Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Andreas Tille]

Am Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 11:06:54AM + schrieb Scott Kitterman:
> On February 23, 2022 8:50:58 AM UTC, Andreas Tille  wrote:
> >Am Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 12:06:17AM -0500 schrieb Scott Kitterman:
> >> 
> >> Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred execution. 
> >>  I 
> >> think every non-government job I've had had a discipline process that went:
> >> 
> >> 1.  Verbal warning.
> >> 2.  Written warning.
> >> 3.  You're fired.
> >
> >In my eyes this sequence is missing some
> >
> >Mediation attempt on a face-to-face medium
> >
> >which I would put between 1. and 2.
> 
> It's not a proposal.  It's a description of what I've seen in my working 
> experience.

I perfectly understood this - and I tried to express what we should
implement in Debian to (hopefully) enhance the situation.

Kind regards

 Andreas. 

-- 
http://fam-tille.de

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On February 23, 2022 8:50:58 AM UTC, Andreas Tille  wrote:
>Am Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 12:06:17AM -0500 schrieb Scott Kitterman:
>> 
>> Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred execution.  
>> I 
>> think every non-government job I've had had a discipline process that went:
>> 
>> 1.  Verbal warning.
>> 2.  Written warning.
>> 3.  You're fired.
>
>In my eyes this sequence is missing some
>
>Mediation attempt on a face-to-face medium
>
>which I would put between 1. and 2.

It's not a proposal.  It's a description of what I've seen in my working 
experience.

Scott K

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Andreas Tille]

Am Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 12:06:17AM -0500 schrieb Scott Kitterman:
> 
> Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred execution.  I 
> think every non-government job I've had had a discipline process that went:
> 
> 1.  Verbal warning.
> 2.  Written warning.
> 3.  You're fired.

In my eyes this sequence is missing some

Mediation attempt on a face-to-face medium

which I would put between 1. and 2.

Kind regards

 Andreas.

-- 
http://fam-tille.de

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[tomas]

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 11:59:21PM +0100, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote:

[...]

> And, as I already told too in other mail threads that you are quite
> efficient at interpreting what people wrote to you the worst possible
> way [...]

> Whether it's intentional or not, I'm still wondering, although the
> regular repetition of this pattern tends to make things become clearer.

As a total bystander, I'd humbly suggest that we all strongly assume
it's not intentional. This is IMO the best strategy to de-escalate things

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Pierre-Elliott Bécue]

Felix Lechner  wrote on 21/02/2022 at 19:10:08+0100:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 10:06 AM Russ Allbery  wrote:
>>
>> Right now, you are doing exactly what Enrico described: creating
>> conflict where there was none.
>
> I think you are blowing it out of proportion. There is no conflict but
> a diversity of opinion.

Actually, you did blow it out of proportion by rephrasing what Russ said
initially and pretending he was telling that you were "very harmful to
the project […]". And from this blow out, two subthreads emerged.

And, as I already told too in other mail threads that you are quite
efficient at interpreting what people wrote to you the worst possible
way (sometimes with this kind of rephrasing), I can't say that I'm
surprised by this.

Whether it's intentional or not, I'm still wondering, although the
regular repetition of this pattern tends to make things become clearer.

Whether you intend or not to use all your education and abilities to try
breaking that pattern, it's of course your call.

Regards,

-- 
PEB


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Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, February 21, 2022 4:09:37 PM EST Sam Hartman wrote:
> > "Scott" == Scott Kitterman  writes:
> Scott> OTOH, I think a DAM warning for a single instance of someone
> Scott> losing their temper and calling someone an unfortunate name
> Scott> is like ringing a doorbell with a sledge hammer.
> 
> I strongly agree.  And I understand why it is that you (quite reasonably
> given the information made available to project members) believe that
> has happened.
> 
> As a project,a let's agree we're not going to do that, and let's figure
> out how to build sufficient trust that we can believe in that agreement.

Absent a GR, it's not up to the project.  It's up to DAM.

I don't know how anyone other than DAM can address the question.  If what's 
actually happening is different than what is told to the project members, 
that's not something I have any power to fix.

Scott K

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Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Sam Hartman]

> "Scott" == Scott Kitterman  writes:

Scott> OTOH, I think a DAM warning for a single instance of someone
Scott> losing their temper and calling someone an unfortunate name
Scott> is like ringing a doorbell with a sledge hammer.

I strongly agree.  And I understand why it is that you (quite reasonably
given the information made available to project members) believe that
has happened.

As a project,a let's agree we're not going to do that, and let's figure
out how to build sufficient trust that we can believe in that agreement.

--Sam

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Eldon Koyle]

On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:03 PM Scott Kitterman  wrote:
>
> On Sunday, February 20, 2022 5:24:47 PM EST Sam Hartman wrote:
> > > "Felix" == Felix Lechner  writes:
> > In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer have any affiliation
> > with DAM.
> >
> > Felix> With regard to disciplinary proceedings, however, Debian has
> > Felix> a long way to go in implementing basic precepts of
> > Felix> justice. For example, it would be good to hold hearings in
> > Felix> which the accused can make a statement before any action is
> > Felix> taken.
> >
> > I think phrasing this in terms of justice and rights for keeping
> >  governments  accountable  is likely to get a knee-jerk reaction from a
> >  number of people who do not want to think of things that.
> > It's fairly clear to a number of us that maintaining standards of a
> > private community is a very different problem than maintaining justice
> > for people who have the power to deny life and liberty.
> >
> > I do think there are standards of fairness and desirable conduct in
> > managing a community, but I don't think going back to the Magna Carta or
> > other documents of human rights is very productive in moving the
> > discussion forward.
> >
> > However, I do find there are areas where I agree with you.
> > I'm going to focus on DAM in this message rather than listmaster or the
> > community team.
> > I think the calculus for each group works out differently.
> > As an example, because the community team cannot (for the most part)
> > take formal action, I think it is desirable to avoid too much process
> > for them.
> >

>
> While it is true that Debian is not a government and has no power to deprive
> someone of life or liberty, it's also not just a social club from which
> expulsion has no real consequences.  For some people, their professional work
> is connected to Debian and being expelled from Debian effectively causes them
> to have to get a new job.  Many Debian Developers have a lot of personal
> identity wrapped up in Debian (myself included).  Being expelled from Debian
> would also be an emotional blow.
>


I believe that the Debian community values fairness.  I also believe that
the community encourages idealism -- it was founded around free-software
ideals, after all.  I think this contributes to some of the arguments we
see: people here want the perfect solution.

I think one of the things we are arguing about here is fairness.  Humans
believe they are acting fairly most of the time; however, there is plenty of
historical and current evidence to the contrary.  I think this is the reason
for pointing to justice system procesess: It is the area where there has
been the most effort expended toward making the process fair (and it's still
far from perfect).  I submit that it is impossible for people to be
perfectly fair, and any process with serious implications should formally
recognize that.

I found a draft from 2019 that I never sent to this list that mostly boils
down to this: it is really easy to misunderstand someone and make a bad
judgement; especially with all of the cultural differences in our community.
As a hopefully innocuous example: there are cultures where commenting on
someone's weight is considered extremely rude and mean, while in other
cultures it is considered a fact and normal to talk about or even call a
person fat.  Would calling someone a fatzo immediately warrant a formal
warning?

I am not on -private, so I'm not entirely sure on the details of what we are
arguing about.  The same thing happened with Daniel Pocock -- I never really
understood exactly what happened to cause him to feel the way he did, just
vague insinuations of misconduct from leadership.  I feel like before
whatever wrong he perceived, he was a relatively normal DD (at least in
public), but I agree that his behavior was completely unacceptable.  I can
say from the interactions on the list that he did not feel heard, which seems
all too common.

I also would like to point out that the project has some non-obvious forces
that could be contributing to the list culture.  Having every interaction
with Debian lists permanently committed to the public record is extremely
intimidating, which may be a source of selection bias for new members (and
also a major hurdle to participation, beyond the strong personalities who
frequent these lists).  I think it also encourages posts only from people
who feel _very_ strongly about what they are posting about, which isn't the
most conducive to constructive discussion.

-- 
Eldon Koyle

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Marc Haber]

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 01:08:42PM -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> OTOH, I think a DAM warning for a single instance of someone losing their 
> temper and calling someone an unfortunate name is like ringing a doorbell 
> with 
> a sledge hammer.  If that's now the standard for threatening removal, I think 
> it's FAR to low.  This worries me more than it being too hard to make 
> decisions.

THIS. I fully agree with.

Greetings
Marc

-- 
-
Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany|  lose things."Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, February 21, 2022 1:05:04 PM EST Russ Allbery wrote:
> Felix Lechner  writes:
> > On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 9:38 AM Enrico Zini  wrote:
> >> Then you need to start taking responsibility for creating conflict when
> >> there was none, which is sadly something I see as a recurring pattern
> >> in the way you participate in Debian interactions.
> >> 
> >> Is this something you'd acknowledge and would be willing to work on?
> > 
> > This, too, is a projection.
> > 
> > I did not address Steve. He wrote to me.
> 
> I don't think that's what Enrico is talking about.  I think he's talking
> about the way that you attacked me in response to a message in which I was
> expressing support and sympathy for your position, based on a
> misunderstanding of my message and what looked to me like an assumption of
> bad faith.  This is also not the first time that you've done this to both
> me and others, you have never apologized, and you seem to be intent on
> continuing to do that with me and others at random intervals instead of
> extending a presumption of good faith and trying to find a non-hostile
> reading of other people's words.
> 
> My phrasing doubtless could have been better or clearer.  It always can
> be.  But you can ask questions rather than making assumptions!
> 
> When you do this and then, a few messages later, talk about how you think
> Debian should have a warm and inclusive culture of compromise, it's quite
> frustrating and confusing.  If your goal is to create a warm and inclusive
> culture, please start by not assuming other people are trying to attack
> you.  Right now, you are doing exactly what Enrico described: creating
> conflict where there was none.

Persons in authority demanding public self-shaming and self-criticism isn't 
precisely deescalatory.

I don't think asking someone who's been traumatized by something to act is if 
they were someone who had never experienced the trauma is fair.

If your goal is to run him out of the project, then you all should continue.  
If not, I'd suggest drop it because I don't think anyone is in a particularly 
constructive frame of mind on this point.

Scott K

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Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Felix Lechner  writes:

> Your statement is the opposite of what I felt. In fact, I asked for the
> circumstances to be published on debian-private. It was calming to me,
> so your interpretation is not correct.

Thank you for the correction!  I'm sorry for having misunderstood you.
You'd made other statements about how you received that warning that I
have apparently misinterpreted.

> Finally to my original point, I believe that your conclusions contradict
> mine so frequently because you overlaid your opinion onto mine, i.e
> projected your perception onto mine.

It's certainly possible.  I find it very difficult to understand where
you're coming from, and the only way I have of understanding other people
is through empathy, so I do continue to try to map your reactions to a
model that I can understand in order to try to understand your point.

Regardless, my intent in this conversation is not to talk about your
warning specifically.  That was something you brought up in this
discussion, and I don't feel like this is the place to talk about it nor
is it something I want to dig into.  I'm trying to make a general point
about the impact of the current process, which I think still applies even
if it wasn't relevant in your specific case.

It sounds like you may disagree with my opinion about the process.  Great!
That's part of the discussion.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Felix Lechner]

Hi,

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 10:06 AM Russ Allbery  wrote:
>
> Right now, you are doing exactly what Enrico described: creating
> conflict where there was none.

I think you are blowing it out of proportion. There is no conflict but
a diversity of opinion.

Kind regards
Felix Lechner

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, February 21, 2022 12:33:55 PM EST Russ Allbery wrote:
> Scott Kitterman  writes:
> > The reason it feels like a threat of expulsion is precisely because it
> > is a threat of expulsion.  The minimal possible solution to people
> > feeling threatened would be to not threaten them.  That may not be
> > enough, but that would be a first step.  Focusing on the feeling shifts
> > the blame and buries the lede.
> 
> It's a balance, because if people would always course-correct without
> being told they have to with someone with perceived authority, we would
> not be having this discussion because it wouldn't be necessary.
> 
> I get the impression you think I'm hair-splitting, any communication from
> DAM is inherently a threat, and we should just accept that.  I think it's
> true that any formal communication from someone who can kick people out of
> the project has some level of implied consequences, but I don't think it's
> true that we can't fine-tune the implication.  I think it matters a lot
> whether it's public or private, for example, and whether we explicitly
> raise expulsion or not.
> 
> That said, it is entirely possible that I am being far too optimistic
> about the number of people who are willing to ignore peer feedback but are
> willing to substantially change their behavior when they get DAM feedback.
> Maybe the people who are unwilling to accept feedback unless it comes from
> someone in perceived authority are already too harmful to the project to
> try to spend more time and energy on, and a direct warning of expulsion
> *is* the right way to go about it.  I hope that isn't the case, but I
> admit that it's very worrisome when people won't hear peer feedback and I
> admit I personally don't want to spend a lot of time working with
> aggressively confrontational and draining people in the hope that they'll
> change.
> 
> Regardless, though, I really do not like that we've backed ourselves into
> a corner that involves public shaming (even if it's not intended to be
> that) as part of the process.

I agree with the last point and I think your concerns are fair.

OTOH, I think a DAM warning for a single instance of someone losing their 
temper and calling someone an unfortunate name is like ringing a doorbell with 
a sledge hammer.  If that's now the standard for threatening removal, I think 
it's FAR to low.  This worries me more than it being too hard to make 
decisions.

Scott K


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Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Felix Lechner  writes:
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 9:38 AM Enrico Zini  wrote:

>> Then you need to start taking responsibility for creating conflict when
>> there was none, which is sadly something I see as a recurring pattern
>> in the way you participate in Debian interactions.

>> Is this something you'd acknowledge and would be willing to work on?

> This, too, is a projection.

> I did not address Steve. He wrote to me.

I don't think that's what Enrico is talking about.  I think he's talking
about the way that you attacked me in response to a message in which I was
expressing support and sympathy for your position, based on a
misunderstanding of my message and what looked to me like an assumption of
bad faith.  This is also not the first time that you've done this to both
me and others, you have never apologized, and you seem to be intent on
continuing to do that with me and others at random intervals instead of
extending a presumption of good faith and trying to find a non-hostile
reading of other people's words.

My phrasing doubtless could have been better or clearer.  It always can
be.  But you can ask questions rather than making assumptions!

When you do this and then, a few messages later, talk about how you think
Debian should have a warm and inclusive culture of compromise, it's quite
frustrating and confusing.  If your goal is to create a warm and inclusive
culture, please start by not assuming other people are trying to attack
you.  Right now, you are doing exactly what Enrico described: creating
conflict where there was none.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Felix Lechner]

Hi,

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 9:06 AM Russ Allbery  wrote:
>
> That is precisely the opposite of what I meant.

Thank you for clarifying.

> What I'm trying to express is that the warning *entirely reasonably* made
> you feel shamed and attacked for a number of reasons, including the fact
> that it was public, and that making you feel that way was unnecessary and
> probably counterproductive.

Your statement is the opposite of what I felt. In fact, I asked for
the circumstances to be published on debian-private. It was calming to
me, so your interpretation is not correct.

Among the two hundred or so messages about my warning, there were at
least some people in the crowd who expressed empathy. By contrast, DAM
expressed no sympathy whatsoever.

The ensuing discussion on debian-private helped me to understand that
I had indeed tripped on a sensitive subject. I was especially
comforted by the first reaction to the announcement, which included a
reference to a TV series. To this day, I would personally not fault
anyone for calling someone a "freak" but I recognize that our
community's standards are different. I abide by them.

The discussion was anything but counterproductive. It exposed that
other people doing very similar things got off without a DAM warning.
No one ever explained that to me.

Most significantly, the discussion established that justice is a
social good and not the domain of a select few who act as they see
fit. Personally, I believe all disciplinary measures should be public.
Only then can the group truly reach a consensus as to which behavior
warrants punishment, and which does not.

> Exactly.  This is why I do not like the way that we are currently doing
> warnings.  The first step by a team that is serious enough to not be
> ignored already feels like a threat of expulsion.  I think we're starting
> with too large of a hammer because we don't have the right tools to try to
> course-correct earlier in a way that doesn't make people feel publicly
> attacked.

Just so you know, I felt publicly attacked by Enrico's message just
now. Please note that he presumably had a hand in issuing my warning.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that he might be bothered by an
examination of the same.

> and the announcement of the warning to the project (an entirely
> well-intentioned process that grew out of trying to solve a different
> problem) makes people quite reasonably feel like they're being publicly
> shamed.

Again, as I explained above, this is the exact opposite of how I felt.
A public examination of DAM's actions is the only way to ensure their
proportionality.

Finally to my original point, I believe that your conclusions
contradict mine so frequently because you overlaid your opinion onto
mine, i.e projected your perception onto mine.

Kind regards
Felix Lechner

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Marc Haber  writes:

> But please don't forget that a person vanishing from a heated discussion
> just in a whim creates the feeling of victory in the orht discussion
> parties.

> And I KNOW what I would do as participant of a heated discussion after
> receiving a DAM warning.

I think the way you've framed this captures a lot of what we're struggling
with right now.  Why is victory a desired outcome in discussions?  Why is
victory something we're trying to prevent other people from feeling?  (And
this is not just you, to be clear; I completely recognize the feeling that
you're describing.)  How have we managed to make vanishing from a heated
discussion a bad thing?  Shouldn't it be good to back away from something
that's too heated and let it calm down?

Part of the problem you're getting at, I think, is that we feel like we've
lost the capacity for constructive discussion in some areas, and the
options are either to win a heated discussion or to vanish.  This is a
very bad place to be.  That's a sign of an unhealthy community and an
unhealthy project, and Debian is not going to survive if that's where we
stay.

My goal is to have non-heated discussions and a clear decision-making
process.  If *everyone* stepped away from heated discussions, the heated
discussions would end, and that would be great.  What I think you're
identifying is the worry that one side is going to "win" by default, and
to me the answer to that is to end the heated discussion, but not the
*discussion*.  To ensure there is some explicit decision point that you
will not miss by leaving the uncomfortable and draining discussion that
has gotten too heated.

There are some decisions (although I hope not very many!) where we have a
fundamental disagreement over the path forward and still have to decide,
and some group is going to feel like the project is going in the wrong
direction.  We should try to minimize those, but they exist.  But that
still doesn't mean we need to have a heated discussion.  We can identify
the core points of disagreement, try to narrow them down as much as
possible, and resort to a vote.  That's why I care so much about GR
process; it gives us a way to make a decision that doesn't involve one
group of people yelling down another group of people until they achieve
some sort of victory.  I think those victories are pyrrhic.

Sometimes I'm going to be in the minority in the project on something that
matters to me and I'll have to decide whether to live with that or whether
that means Debian is no longer aligned with my goals.  That's hard to deal
with, but at least if it comes in the form of a clear vote, I'll have
concrete facts to work with.  It can't come in the form of people willing
mailing list arguments by attrition, since then I'll never be convinced
that I really was in the minority as opposed to just being unwilling to
shout loud enough.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Enrico Zini]

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 08:51:51AM -0800, Felix Lechner wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 8:29 AM Steve McIntyre  wrote:
> >
> > This is getting worrying. Russ expressed sympathy about the bad
> > effects that warnings could have on people, and you've somehow
> > misinterpreted that as a direct attack on you.
> 
> Thank you, but despite your condescending tone I retain the right to
> interpret who expresses sympathy for me, and who does not.

Then you need to start taking responsibility for creating conflict when
there was none, which is sadly something I see as a recurring pattern in
the way you participate in Debian interactions.

Is this something you'd acknowledge and would be willing to work on?


Enrico

-- 
GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini 


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Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Felix Lechner]

Hi,

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 9:38 AM Enrico Zini  wrote:
>
> Then you need to start taking responsibility for creating conflict when
> there was none, which is sadly something I see as a recurring pattern in
> the way you participate in Debian interactions.
>
> Is this something you'd acknowledge and would be willing to work on?

This, too, is a projection.

I did not address Steve. He wrote to me.

Kind regards
Felix Lechner

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Scott Kitterman  writes:

> The reason it feels like a threat of expulsion is precisely because it
> is a threat of expulsion.  The minimal possible solution to people
> feeling threatened would be to not threaten them.  That may not be
> enough, but that would be a first step.  Focusing on the feeling shifts
> the blame and buries the lede.

It's a balance, because if people would always course-correct without
being told they have to with someone with perceived authority, we would
not be having this discussion because it wouldn't be necessary.

I get the impression you think I'm hair-splitting, any communication from
DAM is inherently a threat, and we should just accept that.  I think it's
true that any formal communication from someone who can kick people out of
the project has some level of implied consequences, but I don't think it's
true that we can't fine-tune the implication.  I think it matters a lot
whether it's public or private, for example, and whether we explicitly
raise expulsion or not.

That said, it is entirely possible that I am being far too optimistic
about the number of people who are willing to ignore peer feedback but are
willing to substantially change their behavior when they get DAM feedback.
Maybe the people who are unwilling to accept feedback unless it comes from
someone in perceived authority are already too harmful to the project to
try to spend more time and energy on, and a direct warning of expulsion
*is* the right way to go about it.  I hope that isn't the case, but I
admit that it's very worrisome when people won't hear peer feedback and I
admit I personally don't want to spend a lot of time working with
aggressively confrontational and draining people in the hope that they'll
change.

Regardless, though, I really do not like that we've backed ourselves into
a corner that involves public shaming (even if it's not intended to be
that) as part of the process.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On February 21, 2022 5:02:37 PM UTC, Russ Allbery  wrote:
>Felix Lechner  writes:
>> On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:43 PM Russ Allbery  wrote:
>
>>> Or, let me put this another way: one of the fears that I've seen
>>> expressed around warnings is that it's a permanent record sort of
>>> thing, or it starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a
>>> presumption of future bad behavior.  [...] This bothers me a lot.  I
>>> think this perception is very harmful to the project because it creates
>>> excessive shame and anger and fear, which can be quite
>>> counterproductive in attempting to just get someone to shift their
>>> behavior.
>
>> Okay, so now you are saying I am being "very harmful to the project
>> because [my perception] creates excessive shame and anger and fear"?
>
>That is precisely the opposite of what I meant.
>
>What I'm trying to express is that the warning *entirely reasonably* made
>you feel shamed and attacked for a number of reasons, including the fact
>that it was public, and that making you feel that way was unnecessary and
>probably counterproductive.  In other words, I think your reactions were
>understandable and are evidence that the warning system is not working the
>way that I think that it should because it doesn't provide enough
>psychological space for people to understand it as I think it should be
>intended.
>
>And to be clear I think this is a problem with the tools that we have
>available and the process we're currently using, not with how people are
>trying to use the imperfect tools that we have.
>
>> Your statement is plainly contradicted by the DAM warning I received.
>> It included this line:
>
>> If you continue resorting to personal insults when you interact with
>> other people, the DAMs will have no choice but to review your
>> membership in the project.
>
>> Upon receipt, it was reasonable for me to express, in your words, my
>> "fears [...] around warnings [...] that it's a permanent record sort
>> of thing, or it starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a
>> presumption of future bad behavior."
>
>Exactly.  This is why I do not like the way that we are currently doing
>warnings.  The first step by a team that is serious enough to not be
>ignored already feels like a threat of expulsion.  I think we're starting
>with too large of a hammer because we don't have the right tools to try to
>course-correct earlier in a way that doesn't make people feel publicly
>attacked, and the announcement of the warning to the project (an entirely
>well-intentioned process that grew out of trying to solve a different
>problem) makes people quite reasonably feel like they're being publicly
>shamed.

The reason it feels like a threat of expulsion is precisely because it is a 
threat of expulsion.  The minimal possible solution to people feeling 
threatened would be to not threaten them.  That may not be enough, but that 
would be a first step.  Focusing on the feeling shifts the blame and buries the 
lede.

Scott K

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Felix Lechner  writes:
> On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:43 PM Russ Allbery  wrote:

>> Or, let me put this another way: one of the fears that I've seen
>> expressed around warnings is that it's a permanent record sort of
>> thing, or it starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a
>> presumption of future bad behavior.  [...] This bothers me a lot.  I
>> think this perception is very harmful to the project because it creates
>> excessive shame and anger and fear, which can be quite
>> counterproductive in attempting to just get someone to shift their
>> behavior.

> Okay, so now you are saying I am being "very harmful to the project
> because [my perception] creates excessive shame and anger and fear"?

That is precisely the opposite of what I meant.

What I'm trying to express is that the warning *entirely reasonably* made
you feel shamed and attacked for a number of reasons, including the fact
that it was public, and that making you feel that way was unnecessary and
probably counterproductive.  In other words, I think your reactions were
understandable and are evidence that the warning system is not working the
way that I think that it should because it doesn't provide enough
psychological space for people to understand it as I think it should be
intended.

And to be clear I think this is a problem with the tools that we have
available and the process we're currently using, not with how people are
trying to use the imperfect tools that we have.

> Your statement is plainly contradicted by the DAM warning I received.
> It included this line:

> If you continue resorting to personal insults when you interact with
> other people, the DAMs will have no choice but to review your
> membership in the project.

> Upon receipt, it was reasonable for me to express, in your words, my
> "fears [...] around warnings [...] that it's a permanent record sort
> of thing, or it starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a
> presumption of future bad behavior."

Exactly.  This is why I do not like the way that we are currently doing
warnings.  The first step by a team that is serious enough to not be
ignored already feels like a threat of expulsion.  I think we're starting
with too large of a hammer because we don't have the right tools to try to
course-correct earlier in a way that doesn't make people feel publicly
attacked, and the announcement of the warning to the project (an entirely
well-intentioned process that grew out of trying to solve a different
problem) makes people quite reasonably feel like they're being publicly
shamed.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Felix Lechner]

Hi,

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 8:29 AM Steve McIntyre  wrote:
>
> This is getting worrying. Russ expressed sympathy about the bad
> effects that warnings could have on people, and you've somehow
> misinterpreted that as a direct attack on you.

Thank you, but despite your condescending tone I retain the right to
interpret who expresses sympathy for me, and who does not.

In this discussion, Russ sought to minimize the effect of warnings.
That denied the effect it had on me. It was the opposite of
empathy—and by extension sympathy.

> Either you're playing this up willfully, or you have a genuine problem
> understanding that *not* all such discussions are attacks targeting
> you. Right now I can't tell which is more likely.

I do not appreciate your style here, either. In fact, I find you
excessively personal and intimidating. Please note that you have
occupied many roles in Debian, and continue to occupy a role [1] that
gives you disciplinary power over me.

> Please *stop* and think about what you're saying and doing here.

Thank you, but despite your insinuations of my incompetence, I am
qualified to express a mature and educated perspective.

I am 49-year old married man with a family. In school, had seven years
of Latin, two years of Ancient Greek, won a scholarship from the
German President Richard von Weizsäcker and graduated from Harvard
University. In addition to my business endeavors, I serve in my ninth
year in public service (as a library commissioner). I have lived in
five countries, including China and two years in what might be your
native Britain. Please afford me the same capacity that you grant to
yourself. Thanks!

Kind regards,
Felix Lechner

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Community

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Steve McIntyre]

Felix...

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 07:25:46AM -0800, Felix Lechner wrote:
>On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:43 PM Russ Allbery  wrote:
>>
>> Or, let me put this another way: one of the fears that I've seen expressed
>> around warnings is that it's a permanent record sort of thing, or it
>> starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a presumption of future bad
>> behavior.  [...] This bothers me a lot.  I think
>> this perception is very harmful to the project because it creates
>> excessive shame and anger and fear, which can be quite counterproductive
>> in attempting to just get someone to shift their behavior.
>
>Okay, so now you are saying I am being "very harmful to the project
>because [my perception] creates excessive shame and anger and fear"?

This is getting worrying. Russ expressed sympathy about the bad
effects that warnings could have on people, and you've somehow
misinterpreted that as a direct attack on you.

Either you're playing this up willfully, or you have a genuine problem
understanding that *not* all such discussions are attacks targeting
you. Right now I can't tell which is more likely.

Please *stop* and think about what you're saying and doing here.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com
The two hard things in computing:
 * naming things
 * cache invalidation
 * off-by-one errors  -- Stig Sandbeck Mathisen

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Jonathan Carter]

On 2022/02/21 16:40, Scott Kitterman wrote:

On February 21, 2022 12:56:43 PM UTC, Jonathan Carter  wrote:

On 2022/02/21 14:40, Scott Kitterman wrote:

I didn't intend to communicate that it was a final step.  I think we agree.  A 
DAM warning, as you said, indicates someone is on a path to suspension or 
expulsion.  I don't have a problem with this.  What bothers me is trying to 
pretend it's something less that's not a big deal.

By that logic becoming a DD is a potential step in getting suspended or
expelled. It's not the warning that gets people kicked out, it's the
continued poor behaviour. If a person takes their DAM warning (and
likely at that point requests from other DDs) seriously, then it doesn't
have to become a big deal.

No.

It sounds to me like you are claiming that there's no change in the threshold 
for being removed due to the previous warning(s) and that's just not true.


Not at all, but it's different than the disciplinary process that you 
have listed out in your previous mail. In the disciplinary process that 
you listed, one type of warning explicitly escalated to the next one 
which eventually leads to you getting fired. In Debian, we don't have 
such a process laid out. Currently, it might be that one person gets 3 
different warnings for different problems that they resolved and then 
it's never an issue again, and in another case, if someone really 
crosses a bad line, they could be kicked out without a warning all together.


Now, that of course doesn't mean that a DAM warning isn't without 
weight, but it counts a lot less on their CV than their actions that 
would have lead up to it.


-Jonathan

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Felix Lechner]

Hi,

On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:43 PM Russ Allbery  wrote:
>
> Or, let me put this another way: one of the fears that I've seen expressed
> around warnings is that it's a permanent record sort of thing, or it
> starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a presumption of future bad
> behavior.  [...] This bothers me a lot.  I think
> this perception is very harmful to the project because it creates
> excessive shame and anger and fear, which can be quite counterproductive
> in attempting to just get someone to shift their behavior.

Okay, so now you are saying I am being "very harmful to the project
because [my perception] creates excessive shame and anger and fear"?

I think your statement reads like an example of psychological
projection. [1][2] It is a common defense mechanism among people. It
is even in the Talmud. Because it is so widespread in Debian, I tried
to warn about it elsewhere. [3] People in the project also complain
about the hypocrisy from time to time (in general, not yours).

Your statement is plainly contradicted by the DAM warning I received.
It included this line:

If you continue resorting to personal insults when you interact with other
people, the DAMs will have no choice but to review your membership in the
project.

Upon receipt, it was reasonable for me to express, in your words, my
"fears [...] around warnings [...] that it's a permanent record sort
of thing, or it starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a
presumption of future bad behavior."

Moreover, if anyone was confronted with "excessive shame and anger and
fear" it was not you or anyone else, but I. (This is the projection
part.) There was a long thread of mob justice—the longest on record,
some wrote—on debian-private that had me not sleeping for three or
four days.

I'll add that the DAM warning arrived on the day before Yom Kippur.
[4] The next day was filled with intense self-criticism [5] so the
warning with the threat of expulsion fit right in.

Kind regards,
Felix Lechner

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/projection
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
[3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2022/02/msg00039.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur
[5] https://www.aish.com/h/hh/yom-kippur/guide/Exploring_the_Al-Chet_Prayer.html

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On February 21, 2022 12:56:43 PM UTC, Jonathan Carter  wrote:
>On 2022/02/21 14:40, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>> I didn't intend to communicate that it was a final step.  I think we agree.  
>> A DAM warning, as you said, indicates someone is on a path to suspension or 
>> expulsion.  I don't have a problem with this.  What bothers me is trying to 
>> pretend it's something less that's not a big deal.
>
>By that logic becoming a DD is a potential step in getting suspended or 
>expelled. It's not the warning that gets people kicked out, it's the 
>continued poor behaviour. If a person takes their DAM warning (and 
>likely at that point requests from other DDs) seriously, then it doesn't 
>have to become a big deal.

No.

It sounds to me like you are claiming that there's no change in the threshold 
for being removed due to the previous warning(s) and that's just not true.

Scott K

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Jonathan Carter]

On 2022/02/21 14:40, Scott Kitterman wrote:

I didn't intend to communicate that it was a final step.  I think we agree.  A 
DAM warning, as you said, indicates someone is on a path to suspension or 
expulsion.  I don't have a problem with this.  What bothers me is trying to 
pretend it's something less that's not a big deal.


By that logic becoming a DD is a potential step in getting suspended or 
expelled. It's not the warning that gets people kicked out, it's the 
continued poor behaviour. If a person takes their DAM warning (and 
likely at that point requests from other DDs) seriously, then it doesn't 
have to become a big deal.


-Jonathan

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On February 21, 2022 11:33:07 AM UTC, Jonathan Carter  wrote:
>On 2022/02/21 07:06, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>> Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred execution.
>
>I don't believe that's quite accurate, a DAM warning isn't necessarily 
>meant as a final warning, it's a larger prod for an individual to course 
>correct their behaviour.
>
>If an individual chooses to continue being disrespectful to other people 
>after general requests and then also from one or more formal warnings 
>from DAM, then I have little sympathy for them if they are kicked out of 
>the project after they continue with abusive behaviour.
...

I didn't intend to communicate that it was a final step.  I think we agree.  A 
DAM warning, as you said, indicates someone is on a path to suspension or 
expulsion.  I don't have a problem with this.  What bothers me is trying to 
pretend it's something less that's not a big deal.

Scott K

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Jonathan Carter]

On 2022/02/21 07:06, Scott Kitterman wrote:

Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred execution.


I don't believe that's quite accurate, a DAM warning isn't necessarily 
meant as a final warning, it's a larger prod for an individual to course 
correct their behaviour.


If an individual chooses to continue being disrespectful to other people 
after general requests and then also from one or more formal warnings 
from DAM, then I have little sympathy for them if they are kicked out of 
the project after they continue with abusive behaviour.


The technical issues we take on in Debian is already challenging enough 
that the last thing we need to do is to enable abusive people to stick 
around and hijack our causes and continue to distract from the actual 
issues we collectively care about.


That doesn't mean that there isn't problems to fix, some people have 
expressed concern that concentration of power with DAM is too much, DAM 
themselves have expressed that they have too much responsibility and 
don't want it, and want to focus on account management itself rather 
than having to be responsible for community management in addition to that.


So we do need to discuss and figure out what our ideal community 
processes should look like and who should be responsible for things like 
warnings. Should it be from the community team? A newly formed team? I'm 
against it being a DPL responsibility and it should really be delegated 
to a team instead of just resting on one person.


I 
think every non-government job I've had had a discipline process that went:


1.  Verbal warning.
2.  Written warning.
3.  You're fired.


Perhaps that could be used as a starting point. A process needs to be 
fair, but it also needs to be efficient, and the action taken should be 
in line with the offense. If someone, for example, starts issuing death 
threats and starts physically hurting people, we would need to have a 
process available to take quick action.


Also, I do think that people can improve, and I like to think that I've 
improved in many ways even just as a human being since becoming involved 
with free software 20 years ago. I hope that our processes will also 
take that into account and have some leeway for people to grow and 
improve over time, but there is a hard line that gets crossed when 
transgressions get in the way of people doing their work and they feel 
unsafe participating in the community, and when that happens, swift 
action will continue to remain necessary.


-Jonathan

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Marc Haber]

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 09:18:15AM +0100, Pierre-Elliott Bécue wrote:
> Russ Allbery  wrote on 21/02/2022 at 07:30:48+0100:
> > BTW, also on that front, I think that announcing DAM warnings to the
> > project is a serious mistake.  I understand the thought process that went
> > into that decision, but I really don't agree with it.  The effect is to
> > make someone feel attacked and shamed publicly, which directly interferes
> > with the goal of a warning.  It's also one of the major factors in making
> > people feel like warnings are some sort of permanent black mark against
> > them, which I strongly do not want to be the case.
> 
> I agree. Warnings should be private at first. Some cases could be made
> public if the problem was big enough to be mentioned, but generally I'd
> expect as a random member to not be informed of a warning.

But please don't forget that a person vanishing from a heated discussion
just in a whim creates the feeling of victory in the orht discussion
parties.

And I KNOW what I would do as participant of a heated discussion after
receiving a DAM warning.

Greetings
Marc

-- 
-
Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Leimen, Germany|  lose things."Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 6224 1600421

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Gerardo Ballabio]

Sam Hartman wrote:
> I think phrasing this in terms of justice and rights for keeping
 governments  accountable  is likely to get a knee-jerk reaction from a
 number of people who do not want to think of things that.
> It's fairly clear to a number of us that maintaining standards of a
private community is a very different problem than maintaining justice
for people who have the power to deny life and liberty.

I believe that this is a key point to this discussion. We need to
ponder carefully on which point of the scale Debian should place
itself.

On one hand, Debian isn't a government and shouldn't be subject to the
same standards of accountability and due process as someone who has
the power to deny life and liberty.
On the other hand, Debian isn't either a private house where the owner
has the right to decide who gets in and who doesn't without
explanations or with "I just don't like you" as an acceptable
explanation.

Debian is a community that strives to be open, fair and inclusive.
That means that we have made a commitment to welcome everybody and not
exclude anyone without good reasons. That means that the "we're a
private group so we choose whom we want in" argument simply does not
belong here.

So, while I'd agree that talking about the Magna Charta is probably
out of place here, I definitely believe that members of the Debian
community are entitled to a fair hearing before being subject to any
punitive actions. How that hearing should be conducted, how formal it
should be, etc., may be worked out in different ways.

Gerardo

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Gerardo Ballabio]

Russ Allbery wrote:
> We need a careful and slow process for kicking someone out of the project
because that's a big deal.  Having a careful and slow process for issuing
a warning is faintly absurd,

I see your point and to some extent I agree -- but if repeated
warnings then become grounds for being kicked out, that would
effectively sidestep the careful and slow process.

Gerardo

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Pierre-Elliott Bécue]

Russ Allbery  wrote on 21/02/2022 at 07:30:48+0100:
> BTW, also on that front, I think that announcing DAM warnings to the
> project is a serious mistake.  I understand the thought process that went
> into that decision, but I really don't agree with it.  The effect is to
> make someone feel attacked and shamed publicly, which directly interferes
> with the goal of a warning.  It's also one of the major factors in making
> people feel like warnings are some sort of permanent black mark against
> them, which I strongly do not want to be the case.

I agree. Warnings should be private at first. Some cases could be made
public if the problem was big enough to be mentioned, but generally I'd
expect as a random member to not be informed of a warning.

-- 
PEB


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Scott Kitterman  writes:

> I think that makes sense, but I think it's really pretty much the same
> thing.  The "perceived authority" that means people treat feedback from
> DAM differently is the authority to suspend or expell.  Ultimately and
> unavoidably, a DAM warning comes with an undercurrent of that authority.

I agree with this to an extent, but it sounded in your previous message
like you felt that threat was quite strong, and therefore wanted a slow
and careful process before even warning someone.  This is the part that
worries me.  I'm worried that being too slow about warnings creates
exactly the problems that the project is trying to avoid.  If everything
is formal and slow, that means we end up with much-delayed, very strong
actions on situations that have had time to fester and escalate, which
increases the chances of highly divisive membership decisions.

I want a faster and more responsive process to give people effective
warnings *before* things escalate and fester in the hope that this will
mean fewer escalations to having to take membership actions.

Yes, the fact that the DAM is also responsible for expelling developers
when necessary is the reason why they can't be ignored and therefore the
reason why in some cases the warning is effective, but it's still possible
for a warning to only be a warning.  Specifically, I want a warning that
does *not* imply the sort of "three strikes and you're out" escalation
path that you referred to in your message and which is indeed common in US
employment situations.  I do think there's a place in the project for a
warning from some sort of trusted authority that is not perceived as a
deferred expulsion, but is something that still clearly should not be
ignored.

Or, let me put this another way: one of the fears that I've seen expressed
around warnings is that it's a permanent record sort of thing, or it
starts a file on someone, or otherwise creates a presumption of future bad
behavior.  I think this comes directly from the sort of HR warning in an
employment situation that you mention.  This bothers me a lot.  I think
this perception is very harmful to the project because it creates
excessive shame and anger and fear, which can be quite counterproductive
in attempting to just get someone to shift their behavior.

The ideal outcome in my mind for a warning is that the person warned
doesn't do that thing again, and then *everyone forgets it ever happened*,
at least in any formal sense.  In other words, I want to extend grace and
forgiveness to people, something that HR processes very much do NOT do.
To do that, we need a warning that's just a warning, where nothing further
will be said about it if the warning is received and understood.

BTW, also on that front, I think that announcing DAM warnings to the
project is a serious mistake.  I understand the thought process that went
into that decision, but I really don't agree with it.  The effect is to
make someone feel attacked and shamed publicly, which directly interferes
with the goal of a warning.  It's also one of the major factors in making
people feel like warnings are some sort of permanent black mark against
them, which I strongly do not want to be the case.

To be clear, it's possible what I'm asking for is something less than a
warning and to reserve warnings for essentially formal reprimand or
censure.  In other words, maybe the current DAM warning concept is worth
keeping in some form, and we just need some new thing.

> Ultimately Debian would be a better place if we were more open to
> listening to each other.

I completely agree.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On February 21, 2022 5:32:35 AM UTC, Russ Allbery  wrote:
>Scott Kitterman  writes:
>> On Sunday, February 20, 2022 10:13:03 PM EST Russ Allbery wrote:
>
>>> I guess the other possibility is that people really want warnings to be
>>> way more serious than any meaning I personally would ascribe to the
>>> word "warning" and are thinking of them as formal project censure or
>>> something akin to that.  In that case, my argument is that we need a
>>> warning that's actually just a warning, and the thing we've got is much
>>> too strong and the real problem is that we don't have something lighter
>>> touch.
>
>> Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred
>> execution.
>
>We have wildly different understandings of what a DAM warning is.  Which
>clearly points to a problem that needs to be solved!
>
>> I think every non-government job I've had had a discipline process that
>> went:
>
>> 1.  Verbal warning.
>> 2.  Written warning.
>> 3.  You're fired.
>
>> No, Debian isn't an employer, but I think the sense that DAM warnings
>> are used is similar.
>
>That seems like a mistake to me.  Anything that makes Debian seem more
>like an employer seems like a mistake to me.  We just aren't; we're a
>voluntary association that doesn't have any of the same requirements and
>does not have the employees or facilities to have the same type of formal
>process.  We should actively avoid creating spurious parallels to
>employment processes that we are not following, going to follow, or are
>capable of following.
>
>> I agree with the idea that more feedback with a lighter touch would be a
>> good idea, but I think anything with a lighter touch doesn't need DAM to
>> do it.  We are all empowered to provide other developers feedback when
>> we see concerning behavior.  People just need to do it.  It doesn't take
>> any new rules.
>
>We do need DAM to do it sometimes because sometimes people refuse to
>change their behavior unless someone with perceived authority tells them
>they need to.  Otherwise, they just counter-attack and escalate with the
>person who tried to give them feedback.
>
>I'm not calling out anyone specific here.  I truly don't have anyone
>specific in mind.  This is just standard human stuff; in any sufficiently
>large group of people, and Debian is more than large enough, there are
>going to be a few people like that.  It would be nice if peer feedback
>were always sufficient, but this isn't how humans work.
>
>Given that, and given that we clearly don't want to boot everyone who does
>that (even apart from the fact that the project is loathe to boot anyone
>for almost any reason, sometimes people really do change behavior once
>someone they can't just ignore points out the rules of the community),
>some sort of ability for someone with perceived authority to give a
>warning that's actually just a warning, not an "expulsion with deferred
>execution," is useful.


I think that makes sense, but I think it's really pretty much the same thing.  
The "perceived authority" that means people treat feedback from DAM differently 
is the authority to suspend or expell.  Ultimately and unavoidably, a DAM 
warning comes with an undercurrent of that authority.

If you want a warning without the threat, then don't have it come from DAM.  
This is not an easy problem to solve.  Unfortunately I don't think there's a 
group in the project that is broadly credible enough to take it on based on 
moral authority alone.

Ultimately Debian would be a better place if we were more open to listening to 
each other.

Scott K

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Scott Kitterman  writes:
> On Sunday, February 20, 2022 10:13:03 PM EST Russ Allbery wrote:

>> I guess the other possibility is that people really want warnings to be
>> way more serious than any meaning I personally would ascribe to the
>> word "warning" and are thinking of them as formal project censure or
>> something akin to that.  In that case, my argument is that we need a
>> warning that's actually just a warning, and the thing we've got is much
>> too strong and the real problem is that we don't have something lighter
>> touch.

> Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred
> execution.

We have wildly different understandings of what a DAM warning is.  Which
clearly points to a problem that needs to be solved!

> I think every non-government job I've had had a discipline process that
> went:

> 1.  Verbal warning.
> 2.  Written warning.
> 3.  You're fired.

> No, Debian isn't an employer, but I think the sense that DAM warnings
> are used is similar.

That seems like a mistake to me.  Anything that makes Debian seem more
like an employer seems like a mistake to me.  We just aren't; we're a
voluntary association that doesn't have any of the same requirements and
does not have the employees or facilities to have the same type of formal
process.  We should actively avoid creating spurious parallels to
employment processes that we are not following, going to follow, or are
capable of following.

> I agree with the idea that more feedback with a lighter touch would be a
> good idea, but I think anything with a lighter touch doesn't need DAM to
> do it.  We are all empowered to provide other developers feedback when
> we see concerning behavior.  People just need to do it.  It doesn't take
> any new rules.

We do need DAM to do it sometimes because sometimes people refuse to
change their behavior unless someone with perceived authority tells them
they need to.  Otherwise, they just counter-attack and escalate with the
person who tried to give them feedback.

I'm not calling out anyone specific here.  I truly don't have anyone
specific in mind.  This is just standard human stuff; in any sufficiently
large group of people, and Debian is more than large enough, there are
going to be a few people like that.  It would be nice if peer feedback
were always sufficient, but this isn't how humans work.

Given that, and given that we clearly don't want to boot everyone who does
that (even apart from the fact that the project is loathe to boot anyone
for almost any reason, sometimes people really do change behavior once
someone they can't just ignore points out the rules of the community),
some sort of ability for someone with perceived authority to give a
warning that's actually just a warning, not an "expulsion with deferred
execution," is useful.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 10:13:03 PM EST Russ Allbery wrote:
> Sam Hartman  writes:
> > Figuring out how to accomplish requesting a statement is a little
> > tricky, but I think it is worth the effort.  DAM takes membership
> > actions (including warnings) by consensus.  It's fairly difficult to get
> > all the members of DAM together.
> > 
> > I don't think it would work in practice for the request for a statement
> > to be a consensus action and to be followed shortly there after by
> > another consensus action to take a decision and to write it up.  That
> > would require DAM to get together as a group twice in short succession;
> > given how hard it is to schedule DAM action, that would not work.
> 
> I think Debian is in danger of a degenerative spiral, both here and in
> other places.  We make fewer and fewer decisions, slower and slower, which
> raises the cost of reversing a bad decision because it requires a second
> decision, which will also be slow.  This raises the stakes of each
> decision, so they have to be made more carefully.  This makes the decision
> take more effort, and thus we make even fewer decisions, and those
> decisions then carry even more weight.  That in turn leads people to want
> them to be made even more carefully, and the spiral continues until we
> talk endlessly and make no decisions at all.
> 
> We need a careful and slow process for kicking someone out of the project
> because that's a big deal.  Having a careful and slow process for issuing
> a warning is faintly absurd, and I think we've only arrived at that state
> because it's so hard to decide to ever do anything that they've reached an
> unrealistic level of apparent importance.
> 
> I think the solution in many, many places across Debian is to make more
> decisions, faster, and allow some of them to be wrong.  Lower the stakes
> and consequences of a bad decision, and lower the perceived weight of a
> single decision, rather than trying to make every decision perfect.
> 
> Anyway, to be more concrete, what your description of the process says to
> me is that ideally DAM would be much larger and would deal with more minor
> things, such as warnings, in panels.  Have a rotating "on call" or
> something similar, empower them to make decisions on anything that comes
> up while they're on call, and if someone thinks their decision is
> profoundly unfair (I still think people are making far too much out of
> warnings), or if some more serious issue comes up, it can be reviewed by a
> different panel, a larger panel, or by DAM as a whole, but that would be
> rarer.
> 
> Having more people empowered to make decisions faster would also lower the
> perceived significance of each decision, since there's going to be some
> minor human inconsistency and I think that's actually healthy.  The goal
> of warnings is not to precisely measure and describe exactly what someone
> did wrong to some nonexistent objective standard.  It's to say "hey, this
> is making things shitty for other people, you need to knock it off."
> People can grumble about that all they want; the grumbling doesn't require
> a response.  If they think twice about doing the thing that was making
> things shitty for other people, mission accomplished.  If it turns out
> that what they were doing was fine in context, great!  It was a warning;
> no one did anything.  If that was the first warning someone got for
> something they didn't actually do, they've led a way more sheltered life
> than I have, and my life has been pretty sheltered.
> 
> I dunno, I realize I may be being too cavalier here, but see the point
> above about making more decisions, faster, and accepting a few mistakes.
> If we end up with a rash of bogus warnings, we can reconsider.  But right
> now warnings are about as frequent as Papal encyclicals, and I think
> partly as a result people have gotten really weird ideas about them.
> 
> I guess the other possibility is that people really want warnings to be
> way more serious than any meaning I personally would ascribe to the word
> "warning" and are thinking of them as formal project censure or something
> akin to that.  In that case, my argument is that we need a warning that's
> actually just a warning, and the thing we've got is much too strong and
> the real problem is that we don't have something lighter touch.

Currently a DAM warning is a suspension/expulsion with deferred execution.  I 
think every non-government job I've had had a discipline process that went:

1.  Verbal warning.
2.  Written warning.
3.  You're fired.

No, Debian isn't an employer, but I think the sense that DAM warnings are used 
is similar.  I agree with the idea that more feedback with a lighter touch 
would be a good idea, but I think anything with a lighter touch doesn't need 
DAM to do it.  We are all empowered to provide other developers feedback when 
we see concerning behavior.  People just need to do it.  It doesn't take any 
new rules.

Scott K

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 5:24:47 PM EST Sam Hartman wrote:
> > "Felix" == Felix Lechner  writes:
> In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer have any affiliation
> with DAM.
> 
> Felix> With regard to disciplinary proceedings, however, Debian has
> Felix> a long way to go in implementing basic precepts of
> Felix> justice. For example, it would be good to hold hearings in
> Felix> which the accused can make a statement before any action is
> Felix> taken.
> 
> I think phrasing this in terms of justice and rights for keeping
>  governments  accountable  is likely to get a knee-jerk reaction from a
>  number of people who do not want to think of things that.
> It's fairly clear to a number of us that maintaining standards of a
> private community is a very different problem than maintaining justice
> for people who have the power to deny life and liberty.
> 
> I do think there are standards of fairness and desirable conduct in
> managing a community, but I don't think going back to the Magna Carta or
> other documents of human rights is very productive in moving the
> discussion forward.
> 
> However, I do find there are areas where I agree with you.
> I'm going to focus on DAM in this message rather than listmaster or the
> community team.
> I think the calculus for each group works out differently.
> As an example, because the community team cannot (for the most part)
> take formal action, I think it is desirable to avoid too much process
> for them.
> 
> 
> Having witnessed things from a number of angles, I agree with you if
> that I think it would be an improvement if DAM agreed to ask
> a member for input before taking decisions that affect them.
> 
> DAM has long held that they don't do so as a matter of policy.
> I don't have an explicit citation for this, but I'm fairly sure it was
> discussed back in 2019.
> As I understand it, the argument is roughly that by the time things get
> to DAM, they are unambiguous.
> 
> Unfortunately, it really rubs people the wrong way.
> While I think it would be rare that it would change things, membership
> actions are infrequent, and it actually is possible for there to be
> understandings even late in a process that has gotten to DAM.
> And while in theory DAM could change their decision if it became clear
> their was a misunderstood, I think in practice the bar for changing a
> decision after it is made will end up being higher than the bar for
> making a different decision in the first place.
> 
> 
> Figuring out how to accomplish requesting a statement is a little
> tricky, but I think it is worth the effort.  DAM takes membership
> actions (including warnings) by consensus.  It's fairly difficult to get
> all the members of DAM together.
> 
> I don't think it would work in practice for the request for a statement
> to be a consensus action and to be followed shortly there after by
> another consensus action to take a decision and to write it up.  That
> would require DAM to get together as a group twice in short succession;
> given how hard it is to schedule DAM action, that would not work.
> 
> 
> So, for this to be practical, the request for a statement would need to
> be something that a single person, acting on their own (or with some
> input but not full consensus) could do.
> 
> As a result, it's not reasonable to expect DAM to communicate all the
> factors of the case to someone, or even to communicate all the
> potentially public evidence.  It could include a description of the
> triggering event in most cases.
> 
> 
> A message might look something like:
> 
> Hi Sam,
> We are writing to you because we're concerned about your message to blah
> with message-id blah-blah in which you said a bunch of bad things. We're
> considering this is the context of your broader interactions with the
> project and wanted   to give you an
> opportunity to give us any input either about that message or your
> interactions with the project before we decide if we are going to take
> any action.
> We anticipate being able to consider any input in the next 72 hours.
> 
> I honestly think it is achievable for DAM to send messages like that in
> most situations and I think it would improve the perception of fairness.
> 
> There are some cases where there's not a triggering event or where the
> trigger that caused DAM to become focused is not something that can be
> shared.  In those cases, the request for a statement would be a lot more
> vague.
> 
> I appreciate that several in the project would desire that DAM put
> together the level of detail that they would send to the NMC as part of
> handling an appeal and send that to the person whose membership was being
> considered.
> Realistically, that's not achievable given the level of effort involved.
> That's especially true for warnings.
> 
> Felix> Disciplinary actions are sufficiently rare to make that a
> Felix> small burden on the members. Without a jury 

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Sam Hartman]

> "Russ" == Russ Allbery  writes:

Russ> Sam Hartman  writes:
Russ> I dunno, I realize I may be being too cavalier here, but see
Russ> the point above about making more decisions, faster, and
Russ> accepting a few mistakes.  If we end up with a rash of bogus
Russ> warnings, we can reconsider.  But right now warnings are about
Russ> as frequent as Papal encyclicals, and I think partly as a
Russ> result people have gotten really weird ideas about them.

I mostly agree with you.
And my comments were more directed at more serious membership actions
than warnings.
Although I think most of the time it'd be a good idea to check in with
someone and ask for their side before issuing a warning too.

I note that CT can issue warnings with a lot less process than DAM can.

Russ> I guess the other possibility is that people really want
Russ> warnings to be way more serious than any meaning I personally
Russ> would ascribe to the word "warning" and are thinking of them
Russ> as formal project censure or something akin to that.  In that
Russ> case, my argument is that we need a warning that's actually
Russ> just a warning, and the thing we've got is much too strong and
Russ> the real problem is that we don't have something lighter
Russ> touch.

We've got:

1) individual members acting.
I think we don't get enough of this.
I think that we also don't have a culture where it's sufficiently
strongly expected that you at least consider carefully when fellow
project members tell you that you're making things shitty for you.
It's way too acceptable to say "well, nothing in the rules says I
can't."

2) We've got CT warnings.
I don't know what their internal procedure is now, but it seems like
they don't require as much consensus as when I was involved.

3) We've got DAM warnings.
Mostly, these are more serious than CT warnings, although I'm aware of
situations where the stars lined up and it was easier for DAM to act
than the CT even though either would have been okay.

4) We've got suspension-like things.

5) We've got expulsion-like things.

And somewhere between 2 and 4 we've got mailing list bans, bts bans, IRC
operator action an dthe like.

I absolutely agree it would be great if we had more warnings (especially
down at level 1 from individual developers) and we made it easier for
warnings to be given.

I also agree it may well be the case that DAM warnings have too much
formality.

--Sam

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Russ Allbery]

Sam Hartman  writes:

> Figuring out how to accomplish requesting a statement is a little
> tricky, but I think it is worth the effort.  DAM takes membership
> actions (including warnings) by consensus.  It's fairly difficult to get
> all the members of DAM together.

> I don't think it would work in practice for the request for a statement
> to be a consensus action and to be followed shortly there after by
> another consensus action to take a decision and to write it up.  That
> would require DAM to get together as a group twice in short succession;
> given how hard it is to schedule DAM action, that would not work.

I think Debian is in danger of a degenerative spiral, both here and in
other places.  We make fewer and fewer decisions, slower and slower, which
raises the cost of reversing a bad decision because it requires a second
decision, which will also be slow.  This raises the stakes of each
decision, so they have to be made more carefully.  This makes the decision
take more effort, and thus we make even fewer decisions, and those
decisions then carry even more weight.  That in turn leads people to want
them to be made even more carefully, and the spiral continues until we
talk endlessly and make no decisions at all.

We need a careful and slow process for kicking someone out of the project
because that's a big deal.  Having a careful and slow process for issuing
a warning is faintly absurd, and I think we've only arrived at that state
because it's so hard to decide to ever do anything that they've reached an
unrealistic level of apparent importance.

I think the solution in many, many places across Debian is to make more
decisions, faster, and allow some of them to be wrong.  Lower the stakes
and consequences of a bad decision, and lower the perceived weight of a
single decision, rather than trying to make every decision perfect.

Anyway, to be more concrete, what your description of the process says to
me is that ideally DAM would be much larger and would deal with more minor
things, such as warnings, in panels.  Have a rotating "on call" or
something similar, empower them to make decisions on anything that comes
up while they're on call, and if someone thinks their decision is
profoundly unfair (I still think people are making far too much out of
warnings), or if some more serious issue comes up, it can be reviewed by a
different panel, a larger panel, or by DAM as a whole, but that would be
rarer.

Having more people empowered to make decisions faster would also lower the
perceived significance of each decision, since there's going to be some
minor human inconsistency and I think that's actually healthy.  The goal
of warnings is not to precisely measure and describe exactly what someone
did wrong to some nonexistent objective standard.  It's to say "hey, this
is making things shitty for other people, you need to knock it off."
People can grumble about that all they want; the grumbling doesn't require
a response.  If they think twice about doing the thing that was making
things shitty for other people, mission accomplished.  If it turns out
that what they were doing was fine in context, great!  It was a warning;
no one did anything.  If that was the first warning someone got for
something they didn't actually do, they've led a way more sheltered life
than I have, and my life has been pretty sheltered.

I dunno, I realize I may be being too cavalier here, but see the point
above about making more decisions, faster, and accepting a few mistakes.
If we end up with a rash of bogus warnings, we can reconsider.  But right
now warnings are about as frequent as Papal encyclicals, and I think
partly as a result people have gotten really weird ideas about them.

I guess the other possibility is that people really want warnings to be
way more serious than any meaning I personally would ascribe to the word
"warning" and are thinking of them as formal project censure or something
akin to that.  In that case, my argument is that we need a warning that's
actually just a warning, and the thing we've got is much too strong and
the real problem is that we don't have something lighter touch.

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

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Sam Hartman]

> "Felix" == Felix Lechner  writes:

Felix> Alas, I'll venture that the folks whose opinions you consider
Felix> superior have never been punished.

The word punished implies a framing of the problem I personally reject.
But if for example you'd consider being banned from the BTS a
punishment, then your claim is incorrect.


But my opinion doesn't really matter here except in so much as I gain
social credibility by dealing reasonably with people.
Ultimately, the question is how  does the project feel about how the DPL
and delegates are doing things.

I personally think that we need a clear explanation so that the project
can come to an informed opinion and express that opinion through
discussions, through DPL elections, and through GRs.

--Sam

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Pierre-Elliott Bécue]

Felix Lechner  wrote on 20/02/2022 at 23:42:31+0100:

> Hi,
>
> On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 2:25 PM Sam Hartman  wrote:
>>
>> A number of people over the years have talked about embodying some of
>> the processes and protections of a trial in community management actions
>> in Debian.  That has included ideas like having the project as a whole
>> decide/affirm the decision, making evidence available, giving the
>> "accused" access to evidence and access to those who have made claims
>> against them.
>>
>> I think there's broad agreement among those who have actually worked on
>> community management in Debian that this would be a horrible idea and
>> would not make Debian a welcoming community.
>
> Alas, I'll venture that the folks whose opinions you consider superior
> have never been punished.

I am not convinced that, even if that were right, it'd make the argument
invalid in any way.

-- 
PEB


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures

[Felix Lechner]

Hi,

On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 2:25 PM Sam Hartman  wrote:
>
> A number of people over the years have talked about embodying some of
> the processes and protections of a trial in community management actions
> in Debian.  That has included ideas like having the project as a whole
> decide/affirm the decision, making evidence available, giving the
> "accused" access to evidence and access to those who have made claims
> against them.
>
> I think there's broad agreement among those who have actually worked on
> community management in Debian that this would be a horrible idea and
> would not make Debian a welcoming community.

Alas, I'll venture that the folks whose opinions you consider superior
have never been punished.

Kind regards
Felix Lechner