Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote:
The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of the majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems like just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and majority here?
The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an engineer agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams do track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but the harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line for while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the use of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride. What this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was a blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a lack of transparency here.
-Yaron
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com wrote:
Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote:
The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of the majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems like just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and majority here?
The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an engineer agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams do track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but the harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line for while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the use of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride. What this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was a blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a lack of transparency here.
-Yaron _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior and creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means to accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge at that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized better so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite it in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support each other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty to speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project, but it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com wrote:
Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote:
The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of
the
majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems like just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and majority here?
The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
engineer
agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams
do
track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but
the
harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line for while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the use of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride. What this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was a blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a lack of transparency here.
-Yaron _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify the block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior and creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means to accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge at that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized better so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite it in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support each other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty to speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project, but it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com wrote:
Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote:
The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of
the
majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems
like
just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and majority here?
The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
engineer
agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
teams
do
track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but
the
harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line
for
while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the
use
of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride.
What
this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was
a
blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
lack of transparency here.
-Yaron _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify the block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty to speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote:
The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort
of
the
majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems
like
just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and majority here?
The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
engineer
agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
teams
do
track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
but
the
harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line
for
while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the
use
of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride.
What
this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
was
a
blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
lack of transparency here.
-Yaron _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify the block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty to speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote:
The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort
of
the
majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems
like
just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and majority here?
The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
engineer
agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
teams
do
track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
but
the
harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line
for
while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the
use
of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride.
What
this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
was
a
blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
lack of transparency here.
-Yaron _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other people said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the mere use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is "Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a consensus. Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
[1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty to speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: > The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
the
> majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like
just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
majority here?
> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
engineer
> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
teams
do
> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
but
the
> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
for
> while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about
the
use
of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What
this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
was
a
blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
lack of transparency here.
-Yaron _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward, or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
-I
On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other people said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the mere use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is "Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a consensus. Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty to speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
the >> majority. > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like
> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
> majority here? > >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an engineer >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
teams
do >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
but
the >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
for
>> while. > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about
the
use
> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What
> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
was
a
> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say > something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
> lack of transparency here. > > -Yaron > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
It's probably also worth noting that that is not the standard imposed by the quoted CoC line.
On Tue, 14 Aug 2018, 20:49 Isarra Yos, zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward, or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
-I
On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days > discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying > "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that > what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best > experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? > > We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of > doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
> on... > > We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, > people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend > their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are > volunteers, we don't get money for this. > > P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into > solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it > would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so > desperate with the situation to use some swear words. > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
>> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >>> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
> the >>> majority. >> This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
>> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like >> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
>> majority here? >> >>> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an > engineer >>> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams > do >>> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
but
> the >>> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
for >>> while. >> This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about
the
use >> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What >> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
was
a >> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say >> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a >> lack of transparency here. >> >> -Yaron >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option is to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who the user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report about the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward, or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
-I
On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days > discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying > "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that > what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best > experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? > > We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of > doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
> on... > > We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, > people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend > their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are > volunteers, we don't get money for this. > > P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into > solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it > would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so > desperate with the situation to use some swear words. > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
>> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >>> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
> the >>> majority. >> This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
>> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like >> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
>> majority here? >> >>> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an > engineer >>> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams > do >>> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
but
> the >>> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
for >>> while. >> This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about
the
use >> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What >> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
was
a >> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say >> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a >> lack of transparency here. >> >> -Yaron >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
But this wasn't an unconstructive comment. And as a designer, angry comments are particularly useful, to a point, as they help give us insight into our users and thus better prioritise problems that require immediate address. You cite my later response as an example of better communication, and yet without comments such as MZMcBride's to highlight the nature of the situation, I would never have thought there any NEED to leave such a comment.
Now I actually sort of wonder if, had I been less busy at the time being sick and backlogged (still backlogged, but wow did things get out of hand) and just replied then when he originally brought the situation to my attention, all of this might have been avoided?
-I
On 14/08/18 20:02, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option is to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who the user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report about the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward, or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
-I
On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
> Hi Petr, > > Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and > creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
> waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions. > > I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
> friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to > accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
> nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at > that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
> they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized better > so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
> statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
> more effectively addressing the worst in us. > > This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
> thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and > libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't > handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is > mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it > in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support each > other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
> speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
> space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? > Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but > it might be fun. > > Regards, > Adam > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
>> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days >> discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying >> "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
>> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that >> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best >> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? >> >> We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of >> doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
>> on... >> >> We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
>> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, >> people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend >> their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are >> volunteers, we don't get money for this. >> >> P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into >> solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it >> would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so >> desperate with the situation to use some swear words. >> >> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com wrote: >>> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >>>> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of >> the >>>> majority. >>> This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's >>> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
> like >>> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
>>> majority here? >>> >>>> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an >> engineer >>>> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical > teams >> do >>>> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but >> the >>>> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
> for >>>> while. >>> This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about
the
> use >>> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
> What >>> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was > a >>> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say >>> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, > there's a >>> lack of transparency here. >>> >>> -Yaron >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikitech-l mailing list >>> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Given that many of our users are from wikipedia, and as far as i understand (I am not a wikipedian), on Wikipedia, using increasing length blocks as as a punative punishment for rule infractions isn't allowed, I would guess many of our community don't see it valid to block people temporarily just because the warnings arent working out.
-- bawolff On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option is to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who the user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report about the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward, or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
-I
On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt <dbarratt@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering
at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering
at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to
justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
> Hi Petr, > > Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and > creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
> waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions. > > I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
> friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to > accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up
to
the
> nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at > that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
> they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized better > so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
> statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
> more effectively addressing the worst in us. > > This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
> thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and > libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which
doesn't
> handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct
is
> mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it > in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to
support
each > other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
> speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
> space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm
headed?
> Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but > it might be fun. > > Regards, > Adam > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
> >> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days >> discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying >> "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
>> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is
that
>> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of
best
>> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? >> >> We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of >> doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
>> on... >> >> We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
>> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, >> people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to
spend
>> their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are >> volunteers, we don't get money for this. >> >> P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put
into
>> solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature)
it
>> would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was
so
>> desperate with the situation to use some swear words. >> >> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com wrote: >>> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >>>> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of >> the >>>> majority. >>> This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's >>> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
> like >>> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
>>> majority here? >>> >>>> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as
an
>> engineer >>>> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how
technical
> teams >> do >>>> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for
sure)
but >> the >>>> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
> for >>>> while. >>> This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about
the
> use >>> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
> What >>> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought
up
was > a >>> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to
say
>>> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, > there's a >>> lack of transparency here. >>> >>> -Yaron >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikitech-l mailing list >>> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Brian, that's actually exactly how Wikipedia operates, as an admin in Wikipedia serving for more than 9.5 years. The only difference is that it's not punitive, and I don't think this ban was also punitive either. The ban is made to prevent further damage.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 22:23 Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
Given that many of our users are from wikipedia, and as far as i understand (I am not a wikipedian), on Wikipedia, using increasing length blocks as as a punative punishment for rule infractions isn't allowed, I would guess many of our community don't see it valid to block people temporarily just because the warnings arent working out.
-- bawolff On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option
is
to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who
the
user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report
about
the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward, or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off
topic.
-I
On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e.
trolling).".
[1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really
see
what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is
not
a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them.
Banning
someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers
away
by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice.
And
randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt <
dbarratt@wikimedia.org
wrote:
> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering
at
the
> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
> backstory. > That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
> I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of
the
> alleged long term abuse pattern. > > Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering
at
the
> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
> backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
> just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to
justify
the
> block? If it's that well known, you can document it. > > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight <awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
>> Hi Petr, >> >> Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
> and >> creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
>> waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions. >> >> I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
>> friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
> to >> accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up
to
the
>> nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
> at >> that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up
for
what
>> they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be
organized
> better >> so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
>> statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the
good
while
>> more effectively addressing the worst in us. >> >> This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
>> thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and >> libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which
doesn't
>> handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct
is
>> mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
> it >> in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to
support
> each >> other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a
duty
to
>> speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
>> space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm
headed?
>> Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
> but >> it might be fun. >> >> Regards, >> Adam >> >> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights >> >> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
>> >>> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days >>> discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for
saying
>>> "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
>>> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is
that
>>> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of
best
>>> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? >>> >>> We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of >>> doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
>>> on... >>> >>> We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too
hostile
to
>>> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, >>> people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to
spend
>>> their free time on a different open source project. Most of us
are
>>> volunteers, we don't get money for this. >>> >>> P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put
into
>>> solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature)
it
>>> would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was
so
>>> desperate with the situation to use some swear words. >>> >>> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren <yaron57@gmail.com
> wrote: >>>> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >>>>> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
> of >>> the >>>>> majority. >>>> This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe > anyone's >>>> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
>> like >>>> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
>>>> majority here? >>>> >>>>> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as
an
>>> engineer >>>>> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how
technical
>> teams >>> do >>>>> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for
sure)
> but >>> the >>>>> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
>> for >>>>> while. >>>> This seems like the current argument - that it's not really
about
the
>> use >>>> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
>> What >>>> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought
up
> was >> a >>>> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to
say
>>>> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, >> there's a >>>> lack of transparency here. >>>> >>>> -Yaron >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Wikitech-l mailing list >>>> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikitech-l mailing list >>> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >> > > > -- > -george william herbert > george.herbert@gmail.com > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
So we are going to magically assume that somehow this block is going to change mcbride's behaviour when it took a 100 message email thread before he even found out the reason he was blocked (which differs from the implied reason in the email which was sent to an email account he usually doesnt check)?
-- bawolff
On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
Brian, that's actually exactly how Wikipedia operates, as an admin in Wikipedia serving for more than 9.5 years. The only difference is that
it's
not punitive, and I don't think this ban was also punitive either. The ban is made to prevent further damage.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 22:23 Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
Given that many of our users are from wikipedia, and as far as i
understand
(I am not a wikipedian), on Wikipedia, using increasing length blocks as
as
a punative punishment for rule infractions isn't allowed, I would guess many of our community don't see it valid to block people temporarily just because the warnings arent working out.
-- bawolff On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it
happens
too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that
when
it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option
is
to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who
the
user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report
about
the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that
shows
the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to
fully
explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move
forward,
or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off
topic.
-I
On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before
the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained
disruption,
interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e.
trolling).".
[1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just*
comment
"WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding
any
value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed
that
this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if
they
continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but
is
that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really
see
what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here
it
appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant
ban +
removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a
problem,
but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is
not
a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them.
Banning
someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this
kind
of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you,
it's
not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers
away
by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I
seriously
recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we
build
an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice.
And
randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt <
dbarratt@wikimedia.org
wrote: >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob
gathering
at
the >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that
context
and
>> backstory. >> > That seems like really toxic behavior. > > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
> > wrote: > >> I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of
the
>> alleged long term abuse pattern. >> >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob
gathering
at
the >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that
context
and
>> backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
>> just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to
justify
the >> block? If it's that well known, you can document it. >> >> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight <
awight@wikimedia.org
wrote: >>> Hi Petr, >>> >>> Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
>> and >>> creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff
don't
have to >>> waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions. >>> >>> I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
>>> friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on
the
means >> to >>> accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing
up
to
the >>> nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge >> at >>> that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up
for
what >>> they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be
organized
>> better >>> so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining
our
shared >>> statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the
good
while >>> more effectively addressing the worst in us. >>> >>> This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try
anyway—I've
been
>>> thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and >>> libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which
doesn't
>>> handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of
Conduct
is
>>> mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite >> it >>> in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to
support
>> each >>> other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a
duty
to
>>> speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
>>> space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm
headed?
>>> Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project, >> but >>> it might be fun. >>> >>> Regards, >>> Adam >>> >>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights >>> >>> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
>>> >>>> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days >>>> discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for
saying
>>>> "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so
that
the >>>> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is
that
>>>> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of
best
>>>> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? >>>> >>>> We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead
of
>>>> doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really?
Oh,
come >>>> on... >>>> >>>> We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too
hostile
to >>>> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying
rules,
>>>> people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to
spend
>>>> their free time on a different open source project. Most of us
are
>>>> volunteers, we don't get money for this. >>>> >>>> P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put
into
>>>> solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a
feature)
it
>>>> would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who
was
so
>>>> desperate with the situation to use some swear words. >>>> >>>> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren <
yaron57@gmail.com
>> wrote: >>>>> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >>>>>> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort >> of >>>> the >>>>>> majority. >>>>> This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe >> anyone's >>>>> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems >>> like >>>>> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the
minority
and >>>>> majority here? >>>>> >>>>>> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally
as
an
>>>> engineer >>>>>> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how
technical
>>> teams >>>> do >>>>>> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for
sure)
>> but >>>> the >>>>>> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out
of
line >>> for >>>>>> while. >>>>> This seems like the current argument - that it's not really
about
the >>> use >>>>> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride. >>> What >>>>> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was
brought
up
>> was >>> a >>>>> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to
say
>>>>> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed
out,
>>> there's a >>>>> lack of transparency here. >>>>> >>>>> -Yaron >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Wikitech-l mailing list >>>>> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Wikitech-l mailing list >>>> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikitech-l mailing list >>> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >>> >> >> >> -- >> -george william herbert >> george.herbert@gmail.com >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikitech-l mailing list >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Thanks Amir for clarifying this. This is the first I remember hearing this was the reason for the sactions against mcbride, and differs significantly from what I assumed was the reason.
However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift that has opened up.
Thank you -- Bawolff
On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other people said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is "Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which
doesn't
handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct
is
mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to
support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm
headed?
Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is
that
what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of
best
experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to
spend
their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put
into
solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature)
it
would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was
so
desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
the >> majority. > > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like
> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
> majority here? > >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as
an
engineer >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how
technical
teams
do >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for
sure)
but
the >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
for
>> while. > > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really
about
the
use
> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What
> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought
up
was
a
> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to
say
> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
> lack of transparency here. > > -Yaron > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
What I think has people talking past one another here is that the "final straw" that led to the ban wasn't a per se ban-worthy offense, *and* there is no clear standard or process for determining when past patterns of behavior can be taken into account in determining whether a given action crosses the line. In legal contexts we account for past behavior with things like repeat-offender rules/"three-strikes" rules, point systems (as with driver's licenses), and so on. Without such rules or processes in place, banning someone for conduct that is permitted of others risks at least the appearance of arbitrariness.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:04 PM Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Amir for clarifying this. This is the first I remember hearing this was the reason for the sactions against mcbride, and differs significantly from what I assumed was the reason.
However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift that has opened up.
Thank you
Bawolff
On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to
justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up
to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which
doesn't
handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct
is
mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to
support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm
headed?
Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days > discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for
saying
> "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is
that
> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of
best
> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? > > We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of > doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
> on... > > We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too
hostile
to
> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, > people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to
spend
> their free time on a different open source project. Most of us
are
> volunteers, we don't get money for this. > > P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put
into
> solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature)
it
> would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was
so
> desperate with the situation to use some swear words. > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren <yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
> > Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: > >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
> the > >> majority. > > > > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
> > safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like > > just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the
minority
and
> > majority here? > > > >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as
an
> engineer > >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how
technical
teams > do > >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for
sure)
but
> the > >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out
of
line
for > >> while. > > > > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really
about
the
use > > of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What > > this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought
up
was
a > > blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to
say
> > something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a > > lack of transparency here. > > > > -Yaron > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Given that here is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
The deliberations as well as the reporter are confidential and they will continue to be so everyone feels safe to report and be part of the committee. (note that you are assuming the reporter is just one person that works for WMF).
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 10:04 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Amir for clarifying this. This is the first I remember hearing this was the reason for the sactions against mcbride, and differs significantly from what I assumed was the reason.
However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift that has opened up.
Thank you
Bawolff
On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
people
said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
"Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to
justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up
to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which
doesn't
handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct
is
mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to
support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm
headed?
Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days > discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for
saying
> "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is
that
> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of
best
> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis? > > We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of > doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
> on... > > We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too
hostile
to
> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, > people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to
spend
> their free time on a different open source project. Most of us
are
> volunteers, we don't get money for this. > > P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put
into
> solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature)
it
> would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was
so
> desperate with the situation to use some swear words. > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren <yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
> > Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: > >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
> the > >> majority. > > > > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
> > safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like > > just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the
minority
and
> > majority here? > > > >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as
an
> engineer > >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how
technical
teams > do > >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for
sure)
but
> the > >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out
of
line
for > >> while. > > > > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really
about
the
use > > of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What > > this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought
up
was
a > > blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to
say
> > something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a > > lack of transparency here. > > > > -Yaron > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 15/08/18 20:50, Nuria Ruiz wrote:
Given that here is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
The deliberations as well as the reporter are confidential and they will continue to be so everyone feels safe to report and be part of the committee. (note that you are assuming the reporter is just one person that works for WMF).
This makes me feel the opposite of safe, and is why I will never report anything to the committee as things stand.
If someone accuses me, I have no way to defend myself. If I seek help or accuse another, I have no way to be sure my words won't be used against me, or against said other to far greater harm than I ever expected or intended.
-I
If someone accuses me, I have no way to defend myself.
This isn't a he said, she said https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he_said,_she_said type of issue, it's based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to delete. If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the behavior ought to be self-examined.
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 5:00 PM Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
On 15/08/18 20:50, Nuria Ruiz wrote:
Given that here is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in
favour
of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
The deliberations as well as the reporter are confidential and they will continue to be so everyone feels safe to report and be part of the committee. (note that you are assuming the reporter is just one person that works
for
WMF).
This makes me feel the opposite of safe, and is why I will never report anything to the committee as things stand.
If someone accuses me, I have no way to defend myself. If I seek help or accuse another, I have no way to be sure my words won't be used against me, or against said other to far greater harm than I ever expected or intended.
-I
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi!
This isn't a he said, she said https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he_said,_she_said type of issue, it's based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to delete.
In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted. And of course most content in our technical spaces (those managed by WMF, not sure about Github and such) is deletable by admins.
If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the behavior ought to be self-examined.
This sounds suspiciously like "if you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide". Which I hope everybody knows is not how it works - after all, that's why we have our privacy policies - so I assume it was not the intended meaning. We can have disagreement, and we can make mistakes, and this is why good process is important. Saying "if you're worried about good process, maybe it's because you're guilty" - that's how this comment sounded to me - is not right.
In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180803232905/https://phabricator.wikimedia.org...
And no, my intention was not to imply "if you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide", it was only that, our public actions ought to speak for themselves.
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:20 PM Stas Malyshev smalyshev@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi!
This isn't a he said, she said https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he_said,_she_said type of issue, it's based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to delete.
In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted. And of course most content in our technical spaces (those managed by WMF, not sure about Github and such) is deletable by admins.
If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the behavior ought to be self-examined.
This sounds suspiciously like "if you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide". Which I hope everybody knows is not how it works - after all, that's why we have our privacy policies - so I assume it was not the intended meaning. We can have disagreement, and we can make mistakes, and this is why good process is important. Saying "if you're worried about good process, maybe it's because you're guilty" - that's how this comment sounded to me - is not right. -- Stas Malyshev smalyshev@wikimedia.org
On 15/08/18 22:40, David Barratt wrote:
In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180803232905/https://phabricator.wikimedia.org...
And no, my intention was not to imply "if you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide", it was only that, our public actions ought to speak for themselves.
A nice sentiment, but unrealistic. We come from too many backgrounds, too many cultures, make too many typos, and are sufficiently bad at communicating overall as a movement that there will be many things that require clarification. We should always be open to making these clarifications - this is the key to better communication, and thus better understanding. Only from understanding can we improve things, not just ourselves, but our processes, our work, and our movement.
-I
I did not mean to imply that we would not make errors in communicating with one another, we are only human* after all. :)
I believe we can do so with civility and respect and by giving the other the benefit of the doubt, but, if for whatever reason, someone feels that can no longer happen, I am thankful that their are avenues to pursue alternative resolutions.
*or are we dancer? :P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_(The_Killers_song)#Lyrics
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:46 PM Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
On 15/08/18 22:40, David Barratt wrote:
In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180803232905/https://phabricator.wikimedia.org...
And no, my intention was not to imply "if you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide", it was only that, our public actions ought to speak for themselves.
A nice sentiment, but unrealistic. We come from too many backgrounds, too many cultures, make too many typos, and are sufficiently bad at communicating overall as a movement that there will be many things that require clarification. We should always be open to making these clarifications - this is the key to better communication, and thus better understanding. Only from understanding can we improve things, not just ourselves, but our processes, our work, and our movement.
-I
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I write all answers in one place:
Brian:
So we are going to magically assume that somehow this block is going to
change mcbride's behaviour when it took a 100 message email thread before he even found out the reason he was blocked (which differs from the implied reason in the email which was sent to an email account he usually doesnt check)? That's actually an argument against making cases public. The temporarily bans and incremental steps usually work. We had cases that one warning was enough and we never got any more report about the person, we had cases that a temporarily ban was enough (and those didn't cause a +100 email thread, no one knew about them expect some admins, the reporter and the person who got banned) and it worked. I can't disclose much. The reason that took 100 emails until the user realizes is banned was because of they missed the email sent to them. It happens but not 100% of all cases. When the user found the email, they forwarded them to a public mailing list and defending themselves in public. There are ways to appeal as mentioned in the CoC, why that didn't happen? By forwarding such emails to public, they just make the tip of the iceberg public and everyone thinks "Someone got banned just for saying WTF" and with limited knowledge they can jump to conclusions or become angry. For sake of protection of the reporters, we won't show you how much is behind each and every case. People should not judge cases based on defenses of the banned person.
More communication and harder job of doing so by trying to explain the rationale has been always the cost of more transparency. In English Wikipedia lots of times discussions about banning a person can be turned to a public circus making these threads like a quiet village in Alps in comparison. If you don't believe me, just search in WP:ANI.
However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after
facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift that has opened up.
When they see a violation of CoC, as outlined in the CoC, they need to send an email to the committee and explain the reasoning but what happened? They publicly accused the other party of violating CoC. This is not how it works. It causes more tension and ends up as really long threads. CoC can be good mediators in such cases if used.
One big misconception is that lots of people think the other party reported them but lots of reports we've had so far came from by-passers and not "their enemy" and it's not to retaliate to silence their voice. I really encourage this type of behavior. If you see something is not right even if it's not related to you, stand up and report.
Regarding unfair bias towards staff, it has lots of incorrect assumptions. How from one case with very limited knowledge this can be judged? As I said there is an appealing body and we trust them to be fair.
Michael:
What I think has people talking past one another here is that the "final
straw" that led to the ban wasn't a per se ban-worthy offense, *and* there is no clear standard or process for determining when past patterns of behavior can be taken into account in determining whether a given action crosses the line.
This is very subjective and can be true but making everyone a judge is not a good idea. Does everyone have read CoC fully? Did they have trainings or experience with dealing harassments? Did they have access to all of the user's history and reports made? I'm not even slightly proposing that no one should judge CoC, this is pretty dangerous and can lead to horrible things but there is a right way called appeal as outlined in the CoC to make sure correct checks and balances are in place.
Isarra:
A nice sentiment, but unrealistic. We come from too many backgrounds,
too many cultures, make too many typos, and are sufficiently bad at communicating overall as a movement that there will be many things that require clarification. We should always be open to making these clarifications - this is the key to better communication, and thus better understanding. Only from understanding can we improve things, not just ourselves, but our processes, our work, and our movement.
I disagree with some parts. Members of The CoCC are also from different cultures and backgrounds and they should be aware of these differences but problematic comments are in three types: 1- These are clear violation of CoC. A real world example is that you can't grope someone's private parts and then say it was a cultural difference. 2- There are cases that in the gray area but by looking at the history of the user, the pattern is obvious. I suggest reading WP:RUNAWAY. 3- It's a one time thing and it's in the gray area. The CoC can and should contact the reported person and ask for clarification.
Sorry for a very late answer, all work and no play makes Amir a dull boy. Best
Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
[...] Did they have access to all of the user's history and reports made?
Amir Ladsgroup also wrote:
[...] 2- There are cases that in the gray area but by looking at the history of the user, the pattern is obvious.
Can a user, such as myself, view his or her own "history" in this sense? It sounds like you all are compiling private dossiers about users. Is that correct? Do these records include only complaints or other parts of the user's history as well?
MZMcBride
Thank you for your detailed reply. I'm going to respond inline:
On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 12:12 AM, Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com wrote:
I write all answers in one place:
Brian:
So we are going to magically assume that somehow this block is going to
change mcbride's behaviour when it took a 100 message email thread before he even found out the reason he was blocked (which differs from the implied reason in the email which was sent to an email account he usually doesnt check)? That's actually an argument against making cases public. The temporarily bans and incremental steps usually work. We had cases that one warning was enough and we never got any more report about the person, we had cases that a temporarily ban was enough (and those didn't cause a +100 email thread, no one knew about them expect some admins, the reporter and the person who got banned) and it worked. I can't disclose much. The reason that took 100 emails until the user realizes is banned was because of they missed the email sent to them. It happens but not 100% of all cases. When the user found the email, they forwarded them to a public mailing list and defending themselves in public. There are ways to appeal as mentioned in the CoC, why that didn't happen? By forwarding such emails to public, they just make the tip of the iceberg public and everyone thinks "Someone got banned just for saying WTF" and with limited knowledge they can jump to conclusions or become angry. For sake of protection of the reporters, we won't show you how much is behind each and every case. People should not judge cases based on defenses of the banned person.
More communication and harder job of doing so by trying to explain the rationale has been always the cost of more transparency. In English Wikipedia lots of times discussions about banning a person can be turned to a public circus making these threads like a quiet village in Alps in comparison. If you don't believe me, just search in WP:ANI.
Indeed, I don't doubt it. Although I would note that enwikipedia is orders of magnitude bigger, so it stands to reason that it has a magnitude more drama. Ultimately though I feel that transparency is needed to trust that the committee is acting just and wisely (Power corrupts. Power without oversight is pretty absolute, and you know what they say about absolute power). I don't believe the committee will be trusted without public oversight, and I don't think the committee can function without trust.
However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after
facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift that has opened up.
When they see a violation of CoC, as outlined in the CoC, they need to send an email to the committee and explain the reasoning but what happened? They publicly accused the other party of violating CoC. This is not how it works. It causes more tension and ends up as really long threads. CoC can be good mediators in such cases if used.
While I agree that the committee can't act in a situation unless notified, I disagree that it can only act directly on the notification received. In fact, I would say the committee has a duty to fully investigate any conflict it involves itself in. Have you ever seen a dispute in the history of anything that only involved one party? At the bare minimum when processing a complaint, the CoC should at least ask the alleged perpetrator has anything to say for him/herself, no matter how clear cut the case appears to be. I don't know how anyone could claim justice is being done without even talking to the accused party. Given that MZMcbride claimed to initially not know what's going on, it would certainly appear that no attempt was made to investigate his side of the situation. Additionally, this seems to be a pattern as he is not the first person I have heard complain about sanctions being taken against them without any notification or other communication.
One big misconception is that lots of people think the other party reported them but lots of reports we've had so far came from by-passers and not "their enemy" and it's not to retaliate to silence their voice. I really encourage this type of behavior. If you see something is not right even if it's not related to you, stand up and report.
To clarify, I never meant to suggest otherwise then this. If I did, I apologize.
Regarding unfair bias towards staff, it has lots of incorrect assumptions. How from one case with very limited knowledge this can be judged? As I said there is an appealing body and we trust them to be fair.
Michael:
What I think has people talking past one another here is that the "final
straw" that led to the ban wasn't a per se ban-worthy offense, *and* there is no clear standard or process for determining when past patterns of behavior can be taken into account in determining whether a given action crosses the line.
This is very subjective and can be true but making everyone a judge is not a good idea. Does everyone have read CoC fully? Did they have trainings or experience with dealing harassments? Did they have access to all of the user's history and reports made? I'm not even slightly proposing that no one should judge CoC, this is pretty dangerous and can lead to horrible things but there is a right way called appeal as outlined in the CoC to make sure correct checks and balances are in place.
Isarra:
A nice sentiment, but unrealistic. We come from too many backgrounds,
too many cultures, make too many typos, and are sufficiently bad at communicating overall as a movement that there will be many things that require clarification. We should always be open to making these clarifications - this is the key to better communication, and thus better understanding. Only from understanding can we improve things, not just ourselves, but our processes, our work, and our movement.
I disagree with some parts. Members of The CoCC are also from different cultures and backgrounds and they should be aware of these differences but problematic comments are in three types: 1- These are clear violation of CoC. A real world example is that you can't grope someone's private parts and then say it was a cultural difference. 2- There are cases that in the gray area but by looking at the history of the user, the pattern is obvious. I suggest reading WP:RUNAWAY. 3- It's a one time thing and it's in the gray area. The CoC can and should contact the reported person and ask for clarification.
The topic of sexual assault has come up multiple times in this thread. Its a very serious crime, and perhaps has special considerations when dealing with it. However, most problematic behaviours are not sexual assault, and we should not orient all our social structures over this one particular crime as if it was the fifth horseman of the Infocalypse. Certainly the current topic that spurned this thread has nothing to do with sexual assault/harassment.
In regards to WP:RUNAWAY - Perhaps there are cases where disruptive actions are difficult to spot due to various evasive patterns. Mzmcbride seems to not be one of these cases, as he is both one of the most prominent and one of the most controversial members of our community for about a decade now. I also disagree that the CoC should clarify only over 1 time things. In my mind, a users history should not be used to determine guilt (Unless perhaps the user is under some sort of formal probation). History could maybe inform what remedies are appropriate or the seriousness of the offence. But I think that each individual offence should be judged on its individual merits. Otherwise we head down the road where "bad" or "unpopular" people have a different standard of justice applied to them than the "good" people.
Sorry for a very late answer, all work and no play makes Amir a dull boy. Best
Thank your for your well considered response. I know this can be an emotionally draining topic and I appreciate your engagement.
Thanks, Brian
On Thu, 16 Aug 2018 at 03:14, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
Thank your for your well considered response. I know this can be an emotionally draining topic and I appreciate your engagement.
Thanks, Brian
This has been one of the longer email discussion threads, itself made controversial due to quasi-official interventions apparently made with the intention of closing it down early. I agree, this does make the topic draining but it has been an important one to have, if the CoC and the non-transparent procedures that seem to enforce it and interpret it are to be seen to be held to account.
I would like to join in the thanks from Brian, and extend that to thank all those that have expressed well supported views in the discussion. Naturally, we should all be thankful to the original whistle-blower, as whether you feel this was undue or not, it has resulted in an opportunity for improvement for a fairer and more open process. It would be jolly nice if CoC Committee members might use this case as a reason to re-examine the ethical need for the Committee to adopt a governance policy that respects and protects whistle-blowers, even if the contents of such a complaint or query may damage the reputation of the Committee, and even if the whistle-blower uses an external forum like this email list.
Around the middle of the discussion there was mention that the way that WMF employees and unpaid volunteers are handled under the Code of Conduct is different. A later response was framed in a way that made it appear that this was a false statement. Though the CoC itself does not mention employees, this was discussed in detail during its creation, along with requirements being firmly stated by WMF legal. As far as I am aware, the Committee does process complaints involving WMF employees differently, because it will share evidence, and presumably any statements made even if these are not "objective evidence", with WMF legal and WMF HR. It is also clear from past statements by WMF legal that any information shared with the WMF is not guaranteed to remain confidential, there are no guarantees as to who will have access to the information or allegations or if they will ever be deleted from WMF databases, and that WMF internal procedures and policies will offer no protection or compensation for non-employees.[1][2] If my understanding of the current state of affairs is wrong, I welcome a factual and supported correction.
1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Archive_1#Reports_involv... 2. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Archive_2#September_22,_...
Thanks Fae
On 15/08/18 22:08, David Barratt wrote:
This isn't a he said, she said https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he_said,_she_said type of issue, it's based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to delete. If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the behavior ought to be self-examined.
One of the complaints here has consistently been that the accusations, evidence, and deliberations are all not made public, so this statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Even then, we shouldn't assume every accusation is made in good faith, nor that every accusation is based on correct interpretations of events. Misunderstandings happen, and sometimes the entire problem is lack of clarity, or context. Given the lack of any public access, this becomes particularly difficult to remedy, or even identify, in any instances where it does come up.
-I
How are these arguments against the Code of Conduct Commitee's actions not arguments that the status quo for the technical community is fine and has always been fine? Is it the opinion here that we a very welcoming environment to new and estabilished contributors alike and that no one has ever stepped over the line? From my, limited, point of view this is how the discussion reads.
Yes, Code of Conduct enforcement is a very different process then enwiki blocking, this is not at all a bug. How enwiki is being argued as a gold standard for community health? Our movement requires a lot of emotional work of its participants and this is not at all an asset. It is great that we could finally have a Code of Conduct and have a community-led process for enforcing it.
There is a lot that we can improve in the CoC and its enforcement, but it is not in the direction of freely allowing non-constructive repeated behavior in technical spaces.
Chico Venancio
Am 14.08.2018 um 09:18 schrieb Adam Wight:
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior and creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
[Note: this is in the abstract, touching on what I feel are the concerns that several of the people involved in this thread have. I'm not commenting on the case that triggered this discussion. That was merely the trigger, it's no longer what this discussion is about.]
I'm asking myself whether this is about form, or about substance. What I mean is: personal attacks are clearly not ok. Constructive criticism is ok. How about aggressive yet objective criticism? And does it make a difference what vocabulary that criticism uses?
Examples:
1) "You clearly didn't read the style guide. Go do that before you waste more of our time".
2) "Go read the fucking manual"!
3) "I can't believe this still hasn't been fixed! This buck has been open for two years, it's clearly a problem for the community! Someone apparently isn't doing their job!"
4) "What the fuck? Still not fixed? What are you guys doing all day?"
These are all Not Nice (tm). They are all aggressive. None of them contain a personal attack. Does it make a difference that two of them contain the word "fuck"? Is expressing anger ok, or a reason for blocking?
I personally don't care much about being "nice", I don't care about vocabulary. I care much about being objective and constructive. And I think it's ok to express anger and disappointment, as long as no personal attacks are involved.
Making people feel safe and welcome should be our goal, but making people feel uncomfortable is sometimes necessary if we want clear and direct communication. I personally consider it an insult to my intelligence if people wrap criticism in pretty language.
Emotionally processing criticism is something adults should be able to do as a matter of course. If we don't make mistakes, we probably don't do anything worthwhile. If nobody can tell us off for making mistakes, we are missing an opportunity to learn from them. If criticism has to be formulated as suggestions, we are loosing clarity, and open up to miscommunication.
So, is this about form? Or substance? Is it about how the recipient feels? About how to formulate criticism?
In my mind, "don't say anything that could make anyone feel bad" cannot be the criterion. "I find your CR-1 offensive" is not something we can accommodate. What, then, shall the criterion be to avoid personal attacks and to prevent verbal abuse?
2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com:
Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word. Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions. I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.
This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize the importance of this or that.
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Bináris wikiposta@gmail.com wrote:
2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com:
Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word. Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions. I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.
This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize the importance of this or that. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Op 15 aug. 2018 om 18:10 heeft Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com het volgende geschreven:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by everyone whenever possible.
-- Siebrand
But that not only does sound very dull, but it doesn't even sound like you don't like or disagree with such behaviour
See the difference between these two sentences, which are trying to say same thing using your definition of "grammar nazi":
* My posts are constantly checked by people who believe that my grammar and spelling should be proper everywhere possible, who keep notifying me when I make mistakes. * I am being terrorized by grammar nazis.
In first sentence, half of people would just not read it because it's too long and dull and other half wouldn't care or understand the point.
The second sentence, on other hand... Proper speech is often boring and ignored, which leads to desperation, which leads to insults and swear words. It's not ideal, but that's how world seems to work.
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Siebrand Mazeland siebrand@kitano.nl wrote:
Op 15 aug. 2018 om 18:10 heeft Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com het volgende geschreven:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by everyone whenever possible.
-- Siebrand
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Slang terms, typically do not maintain the same meaning and intention when used crossed-culturally (otherwise they wouldn't be slang terms). To preserve the intended meaning, I would suggest using a term or phrase that conveys what you are trying to say in a more cross-cultural way.
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 12:26 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
But that not only does sound very dull, but it doesn't even sound like you don't like or disagree with such behaviour
See the difference between these two sentences, which are trying to say same thing using your definition of "grammar nazi":
- My posts are constantly checked by people who believe that my
grammar and spelling should be proper everywhere possible, who keep notifying me when I make mistakes.
- I am being terrorized by grammar nazis.
In first sentence, half of people would just not read it because it's too long and dull and other half wouldn't care or understand the point.
The second sentence, on other hand... Proper speech is often boring and ignored, which leads to desperation, which leads to insults and swear words. It's not ideal, but that's how world seems to work.
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Siebrand Mazeland siebrand@kitano.nl wrote:
Op 15 aug. 2018 om 18:10 heeft Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com het
volgende geschreven:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by
everyone whenever possible.
-- Siebrand
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Petr asks:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
with absence of word "nazi”
Interesting question (in the abstract—meaning as long as we’re not talking about Amir).
There is no standard phrase that comes to mind. Tyrant and despot are too classy, authoritarian too long, stickler not pejorative enough…I’d go with bully. _____________________
Joe Matazzoni Product Manager, Collaboration Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco mobile 202.744.7910 jmatazzoni@wikimedia.org
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
On Aug 15, 2018, at 9:10 AM, Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Bináris wikiposta@gmail.com wrote:
2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com:
Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word. Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions. I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.
This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize the importance of this or that. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi Joe,
Of course I am not talking Amir, he's a nice guy. I think "language bully" probably works here. Thanks for tip ;)
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:25 PM, Joe Matazzoni jmatazzoni@wikimedia.org wrote:
Petr asks:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
with absence of word "nazi”
Interesting question (in the abstract—meaning as long as we’re not talking about Amir).
There is no standard phrase that comes to mind. Tyrant and despot are too classy, authoritarian too long, stickler not pejorative enough…I’d go with bully. _____________________
Joe Matazzoni Product Manager, Collaboration Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco mobile 202.744.7910 jmatazzoni@wikimedia.org
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
On Aug 15, 2018, at 9:10 AM, Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Bináris wikiposta@gmail.com wrote:
2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com:
Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word. Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions. I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.
This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize the importance of this or that. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Pedants? Prescriptivists? Etc... https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/grammar_Nazi
On Wed, 15 Aug 2018, 18:10 Petr Bena, benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
Wiktionary, such a nice website, I wonder who operates it...
I think "language police" is a winner. So again: I hope our community won't turn into a bunch of language cops and put focus back on technical awesome things instead.
Now back to work, there is still big backlog of tasks last time I checked.
On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 7:45 PM, Bence Damokos bdamokos@gmail.com wrote:
Pedants? Prescriptivists? Etc... https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/grammar_Nazi
On Wed, 15 Aug 2018, 18:10 Petr Bena, benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi" with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and doesn't sound dull?
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