Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Antoine Pitrou]

How did he react to the whole thing?  Did he give signs of wanting to
improve his behaviour?

Regards

Antoine.


Le 02/06/2017 à 18:47, Brett Cannon a écrit :
> I just wanted to quickly let people know I lifted Wes' two-month ban and
> emailed him to notify him of the lifting.
> 
> On Fri, 31 Mar 2017 at 14:40 Brett Cannon  > wrote:
> 
> In the (long) discussion
> of https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6, Wes Turner
> began to do his usual posting of lists. People pointed out he was
> stepping out of line by being somewhat off-topic and seemingly
> lecturing folks. He posted some of his lists again and then I warned
> him that if he did it again I would block him for a CoC violation
> since he did not want to respect anyone's time by taking the time to
> edit what amount to dumping his personal notes on GitHub. (This is a
> long-standing issue, BTW, with Wes where he has been warned in other
> settings like distutils-sig about his posting behaviour.)
> 
> Unfortunately he did it again
> for https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/66. Since GitHub
> only has organization-level blocks I have blocked him at that level
> (I've also already received some +1s from core devs while writing
> this email for my move, so I know others who have interacted with
> him also support this decision).
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Brett Cannon]

I just wanted to quickly let people know I lifted Wes' two-month ban and
emailed him to notify him of the lifting.

On Fri, 31 Mar 2017 at 14:40 Brett Cannon  wrote:

> In the (long) discussion of
> https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6, Wes Turner began to do
> his usual posting of lists. People pointed out he was stepping out of line
> by being somewhat off-topic and seemingly lecturing folks. He posted some
> of his lists again and then I warned him that if he did it again I would
> block him for a CoC violation since he did not want to respect anyone's
> time by taking the time to edit what amount to dumping his personal notes
> on GitHub. (This is a long-standing issue, BTW, with Wes where he has been
> warned in other settings like distutils-sig about his posting behaviour.)
>
> Unfortunately he did it again for
> https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/66. Since GitHub only has
> organization-level blocks I have blocked him at that level (I've also
> already received some +1s from core devs while writing this email for my
> move, so I know others who have interacted with him also support this
> decision).
>
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[R. David Murray]

On Sat, 01 Apr 2017 15:08:27 -0400, Alex Gaynor  wrote:
> I'll be another voice saying that the CoC isn't the right mechanism -- the
> CoC is for harassment and abuse (at least, most community's CoCs are, the
> Python one is pretty vague).
> 
> That said, I have no problem with the action taken, banning people who are
> extremely unproductive is a necessary step for open source communities, and
> one I think we are all extremely reticent to take, so much so that it got
> it's own chapter in the excellent book, Producing Open Source Software:
> http://producingoss.com/en/difficult-people.html

Add my voice to this set.  I agree especially with Alex's second
paragraph above, so I really appreciate Brett being willing to take
this on.

Regardless of whether or not Python's CoC technically covers this case
(I'm not going to argue that one way or another), as Alex observed:
in the world we currently live in that term has way to much freight
attached to be appropriate for the issue we have with Wes.  That's
sad, because it means it doesn't actually matter all that much what
the CoC actually *says* :(.

--David
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Paul Moore]

On 1 April 2017 at 19:35, Brett Cannon  wrote:
> From what people have said in opposition to what I did, I think we need to
> have a discussion about two things:
>
> 1. Is it a CoC violation if someone chooses to ignore repeated warnings that
> their communication style is unproductive and thus a waste of people's time?
> And if people don't view it as an explicit CoC violation, do we still view
> it as enough reason to block someone but under a different name? (I
> obviously view it as a CoC violation.)

In my view, it would be better described as a "moderation action" (or
something similar). There's a lot of implication when codes of conduct
get involved - the high profile cases tend to be about genuinely
unacceptable behaviour such as harassment, and so it's easy for people
who only hear about what happened second hand, to read more into the
situation than is maybe present.

> 2. What is the exact procedure someone has to follow to instigate a ban (and
> this policy should probably cover GitHub, mailing lists, and anywhere else
> someone can be banned)? Is it having two core devs agree to the ban and it
> being publicly stated here (as MAL suggested)? Whatever approach we choose
> we should write it down in the devguide somewhere.

I agree we should write the process down. My suggestion would be that
the process as described by Nick (which is what you actually followed)
be described as how we deal with people who have demonstrated an
inability to work effectively with the community ("Moderation" is the
best term I can come up with for this process, but I don't think it's
ideal). The Code of Conduct process should (IMO) be reserved for
immediate exclusion of people who have demonstrated inappropriate
behaviour, and it should be very much a last resort action, and
require consensus between a number of core devs to institute.

> As for Wes himself, I'm fine with the ban lasting only a couple months (say
> the end of May?). Based on the positive feedback I received on the ban I
> don't want to just drop it without at least some time passing to get the
> point across that something needs to change, but I also don't expect the ban
> to be permanent since there wasn't any malicious intent.

Just to be clear, I'm completely fine with the action you took with
regard to Wes. I can confirm that it's something that's been coming
for some time (I've interacted with Wes on a number of lists), and I
appreciate the fact that you took the hard decision and actually did
something. I'm just uncomfortable with describing it as a Code of
Conduct issue (which as Alex says, is typically associated more with
harassment and abuse).

Paul
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Alex Gaynor]

I'll be another voice saying that the CoC isn't the right mechanism -- the
CoC is for harassment and abuse (at least, most community's CoCs are, the
Python one is pretty vague).

That said, I have no problem with the action taken, banning people who are
extremely unproductive is a necessary step for open source communities, and
one I think we are all extremely reticent to take, so much so that it got
it's own chapter in the excellent book, Producing Open Source Software:
http://producingoss.com/en/difficult-people.html

Back to lurking'ly yours,
Alex

On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Brett Cannon  wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 at 09:27 M.-A. Lemburg  wrote:
>
>> On 01.04.2017 05:44, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Mar 31, 2017, at 2:40 PM, Brett Cannon  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> In the (long) discussion of https://github.com/python/
>> core-workflow/issues/6, Wes Turner began to do his usual posting of
>> lists. People pointed out he was stepping out of line by being somewhat
>> off-topic and seemingly lecturing folks. He posted some of his lists again
>> and then I warned him that if he did it again I would block him for a CoC
>> violation since he did not want to respect anyone's time by taking the time
>> to edit what amount to dumping his personal notes on GitHub. (This is a
>> long-standing issue, BTW, with Wes where he has been warned in other
>> settings like distutils-sig about his posting behaviour.)
>> >
>> > ...
>> > So, if Wes is to be blocked for a while, it should be on the basis of
>> "adding too much noise to an important communication channel" rather than
>> CoC which should be sparingly used for only egregious issues.  Also, if a
>> real CoC issue does arise, I think any actions taken need to have multiple
>> assents from a group of decision makers rather than having one person
>> become a de-facto CoC czar with the power to banish people.
>>
>> It's definitely a requirement of any CoC management to have at
>> least two people decide on this, since CoCs in general are
>> always open to interpretation and need to take multiple views
>> into account.
>
>
> OK, but who is the second person supposed to be? Since this was the
> core-workflow issue tracker for the core-workflow mailing list I figured it
> fell on to my shoulders to deal with (I actually had to check the mailing
> list this morning to see if I even had co-owners on it since I actually
> didn't remember explicitly having any). Am I to ask just any core dev for a
> gut check to make sure this is a reasonable action to take?
>
> I guess my point is that we don't have any form of policy or practices in
> place for this sort of thing. An action of this level has (fortunately)
> only occurred with Anatoly and we took so long to deal with it that no one
> questioned my actions when I first used the CoC on python-ideas.
>
>
>> Wes's comments are nowhere near a CoC violation,
>> IMO.
>>
>
> There's also extensive history spanning multiple mailing lists for Wes'
> behaviour. This isn't isolated to just what I linked to, it just happens to
> be what finally pushed me to take action. If I could block him at my
> personal account level and have his posts not show up for me I would, or if
> I could just block him for the core-workflow issue tracker I would, but we
> just  don't have that level of blocking on GitHub and the finest grain
> available is organization level.
>
>
>>
>> I agree with Raymond that CoCs are not meant as a tool to
>> silence people with different ideas or communication styles
>> out of convenience.
>>
>
> Now we're getting into a philosophical discussion as to whether the CoC
> covers people who choose to continually communicate in an unproductive  way
> even after it has been pointed out to them that they are not contributing
> constructively to the conversation (as Paul more eloquently stated). To me
> the CoC covers that as part of requiring people to be respectful of others.
> Time is one of those things that I can't get back and which we all have a
> limited supply of to spend on this project, so having someone suck it away
> in small doses regularly even after they have been told by multiple people
> that they are not contributing seems like a CoC violation to me.
>
>
>>
>> It's the ultimate tool, not the first to consider.
>
>
> It wasn't my first anything. As I have said, this isn't some isolated
> incident in the Python community with Wes. And I didn't do this on a whim.
> I literally felt like crap for about an hour after hitting the red "Block"
> button because I realize the ramifications of what I did, so please don't
> think I just had a bad day and decided to take it out on someone or did
> this just because I didn't like someone's four messages on GitHub.
>
>
>> If Wes were
>> continuously offensive that would be a reason to start discussing
>> CoC related actions.
>>
>
> As I said, this spans at least distutils-sig and python-ideas for years
> (to 

Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Nick Coghlan]

On 1 April 2017 at 19:16, Paul Moore  wrote:
> On 1 April 2017 at 09:17, Antoine Pitrou  wrote:
>> I have sometimes been mildly annoyed by his posting style on MLs, and I
>> can imagine how it can become very annoying on a GitHub PR.
>
> Agreed. I don't feel that Wes' contributions are productive, and I
> generally ignore them. I support banning him if he refuses to (or is
> incapable of) improving his style - he's certainly been told often
> enough in various lists. But it did surprise me that it was addressed
> as a CoC issue. I'd hope we have alternative means of dealing with
> non-productive behaviours that don't have the implications of a CoC
> violation.

The CoC is the only mechanism that's written down, since it defines
the terms of the deal for ongoing participation: we're each expected
to be open, considerate, and respectful of others, and that "open by
default" status can be withdrawn given persistent and repeated
failures to be considerate and respectful even in the face of personal
coaching.

Outside that, mailing list moderation decisions are entirely in the
hands of the moderators of any given list, while bugs.python.org is
collectively managed by the current core developers, and the Python
GitHub org is managed by the folks with the "owner" role for that
group (covering both python-dev and the PSF, since that org is used
for more than just CPython)

> As has been noted, Wes' style may be more about how he thinks and
> behaves, and may well be something he can't "fix". It's very dangerous
> to judge people based on limited interactions, and it's entirely
> possible that the code of conduct has more to say about how we treat
> Wes than the other way around.

> But even if that *is* the case, there
> comes a point where treating all participants equally does mean we're
> OK to say "sorry, you're being unproductive and that won't change, so
> we can't work with you" regardless of who they are or their
> circumstances. I'd prefer to view what's happened here as a case where
> we have to say "we've done our best to be welcoming and work with you,
> but it's not going to work out".
>
> If we don't have a good way to do that, let's get one.

Short of cases that are escalated to the PSF Board (for blanket bans
from PSF provided infrastructure, which has still only been deemed
necessary once), the steps typically taken by mailing list moderators
and issue tracker administrators are:

1. giving folks guidance on specific behaviors that are causing
problems for other people (in this case, random info dumps on
distutils-sig, python-ideas, and most recently, core-workflow GitHub
issues)
2. if nothing changes, or the problematic behaviours return, this may
escalate to an enforced suspension (for the issue trackers), or
mandatory moderation (for mailing lists)
3. only if step 2 proves inadequate are other options (like permabans
with no chance for future review) considered, and that currently means
escalating matters to the PSF (since they're the ones with ultimate
responsibility for the management of all of our communication
channels)

In this particular case, we're only at step 2 - self-moderation based
on previously provided guidance has proven inadequate, so an enforced
break specifically from the Python org on GitHub makes sense (mainly
because the tools for dealing with non-productive noise on GitHub
issues aren't anywhere near as well developed as those for email). If
there was finer granularity available on GitHub, the suspension would
presumably have only been from the core-workflow repo specifically,
but that's not currently an available option.

Regards,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncogh...@gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Ethan Furman]

On 04/01/2017 02:16 AM, Paul Moore wrote:

On 1 April 2017 at 09:17, Antoine Pitrou wrote:



But even if that *is* the case, there
comes a point where treating all participants equally does mean we're
OK to say "sorry, you're being unproductive and that won't change, so
we can't work with you" regardless of who they are or their
circumstances. I'd prefer to view what's happened here as a case where
we have to say "we've done our best to be welcoming and work with you,
but it's not going to work out".

If we don't have a good way to do that, let's get one.


+1

Whatever the reason, his posts are effectively noise, and he produces a lot.

--
~Ethan~

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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[M.-A. Lemburg]

On 01.04.2017 05:44, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> 
>> On Mar 31, 2017, at 2:40 PM, Brett Cannon  wrote:
>>
>> In the (long) discussion of 
>> https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6, Wes Turner began to do his 
>> usual posting of lists. People pointed out he was stepping out of line by 
>> being somewhat off-topic and seemingly lecturing folks. He posted some of 
>> his lists again and then I warned him that if he did it again I would block 
>> him for a CoC violation since he did not want to respect anyone's time by 
>> taking the time to edit what amount to dumping his personal notes on GitHub. 
>> (This is a long-standing issue, BTW, with Wes where he has been warned in 
>> other settings like distutils-sig about his posting behaviour.)
> 
> ...
> So, if Wes is to be blocked for a while, it should be on the basis of "adding 
> too much noise to an important communication channel" rather than CoC which 
> should be sparingly used for only egregious issues.  Also, if a real CoC 
> issue does arise, I think any actions taken need to have multiple assents 
> from a group of decision makers rather than having one person become a 
> de-facto CoC czar with the power to banish people.

It's definitely a requirement of any CoC management to have at
least two people decide on this, since CoCs in general are
always open to interpretation and need to take multiple views
into account. Wes's comments are nowhere near a CoC violation,
IMO.

I agree with Raymond that CoCs are not meant as a tool to
silence people with different ideas or communication styles
out of convenience.

It's the ultimate tool, not the first to consider. If Wes were
continuously offensive that would be a reason to start discussing
CoC related actions.

--
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Paul Moore]

On 1 April 2017 at 09:17, Antoine Pitrou  wrote:
> I have sometimes been mildly annoyed by his posting style on MLs, and I
> can imagine how it can become very annoying on a GitHub PR.

Agreed. I don't feel that Wes' contributions are productive, and I
generally ignore them. I support banning him if he refuses to (or is
incapable of) improving his style - he's certainly been told often
enough in various lists. But it did surprise me that it was addressed
as a CoC issue. I'd hope we have alternative means of dealing with
non-productive behaviours that don't have the implications of a CoC
violation.

As has been noted, Wes' style may be more about how he thinks and
behaves, and may well be something he can't "fix". It's very dangerous
to judge people based on limited interactions, and it's entirely
possible that the code of conduct has more to say about how we treat
Wes than the other way around. But even if that *is* the case, there
comes a point where treating all participants equally does mean we're
OK to say "sorry, you're being unproductive and that won't change, so
we can't work with you" regardless of who they are or their
circumstances. I'd prefer to view what's happened here as a case where
we have to say "we've done our best to be welcoming and work with you,
but it's not going to work out".

If we don't have a good way to do that, let's get one.

Paul
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 01/04/2017 à 05:44, Raymond Hettinger a écrit :
> 
> FWIW, this may just be his communication style that reflects his
tooling (probably emacs org-mode or some such) and his way of thinking
about problems.

It is most probably his communication style, as I have seen him act this
way on other mailing-lists.  I would add that IMHO it is not an
effective communication style: even though he posts lots of "content"
from a quantitative POV, the content is never exploitable as is as it
doesn't seem to ever come with an actual reasoning about the issue at hand.

I have sometimes been mildly annoyed by his posting style on MLs, and I
can imagine how it can become very annoying on a GitHub PR.

> Also,
if a real CoC issue does arise, I think any actions taken need to have
multiple assents from a group of decision makers rather than having one
person become a de-facto CoC czar with the power to banish people.

A big +1 to that.  Thanks for saying it.

Regards

Antoine.
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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Raymond Hettinger]

> On Mar 31, 2017, at 2:40 PM, Brett Cannon  wrote:
> 
> In the (long) discussion of https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6, 
> Wes Turner began to do his usual posting of lists. People pointed out he was 
> stepping out of line by being somewhat off-topic and seemingly lecturing 
> folks. He posted some of his lists again and then I warned him that if he did 
> it again I would block him for a CoC violation since he did not want to 
> respect anyone's time by taking the time to edit what amount to dumping his 
> personal notes on GitHub. (This is a long-standing issue, BTW, with Wes where 
> he has been warned in other settings like distutils-sig about his posting 
> behaviour.)

FWIW, this may just be his communication style that reflects his tooling 
(probably emacs org-mode or some such) and his way of thinking about problems.  
Even his personal web page looks like all of his posts:  
https://westurner.org/pages/resume  So I don't think he was trolling, it is 
possible that this is just who he is and may not be something he can easily 
switch-off.

I don't want to second guess the decision, but we've had a lot worse issues 
than "being somewhat off-topic and seemingly lecturing folks" or "not taking 
time to edit".  To me, blocking him seems a bit extreme especially for someone 
who has been a part of the Python community for a number of years.

I haven't followed many of his posts (which do seem somewhat odd and not 
entirely coherent), so I don't possess all the facts, so perhaps this was the 
right thing to do.

That said, I would like to remind everyone that when the diversity statement 
and code-of-conduct were approved, it was done with the understanding that the 
primary goal was to be an open and welcoming community that emphasized 
tolerance of just about everything from gender identity to neuro-diversity and 
Aspergers.  IIRC, both the diversity statement and CoC were toned down prior to 
approval, as a compromise with those who were concerned about them being turned 
into weapons of exclusion rather than tools for inclusion.

I did look at the referenced stream of posts, 
https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6 . The contributions from Wes 
Turner did seem somewhat incoherent, disjointed, not useful, and perhaps a 
little annoying.  I didn't see anything overtly hateful or trolling that would 
rise to the level of a CoC issue (i.e. it hasn't created an environment that 
makes others feel unwelcome).

So, if Wes is to be blocked for a while, it should be on the basis of "adding 
too much noise to an important communication channel" rather than CoC which 
should be sparingly used for only egregious issues.  Also, if a real CoC issue 
does arise, I think any actions taken need to have multiple assents from a 
group of decision makers rather than having one person become a de-facto CoC 
czar with the power to banish people.

my-two-cents-ly yours,


Raymond Hettinger






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Re: [python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Berker Peksağ]

On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 12:40 AM, Brett Cannon  wrote:
> In the (long) discussion of
> https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6, Wes Turner began to do his
> usual posting of lists. People pointed out he was stepping out of line by
> being somewhat off-topic and seemingly lecturing folks. He posted some of
> his lists again and then I warned him that if he did it again I would block
> him for a CoC violation since he did not want to respect anyone's time by
> taking the time to edit what amount to dumping his personal notes on GitHub.
> (This is a long-standing issue, BTW, with Wes where he has been warned in
> other settings like distutils-sig about his posting behaviour.)
>
> Unfortunately he did it again for
> https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/66. Since GitHub only has
> organization-level blocks I have blocked him at that level (I've also
> already received some +1s from core devs while writing this email for my
> move, so I know others who have interacted with him also support this
> decision).

Thanks, Brett! I have set a filter to mark all of his emails as read
on several Python lists for a while.

--Berker
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[python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Brett Cannon]

In the (long) discussion of https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6,
Wes Turner began to do his usual posting of lists. People pointed out he
was stepping out of line by being somewhat off-topic and seemingly
lecturing folks. He posted some of his lists again and then I warned him
that if he did it again I would block him for a CoC violation since he did
not want to respect anyone's time by taking the time to edit what amount to
dumping his personal notes on GitHub. (This is a long-standing issue, BTW,
with Wes where he has been warned in other settings like distutils-sig
about his posting behaviour.)

Unfortunately he did it again for
https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/66. Since GitHub only has
organization-level blocks I have blocked him at that level (I've also
already received some +1s from core devs while writing this email for my
move, so I know others who have interacted with him also support this
decision).
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