ago... ie. -private is not private and this information has *nothing* to do on a mailing list. Imagine a case of harassment and the harassed person does not want their identity to be disclosed? Even if you send some information about a venue or a time when this happened, it might be possible to reverse engineer the identity of the person. It's not up to "us" to decide about disclosing such information to a huge list of people. >> The NMC members are expected to avoid disclosing >> this material to anyone else, including the appealer.[3] > > Doing things that way avoids this risk/caveat. > > I don't really think providing sensitive material to the new member ctte > in this way is helpful anyway: if they can't pass it on to the person > who got expelled they can't ask "is this true? what's your side of the > story?" either, which is pretty essential if you want to have a remotely > fair process. The procedure does not say they cannot ask if something is true. But as seen in the two current cases, both suspended/expelled developers absolutely wanted to know who complained about them. Hence this sentence makes sense: please do not share the raw material with anyone, including the appealer. >> 3. Appealer statement >> - >> Within a further 72 hours, the appealer has the opportunity to respond to >> the DAM statement with their own statement. > > DAM should be providing the full reasoning to the person being expelled > when they're expelled; if that person's going to ask for review, they > already have all they need to provide their side of the story as part > of the request for review, avoiding the need for this 72h period. DAM _does_ send the expelled/suspended person an email containing their reasoning afaik. Leaving time is a good thing: the expelled/suspended person may use it to write up something to clarify what they don't agree with. Let's give them this time? > Both the above changes would cut the appeal time down by a week, from: > > - expulsion happens > - <30 days, review is requested > - 3 days for DAM
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
Thanks for this details analysis and for your suggestions for improvements. I like especially the idea of changing the timeline and to remove the update of the DAM statement (3. Appealer statement). I also was wondering what "turning it into a warning" really means. I think a warning should be done by DAM before someone gets expelled. Again, this posting helps me as a non-native speaker to raise my voice. -- regards Thomas
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 11:27:35PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > With this message we define a way to appeal a DAM action, I'm treating this as if it's a first draft and open to comment. > 1. Appealing DAM decisions > -- > Any person who had their Debian membership suspended or revoked by DAM may > appeal the decision. Based on the process you describe, I'd suggest phrasing this as "may ask for the decision to be reviewed by the New Members Committee". An "appeal" (at least in legal terms) usually goes to the more powerful body, but in this case, DAM is the more powerful body. Having the boss's decision reviewed by people who report directly to the boss is kind of a dodgy structure; and people on the new member committee will probably want to maintain good relations with DAM, at least if they want to continue doing new member work. > 2. DAM statement > > Within 72 hours DAM will provide a statement to the NMC and the appealer > with their reasoning for the account status change. I think by this point DAM should have already provided the reasoning for the expulsion to -private (or -project if the person being expelled agreed), so this should be redundant. > DAM may also send additional material to the NMC only, encrypted to the > individual members, if they deem it necessary for the case, and if > presenting this to a wider public might cause issues of confidentiality for > involved third-parties. > [1] The NM-Committee is defined as: >- All members of DAM and FrontDesk. >- All application manager that are marked as active and > processed at least one NM in the last 6 months. >There is a mail alias which reaches all > members, it is regularly regenerated by FrontDesk. All AMs that have processed an NM in the last 6 months is a fairly broad group, and not one that's particularly selected for dealing with particularly sensitive information. It doesn't seem like a great idea to send sensitive info to them that you wouldn't feel comfortable sending to any random developer to me, so again sending the detailed reasoning to -private still seems like the right approach, removing personally identifying details in the rare cases where that's necessary. > The NMC members are expected to avoid disclosing > this material to anyone else, including the appealer.[3] Doing things that way avoids this risk/caveat. I don't really think providing sensitive material to the new member ctte in this way is helpful anyway: if they can't pass it on to the person who got expelled they can't ask "is this true? what's your side of the story?" either, which is pretty essential if you want to have a remotely fair process. > 3. Appealer statement > - > Within a further 72 hours, the appealer has the opportunity to respond to > the DAM statement with their own statement. DAM should be providing the full reasoning to the person being expelled when they're expelled; if that person's going to ask for review, they already have all they need to provide their side of the story as part of the request for review, avoiding the need for this 72h period. Both the above changes would cut the appeal time down by a week, from: - expulsion happens - <30 days, review is requested - 3 days for DAM to do an update - 3 days for expelled person to provide a statement - 7 days for discussion - 3 days for vote to something more like: - expulsion happens, affected member and -private given detailed reasoning - <30 days, review is requested and statement from expelled person is provided to newmaint-ctte - 7 days for discussion - 3 days for vote This setup avoids giving the expelled developer the opportunity to pick Christmas or Easter or the start/end of the freeze or some other inconvenient time to start the process, and immediately triggering a 3 day deadline for DAM members. > 4. NM Committee review > -- > The NMC has 7 days to review the received material and discuss the matter in > private. They are expected not to solicit further input, as this is not an > inquiry but a peer review of the DAM decision. One of the things appeals courts in real life can do is send the case back to a lower court with a requirement to fix up mistakes in fact finding, which gives them an easy opportunity to avoid having to do any fact finding themselves. Since the balance of power is the other way around here; I'd expect that if the new member committee isn't just going to be a rubber stamp for DAM, then they'd need to be able to solicit further input in cases where DAM's summary of events doesn't match the expelled developer's take on what happened. (Another difference between the proposed process and court appeals is that appeals courts can provide detailed opinions as to why the original decision was wrong which helps avoid making the same mistakes in future; this process doesn't really have that feature) > 5. NM-Committee vote >
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 15276 March 1977, Karsten Merker wrote: 4. NM Committee review -- The NMC has 7 days to review the received material and discuss the matter in private. They are expected not to solicit further input, as this is not an inquiry but a peer review of the DAM decision. I'm not sure whether I understand correctly what exactly is meant by "[The members of the NMC] are expected not to solicit further input" - does that mean that the members of the NMC are not allowed to ask questions about facts outside/above those explicitly presented by DAM and those contained in the written appealer statement, i.e. the NMC members are forbidden to do any sort of research about the situation on their own? If yes, that would seem like an inappropriate limitation to me. As written, it is not an inquiry. But a check of the decision that DAMs have made. NMC should not need to dig around for long. And should not be forced by someone claiming "but if you only ask this one more, or this one, then you MAY see the light". Nah. Its both sides giving their views, and the NMC deciding on that. End. If one side can not present enough to support their case, then their case fails, it shouldn't be up to the NMC to dig out the stuff for them. Of course we can not forbid them to (say) use google or something, if they want to. But thats their own personal fun, not required of the process. 5. NM-Committee vote After 7 days discussion, or earlier if unanimously agreed by the NMC, NM-Frontdesk will ask the secretary to conduct a secret, 3-day-long vote, with the following options: 1. Uphold the decision of the DAMs 2. Overturn the decision of the DAMs Committee members otherwise involved in a case must abstain. DAM members are not allowed to partake in the vote. A simple majority decides the vote; in the event of a tie, the decision is not overturned. Abstained or absent votes are not counted. If more than half of the NMC (excluding DAM) abstain or do not vote, the decision is not overturned. [Description of how the vote can turn out bad for the person] Well. I see your point. But I do disagree with your solution: Therefore the clause "If more than half of the NMC (excluding DAM) abstain or do not vote, the decision is not overturned" would IMHO need to be removed completely from the rules. I don't think so. We don't want to end up with a system where, say, you "just" put pressure on a dozen people to abstain, then have "your friend" vote overturn, and boo, all is fine again. So while I agree there might be possible improvements in how the vote goes, I don't think just deleting that one sentence is it. But I'm not an expert in voting systems, so am happy for any input. Could go with a quorum (and then count abstains for it) and requiring a (3 quarter?) majority of voters?! Could go with something else? Somebody come up with a nice thing, please. :) -- bye, Joerg
RE: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 15276 March 1977, Thomas Lange wrote: Do you plan an official announcement of this new procedure? It will end up on d-d-a in a few days, provided someone doesn't find a big flaw in it. JFTR: Thanks Enrico for pointing me how to see the list of members that will vote. Keep in mind that this may change. Thats a point already added. -- bye, Joerg
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 15276 March 1977, Kurt Roeckx wrote: we waive the time limit defined in §1 for the cases from the last 6 months. Would it make sense to have them 1 week from publishing this instead? Thanks for that. Yeah, that offer is not valid forever, but as we normally say 30 days, lets make it 14 days here. That is, the offer is valid until 2019-01-21, that should be enough time to decide if one wants to do it or not. -- bye, Joerg signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 11:27:35PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > > we waive the time limit defined in §1 for the cases > from the last 6 months. Would it make sense to have them 1 week from publishing this instead? Kurt
RE: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
> On Tue, 08 Jan 2019 09:14:53 +0100, Joerg Jaspert > said: > On 15276 March 1977, Thomas Lange wrote: >> I think you should forward this mail to nm-commit...@nm.debian.org. > Noted, but I think it makes more sense to point them at this whenever such an > appeal starts, as the group is a dynamic one. If I send it now, there might be > a pretty different set receiving an appeal in the future, so for now, I assume > they either read it on -project or do not (yet) need to care. Do you plan an official announcement of this new procedure? IMO debian-project is not read by all (e.g. I'm not subscribed to it) and because some people missed transparency in the past it would be good to inform all. JFTR: Thanks Enrico for pointing me how to see the list of members that will vote. Keep in mind that this may change. > The list is at: https://nm.debian.org/public/managers > Look for the "Ctte" column. If you have javascript enabled, you can > click on the column title to sort/group by it. -- regards Thomas
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 2019/01/08 13:38, Enrico Zini wrote: >> If that's the case, are you talking about multiple appeals from people >> who have had their membership revoked, or is it that I interpreted it >> wrong and that anyone can appeal? > > I'm clarifying the corner case in which two people have had their > membership revoked, and are in a position to appeal in overlapping time > frames. Ah, thanks for clearing that up. > Enrico who unfortunately cannot run this kind of procedure through >valgrind --tool=helgrind I'm not familiar with valgrind, so I'll take your word for it. -Jonathan
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 01:21:20PM +0200, Jonathan Carter wrote: > If I read the original text correctly in item 1 above, it seems that > only the person who's rights got revoked can appeal? Yes, correct. > If that's the case, are you talking about multiple appeals from people > who have had their membership revoked, or is it that I interpreted it > wrong and that anyone can appeal? I'm clarifying the corner case in which two people have had their membership revoked, and are in a position to appeal in overlapping time frames. This should almost never happen, but given that we have waived the time limit for the cases in the last 6 months, we have potentially overlapping time frames now. Enrico who unfortunately cannot run this kind of procedure through valgrind --tool=helgrind -- GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On 2019/01/08 12:43, Enrico Zini wrote: >> 1. Appealing DAM decisions >> -- >> Any person who had their Debian membership suspended or revoked by DAM may >> appeal the decision. They must request the appeal within 30 days, stating >> why they disagree with the decision in a mail to DAM. DAM will notify the >> New Members Committee (NMC)[1][2] and Front Desk. > > In case two people appeal at the same time, the NMC should not have to > discuss multiple issues in parallel. > > if an appeal is requested while another appeal is already ongoing, > starting the later appeal is delayed until after the committee has > finished voting on the previous ones. If I read the original text correctly in item 1 above, it seems that only the person who's rights got revoked can appeal? If that's the case, are you talking about multiple appeals from people who have had their membership revoked, or is it that I interpreted it wrong and that anyone can appeal? -Jonathan -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian Developer - https://wiki.debian.org/highvoltage ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ https://debian.org | https://jonathancarter.org ⠈⠳⣄ Be Bold. Be brave. Debian has got your back.
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 11:27:35PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > 1. Appealing DAM decisions > -- > Any person who had their Debian membership suspended or revoked by DAM may > appeal the decision. They must request the appeal within 30 days, stating > why they disagree with the decision in a mail to DAM. DAM will notify the > New Members Committee (NMC)[1][2] and Front Desk. In case two people appeal at the same time, the NMC should not have to discuss multiple issues in parallel. if an appeal is requested while another appeal is already ongoing, starting the later appeal is delayed until after the committee has finished voting on the previous ones. Enrico -- GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions
On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 11:27:35PM +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote: > 1. Appealing DAM decisions > -- > Any person who had their Debian membership suspended or revoked by DAM may > appeal the decision. They must request the appeal within 30 days, stating > why they disagree with the decision in a mail to DAM. DAM will notify the > New Members Committee (NMC)[1][2] and Front Desk. > > The original action taken by DAMs remains in force during the appeal. To clarify following a query in private: the notification to the committee includes the rationale given by the Developer. DAM handling the various notifications is purely to reduce the admin burden on the appealer, not to keep secrets from the committee. -- Jonathan Wiltshire j...@debian.org Debian Developer http://people.debian.org/~jmw 4096R: 0xD3524C51 / 0A55 B7C5 1223 3942 86EC 74C3 5394 479D D352 4C51
