Re: Censorship in Debian

[Ben Hutchings]

On Wed, 2019-01-09 at 19:20 -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> On 1/9/19 5:39 PM, Josh Triplett wrote:
> 
> > Anthony Towns wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 10:47:05AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > > > People seem to feel they're unreasonably put-upon by having to think 
> > > > about
> > > > what they're saying *at all*, but this is absurd.  Everyone else in the
> > > > world is doing this all the time.
> > > There are times when you don't have to think about what you're saying
> > > before you say it; that situation is often called being "among friends",
> > > or "in a safe space", or "able to let your guard down".
> > If you have to have your "guard up" to avoid hurting people, you have a
> > more fundamental problem.
> > 
> > It really *isn't* that hard to just think about the effect of your words
> > on others *all the time*. As Russ said, that's a fundamental skill.
> > 
> > Debian is not a locker room.
> 
> On the other hand, when did people get so thin skinned, and offended by 
> everything?
[...]

That would be whenever people started complaining about "political
correctness" when they were criticised for what they said.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.



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Re: Censorship in Debian

[Russ Allbery]

Josh Triplett  writes:

> If you have to have your "guard up" to avoid hurting people, you have a
> more fundamental problem.

> It really *isn't* that hard to just think about the effect of your words
> on others *all the time*. As Russ said, that's a fundamental skill.

Eh... I do think that goes a little far.  It *is* a fundamental life
skill, but there are a lot of fundamental life skills that come harder for
some people than others.

For example, the absolute fastest way to make me miserable is to put me in
a situation where I need to make verbal small-talk with strangers.  In
writing, absolutely, I can do that all day.  In person, I run out of
social energy *really fast*.  I also consider this a fundamental life
skill, and I've gotten better at it, but I am in no way good at it, and am
usually still feeling awkward about mistakes I made in some conversation
five years ago.

My point in those messages was poorly expressed, particularly at first.
It's not to argue that this is *easy* for everyone, just that this is
something we do all have to do.  For some people it's harder than it is
for others, and if someone is trying and working on it and apologizing
when they don't do it well, I'll extend them the benefit of the doubt all
day long.  Where I start drawing boundaries is when that transitions into
not even making an attempt, or arguing that one should get to say whatever
pops into one's head because free speech and the responsibility for
filtering is entirely on the listener.  That just doesn't fly in any human
community I want to be part of.

In other words, intention matters a lot to me.  If someone is trying but
it doesn't come naturally, that's one thing; if someone is being
intentionally provocative and sniping at people because they think it's
enjoyable or funny (and I grew up on-line on Usenet; I've met a *lot* of
those people), well, surprise, people don't put up with that shit nearly
as long as they used to, and that's a *good* thing.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   

Re: Censorship in Debian

[Miles Fidelman]

On 1/9/19 5:39 PM, Josh Triplett wrote:


Anthony Towns wrote:

On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 10:47:05AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:

People seem to feel they're unreasonably put-upon by having to think about
what they're saying *at all*, but this is absurd.  Everyone else in the
world is doing this all the time.

There are times when you don't have to think about what you're saying
before you say it; that situation is often called being "among friends",
or "in a safe space", or "able to let your guard down".

If you have to have your "guard up" to avoid hurting people, you have a
more fundamental problem.

It really *isn't* that hard to just think about the effect of your words
on others *all the time*. As Russ said, that's a fundamental skill.

Debian is not a locker room.



On the other hand, when did people get so thin skinned, and offended by 
everything?


I came across this in a FreeBSD community discussion of similar issues: 
https://notablelife.com/our-generation-needs-to-stop-being-offended-by-everything-and-learn-how-to-take-a-joke/ 
- a good read.


One paragraph, that nails it: "The thing is, people are often offended 
by things that are so minimal compared to the actual problems in the 
world to which they turn a blind eye. You don’t tend to see many people 
being ‘offended’ by the fact that there are starving children in third 
world countries, or making rambling Facebook posts about how access to 
clean water offends their sensibilities. Yet the second a joke or an ad 
is slightly offside in their eyes, they lash out like they’ve been a 
victim of the greatest injustice known to humankind."


Miles Fidelman

p.s., Debian is a place where people get work done.  Maybe it is a 
locker room (or more locker room than ivory tower).





--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   Yogi Berra

Re: Censorship in Debian

[Josh Triplett]

Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 10:47:05AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > People seem to feel they're unreasonably put-upon by having to think about
> > what they're saying *at all*, but this is absurd.  Everyone else in the
> > world is doing this all the time.
> 
> There are times when you don't have to think about what you're saying
> before you say it; that situation is often called being "among friends",
> or "in a safe space", or "able to let your guard down".

If you have to have your "guard up" to avoid hurting people, you have a
more fundamental problem.

It really *isn't* that hard to just think about the effect of your words
on others *all the time*. As Russ said, that's a fundamental skill.

Debian is not a locker room.

Re: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[韓達耐]

Hi Ian

On Thu, 10 Jan 2019, 02:03 Ian Jackson  Very regrettably, it may become necessary to produce a fuller list of
> incidents, including responses, to justify the recent DAM decision.
>
> Please search your communications archives.  If you have had an
> adverse experience of any kind with Norbert Preining, in public or in
> private, please email me.
>
[...]

Searching for "evidence" post factum to rationalise a severe punishment, is
just appalling.

Appalling.

-- 
Danai

Re: Call for experiences

[Jonathan Wiltshire]

On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 09:40:24PM +, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Ian Jackson writes ("Call for experiences of Norbert Preining"):
> > Very regrettably, [...]
> 
> Several people whose opinions I hold in high regard have told me that
> this was a seriously bad idea.  On an official level, I received a
> complaint from listmaster.
> 
> So, I'm sorry.  I failed to anticipate how badly people would see
> this; no doubt it unhelpfully contributed to the toxic atmosphere.
> 
> So, I withdraw my previous message.  Please don't reply to it any
> further.  Thanks also to those who took the time and energy to write
> to rebuke me.

Our mails evidently crossed; thank you too for responding positively
and with good grace.

-- 
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: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Jonathan Wiltshire]

On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 05:03:14PM +, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Very regrettably, it may become necessary to produce a fuller list of
> incidents, including responses, to justify the recent DAM decision.
> 
> Please search your communications archives.  If you have had an
> adverse experience of any kind with Norbert Preining, in public or in
> private, please email me.

I'm very surprised that you would think this an appropriate thing to do and
I would prefer it if you withdraw and apologise.

Why? Because this undermines all the valuable discussion that has been had
in recent weeks about ensuring robust accountability with as much fairness
as possible to all parties. It is really no better than a €500 bounty,
after all.

You do not seem open to building an objective case if you solicit only
information about "adverse experiences".


-- 
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: Call for experiences

[Ian Jackson]

Ian Jackson writes ("Call for experiences of Norbert Preining"):
> Very regrettably, [...]

Several people whose opinions I hold in high regard have told me that
this was a seriously bad idea.  On an official level, I received a
complaint from listmaster.

So, I'm sorry.  I failed to anticipate how badly people would see
this; no doubt it unhelpfully contributed to the toxic atmosphere.

So, I withdraw my previous message.  Please don't reply to it any
further.  Thanks also to those who took the time and energy to write
to rebuke me.

Sorry,
Ian.
(*sigh*)

-- 
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

[Joerg Jaspert]

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: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Joerg Jaspert]

On 15277 March 1977, Ian Jackson wrote:

Very regrettably, it may become necessary to produce a fuller list of
incidents, including responses, to justify the recent DAM decision.
Please search your communications archives.  If you have had an
adverse experience of any kind with Norbert Preining, in public or in
private, please email me.


I don't think this should have gone to -project, especially not with a subject
like this. Not even sure about -private, honestly, but -project is bad.


While I think the possible GR is an extremely bad (and some less friendly
words) idea, and I like getting support for decisions I had been part of,
having such a with-hunt type thread is not good. No matter about who.[1]


See, we have been trying to keep it not pointing to specific persons in public
as much as possible. That someone is so blinded by "but this is the democratic
way" wrongness, does not understand what a GR really means and wants to drag
it all out in a big shit show is IMO not a reason to run in front of them
doing similar bad stuff. Even if it may end up supporting the DAM decision.
There are just things that one doesn't do to "win".


Footnotes:

[1] For one exception, I am still missing my "Serious problems with
Mr. Jaspert" thread, waiting for years now and still not got it, silly you
all.

--
bye, Joerg (no hat)

Re: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Wookey]

On 2019-01-09 17:03 +, Ian Jackson wrote:

> Please search your communications archives.  If you have had an
> adverse experience of any kind with Norbert Preining, in public or in
> private, please email me.

What about if we have only had positive experience/communications? Can
we not submit that as evidence too? Perhaps a bit one-sided otherwise?

(I have had several communications over the years - all of it has been
either simply competent and (very) thorough, or pleasant (when we wandered
off-topic)).

Wookey
-- 
Principal hats:  Linaro, Debian, Wookware, ARM
http://wookware.org/


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Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions

[Gunnar Wolf]

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.


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Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions

[Kurt Roeckx]

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

[Luke Faraone]

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: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Michael K. Edwards]

Outsider here.  Conflict around Norbert's mode of discourse and Ian's
mode of responding to it has clearly been an ongoing problem for
Debian for over five years:  https://lwn.net/Articles/575390/  What
tools for resolving this exist now that didn't exist then?  If the
answer is "nothing much", then, like, stop feeding the troll, mmmkay?

On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 9:43 AM Martin Steigerwald  wrote:
>
> Thomas Lange - 09.01.19, 18:17:
> > > This reminded me about
> > > https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/12/msg00025.html
> >
> > For easier understanding, this is the post from Daniel with subject:
> >
> > "€ 500 cash bounty for information / Debian privacy breaches"
>
> Thanks for looking it up.
>
> I do not consider either of those helpful or ethically sound.
>
> For me it has something about denouncing people aka "please tell us how
> bad this person has been".
>
> I do not agree to collect such kind of information *after* a decision
> has been made and I do not agree collecting such kind of information via
> a public call, whether it is delivered together with a cash bounty or
> not.
>
> I just maintain mainly one package for Debian, but my motivation to even
> become just a Debian maintainer, an official one with maintainer rights,
> right now is next to zero. Cause a project where people start to
> publicly call out for evidence to denounce or expel people or keep them
> expelled or do any other kind of harm to them is no project I feel
> comfortable with.
>
> I think this kind of approach seriously harms the reputation of Debian
> as a project. I am thankful that so far no news site I am ware of seems
> to have picked this up and I hope it stays that way.
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Martin
>
>

Re: Appeal procedure for DAM actions

[Pierre-Elliott Bécue]

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: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Martin Steigerwald]

Thomas Lange - 09.01.19, 18:17:
> > This reminded me about
> > https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/12/msg00025.html
> 
> For easier understanding, this is the post from Daniel with subject:
> 
> "€ 500 cash bounty for information / Debian privacy breaches"

Thanks for looking it up.

I do not consider either of those helpful or ethically sound.

For me it has something about denouncing people aka "please tell us how 
bad this person has been".

I do not agree to collect such kind of information *after* a decision 
has been made and I do not agree collecting such kind of information via 
a public call, whether it is delivered together with a cash bounty or 
not.

I just maintain mainly one package for Debian, but my motivation to even 
become just a Debian maintainer, an official one with maintainer rights, 
right now is next to zero. Cause a project where people start to 
publicly call out for evidence to denounce or expel people or keep them 
expelled or do any other kind of harm to them is no project I feel 
comfortable with.

I think this kind of approach seriously harms the reputation of Debian 
as a project. I am thankful that so far no news site I am ware of seems 
to have picked this up and I hope it stays that way.

Thanks,
-- 
Martin

Re: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Thomas Lange]

> This reminded me about
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/12/msg00025.html

For easier understanding, this is the post from Daniel with subject:

"€ 500 cash bounty for information / Debian privacy breaches"

-- 
regards Thomas

Re: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 05:03:14PM +, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Very regrettably, it may become necessary to produce a fuller list of
> incidents, including responses, to justify the recent DAM decision.
> 
Ian,

How can you consider post hoc evidence gathering and justification to be
ethical?

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez

Re: Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Andrey Rahmatullin]

On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 05:03:14PM +, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Very regrettably, it may become necessary to produce a fuller list of
> incidents, including responses, to justify the recent DAM decision.
Sorry, but such things should be collected before a decision, not after.
"Please help us justify something that can't be justified with what we
have" sounds silly, to say the least.

> Please search your communications archives.  If you have had an
> adverse experience of any kind with Norbert Preining, in public or in
> private, please email me.
This reminded me about
https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/12/msg00025.html

-- 
WBR, wRAR


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Call for experiences of Norbert Preining

[Ian Jackson]

Very regrettably, it may become necessary to produce a fuller list of
incidents, including responses, to justify the recent DAM decision.

Please search your communications archives.  If you have had an
adverse experience of any kind with Norbert Preining, in public or in
private, please email me.

Please:
 * Summarise each incident, but:
 * Then give as much additional detail as you like.
 * Give URLs where possible.
 * If there was a complaint (to Norbert or to anyone else),
   say what the reponse/result of that was.
 * Say whether I may include your name in my collation.
 * Use `Call for experiences of Norbert Preining' as your Subject
   line.

I will summarise and collate these reports.  I will *only* share this
information if there is a Debian GR which would have the effect of
reinstating Norbert.  If there is such a GR, I will share the
collation publicly.

(If the Constitution is amended to permit the GR to be held in private
within Debian, I will share it only there.)

If it becomes necessary to make the collation public I may do so via a
web page or as an email, as seems convenient to me.  In January 2021
and every three years thereafter I will review whether retention of
the provided information is still necessary, and if I consider it not
any longer to be necessary, I will delete it.

Ian.

If you have difficulty emailing me because of my spamfilter, send the
bounce to postmaster@chiark, or talk to Diziet on oftc or freenode.

-- 
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

[Kurt Roeckx]

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

[Jonathan Wiltshire]

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

[Thomas Goirand]

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

[Ian Jackson]

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

[Ulrike Uhlig]

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 to