On Mo, Apr 8 2024 at 21:26:49 +09:30:00, Simon Lees wrote:

On 4/8/24 8:51 PM, Jacob Michalskie wrote:

...

A bit late for that as we've been bridged for a few months now

Currently the bridge to the discord support channel doesn't seem to be bridge (Or is not working reliably) and that has likely helped with the situation. At the same time the "Non-sense" in the IRC side seems to have been at a minimum.

Discord bridges are broken in general, as I'm waiting to replace the current bridge with one that doesn't keep wiping out its own database and isn't poorly maintained. I'm talking about Matrix, which is very much bridged with IRC and Telegram still. LCP [Jake] https://lcp.world/

* Shawn W Dunn [04-08-24 10:38]:

On 4/8/24 03:48, Neal Gompa wrote:

...

== Admins & Mods == * Currently lots of toxicity and non-sense on IRC * Very unwelcoming towards, in particular, new users asking for help * AI: Simon: Will monitor #opensuse, if we reintroduce the irc matrix bridge we won't bridge that channel to matrix

#openSUSE has been relatively quiet and well-behaved the last week or two, #openSUSE-chat is still much of the same, partially due to one of the perpetrators still being a ChanOp, so it's a little hard to moderate.

#openSUSE is currently bridged to #support:opensuse.org on Matrix, but I don't believe it gets further bridged out to Telegram or Discord at the moment.

To the best of my memory #openSUSE-chat isn't bridged to anywhere, and hasn't been.

and for anyone running and irc client, matrix ruins the experience with it's trashy quoting. would be nice to suppress the quoting aside just blocking matrix-o-o after all, it is irc! -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet oftc

On 4/8/24 18:20, Simon Lees wrote:

On 4/9/24 12:07 AM, Shawn W Dunn wrote:

...

On 4/8/24 03:48, Neal Gompa wrote:

...

== Admins & Mods == * Currently lots of toxicity and non-sense on IRC * Very unwelcoming towards, in particular, new users asking for help * AI: Simon: Will monitor #opensuse, if we reintroduce the irc matrix bridge we won't bridge that channel to matrix

#openSUSE has been relatively quiet and well-behaved the last week or two, #openSUSE-chat is still much of the same, partially due to one of the perpetrators still being a ChanOp, so it's a little hard to moderate.

The purpose and role of #openSUSE-chat has always been pretty much anything goes as long as its not a clear violation of the code of conduct and as such there should generally be pretty minimal need for moderation. I'd be hesitant to move it away from such a role without strong agreement from the community that's been active there for many years.

Maybe there is room / need for a space / channel that covers something in between primarily trying to provide support and Anything goes for say openSUSE or Linux specific chat. But i'd be doing such by creating a new channel rather then trying to change the role of #opensuse-chat.

#chat:opensuse.org on matrix is generally much more active, and currently fills that role. And openSUSE actually gets talked about there. While I can certainly understand the desire to have more general "shooting the breeze" type channels, where "openSUSE The Project" might not be the main focus of that channel, and more "openSUSE The Community" is, that really isn't what #opensuse-chat appears to me to be providing. It primarily seems to be a place for a small handful of long time users to hang out, and engage in some sort of flatulence fetish, which I personally find both crude, and unwelcoming to other folks, and question it's value to remain under the umbrella of the openSUSE organization. Just in my light skimming of the channel, when I have time to scroll through things, "openSUSE the Project" and "openSUSE the Community" are rarely discussed, and oftentimes when they *do* come up, they're only brought up in negative terms. Obviously, I can choose not to be in the channel, but is this sort of thing really representative of the project, if somebody were to somehow have #opensuse-chat be their first experience interacting with the Community?

-------- Original Message -------- On 10 Apr 2024, 10:11 am, Simon Lees < sflees@suse.de> wrote: On 4/10/24 3:59 AM, Shawn W Dunn wrote: > On 4/8/24 18:20, Simon Lees wrote: >> >> >> On 4/9/24 12:07 AM, Shawn W Dunn wrote: >>> On 4/8/24 03:48, Neal Gompa wrote: >>> >>>> == Admins & Mods == >>>> * Currently lots of toxicity and non-sense on IRC >>>> * Very unwelcoming towards, in particular, new users asking for help >>>> * AI: Simon: Will monitor #opensuse, if we reintroduce the irc matrix >>>> bridge we won't bridge that channel to matrix >>>> >>> >>> >>> #openSUSE has been relatively quiet and well-behaved the last week or >>> two, #openSUSE-chat is still much of the same, partially due to one >>> of the perpetrators still being a ChanOp, so it's a little hard to >>> moderate. >> >> The purpose and role of #openSUSE-chat has always been pretty much >> anything goes as long as its not a clear violation of the code of >> conduct and as such there should generally be pretty minimal need for >> moderation. I'd be hesitant to move it away from such a role without >> strong agreement from the community that's been active there for many >> years. >> >> Maybe there is room / need for a space / channel that covers something >> in between primarily trying to provide support and Anything goes for >> say openSUSE or Linux specific chat. But i'd be doing such by creating >> a new channel rather then trying to change the role of #opensuse-chat. >> > #chat:opensuse.org on matrix is generally much more active, and > currently fills that role. And openSUSE actually gets talked about there. > > While I can certainly understand the desire to have more general > "shooting the breeze" type channels, where "openSUSE The Project" might > not be the main focus of that channel, and more "openSUSE The Community" > is, that really isn't what #opensuse-chat appears to me to be providing. > > It primarily seems to be a place for a small handful of long time users > to hang out, and engage in some sort of flatulence fetish, which I > personally find both crude, and unwelcoming to other folks, and question > it's value to remain under the umbrella of the openSUSE organization. > > Just in my light skimming of the channel, when I have time to scroll > through things, "openSUSE the Project" and "openSUSE the Community" are > rarely discussed, and oftentimes when they *do* come up, they're only > brought up in negative terms. > > Obviously, I can choose not to be in the channel, but is this sort of > thing really representative of the project, if somebody were to somehow > have #opensuse-chat be their first experience interacting with the > Community? #opensuse-chat really should never be anyone's first interaction with the community, that is the roll of #opensuse. The roll of #opensuse-chat has always been for offtopic discussion allowing regular users of #opensuse to discuss things considered off topic there. This extended to the point where on freenode we used to have a bot setup with the command "!offtopic " which channel moderators could use to send a message saying. : this current discussion is offtopic for #opensuse, please continue the discussion in #opensuse-chat. Naturally over time a community of long term users have developed there and formed strong long term friendships, so I am hesitant to want to take that space away from them and occasionally if people get really off-topic on the main channel and someone else is looking for help we do still send people there. In hindsight #opensuse-offtopic might be a better name but the channel has now existed in its current form since before I joined the project 15 years ago, so I think it'd take a pretty strong case to move it. Also unlike Matrix and Discord irc channels are not immediately discoverable so I wouldn't expect large numbers of new users to end up there. For the record, I haven't always been regularly in that channel because at times in the past the volume of posts was far to high for me to keep up with. But semi regularly i'll join to have a chat with people i've know from #opensuse for many years. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B Considering that you're the only board member replying in this thread I tend to interpret your messages as the stand of the board on the matter. How quickly things can change, but if the current board is happy with things as they are, and consider it normal that's great I guess. Eye opening, really. -- Br, A.

On Thursday, April 11th, 2024 at 10:57 PM, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:

On Wed 2024-04-10, Attila Pinter wrote:

...

Considering that you're the only board member replying in this thread I tend to interpret your messages as the stand of the board on the matter.

How quickly things can change, but if the current board is happy with things as they are, and consider it normal that's great I guess. Eye opening, really.

I don't think this is what it is.

In my case I had scheduled a flight with the sole aim of being able to join Monday's openSUSE board meeting, resulting in a loong day and a short night, followed by another loong day at an event presenting and working a booth and a short night, and I'm still catching up.

(Plus outside of work life hit with a need to support a friend, which quite reduced my time online.)

Not a lack of caring, just sometimes things come together. :-(

For the record, I firmly believe our CoC is not optional.

Gerald

Life happens, I completely understand that, and will not hold that against anyone. However, considering the weight of the conversation - and the damage it did already, likely continue to do so - the community would deserve an official reply from the Board in case Simon's stand on the matter is not shared by all board members. Until this doesn't happen I would expect the situation to just get worse, and harder to fix. Not to rush anyone, but the idea of a forced re-election has already been thrown around. -- Br, A.

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 9:50 AM Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

Op woensdag 10 april 2024 05:11:00 CEST schreef Simon Lees:

...

#opensuse-chat really should never be anyone's first interaction with the community, that is the roll of #opensuse. The roll of #opensuse-chat has always been for offtopic discussion allowing regular users of #opensuse to discuss things considered off topic there.

This extended to the point where on freenode we used to have a bot setup with the command "!offtopic <user>" which channel moderators could use to send a message saying. <user>: this current discussion is offtopic for #opensuse, please continue the discussion in #opensuse-chat.

Naturally over time a community of long term users have developed there and formed strong long term friendships, so I am hesitant to want to take that space away from them and occasionally if people get really off-topic on the main channel and someone else is looking for help we do still send people there.

In hindsight #opensuse-offtopic might be a better name but the channel has now existed in its current form since before I joined the project 15 years ago, so I think it'd take a pretty strong case to move it. Also unlike Matrix and Discord irc channels are not immediately discoverable so I wouldn't expect large numbers of new users to end up there.

For the record, I haven't always been regularly in that channel because at times in the past the volume of posts was far to high for me to keep up with. But semi regularly i'll join to have a chat with people i've know from #opensuse for many years. Sorry to say so, but this feels ( and will feel for others ) as a kick in the nuts of moderators and admins who try to keep the community safe. When we created the CoC we all agreed that these apply to all our platforms. No exceptions. The mods have over a long time received complaints about our IRC and this message implicitely dismisses those complaints. Needless to say that I firmly disagree with that. And as a result, we have the first mod resigning now. So we are losing the wrong people. Myself I will also reconsider if I still want to be a moderator/ admin.

As an individual (and not as a member of the board), I have been unhappy about our IRC presence for a long time. I don't frequent there anymore because of it. I personally do not feel IRC is a good entry point for the openSUSE community and will generally refer people to our Matrix rooms as things are much better there. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 12:23 PM Jim Henderson wrote:

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 15:49:24 +0200, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

...

Sorry to say so, but this feels ( and will feel for others ) as a kick in the nuts of moderators and admins who try to keep the community safe. When we created the CoC we all agreed that these apply to all our platforms. No exceptions. The mods have over a long time received complaints about our IRC and this message implicitely dismisses those complaints. Needless to say that I firmly disagree with that.

I concur with this position. Either the CoC applies in all of the openSUSE community spaces, or it is not useful.

Being "technically not in violation of the CoC" isn't sufficient, IMO. Violating the spirit of the CoC is just as bad as violating the letter of it. It's about intent.

As I understand it, one of the ops in that channel is someone who violated the forum rules repeatedly over years and got themselves banned from the forums permanently. I cannot fathom how someone who repeatedly violates the rules of one of our community spaces is still allowed to be a moderator in another area.

The answer is that it is not acceptable. I do not want someone who was banned in one area to be in charge of another. That's dangerous.

"Because it's always been there" is not a good reason to do nothing.

If people want to sit around and make fart jokes, there are plenty of places on the Internet to do that that are not associated with the openSUSE name. That it's not easily findable isn't the issue. Bad behavior that is hidden is still bad behavior.

If the majority of the board feels the way Simon does, then I'm not sure where that leaves us.

I don't think that's the feeling of the majority of the board. From the meeting in question, it was mostly reluctance to do something when Simon and Georg were telling us it's fixable. Gertjan, Doug, and I all basically said that we need to see this improve. So the board's position is that the status quo isn't acceptable. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

On 4/10/24 18:52, Neal Gompa wrote:

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 12:23 PM Jim Henderson wrote:

...

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 15:49:24 +0200, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

...

Sorry to say so, but this feels ( and will feel for others ) as a kick in the nuts of moderators and admins who try to keep the community safe. When we created the CoC we all agreed that these apply to all our platforms. No exceptions. The mods have over a long time received complaints about our IRC and this message implicitely dismisses those complaints. Needless to say that I firmly disagree with that.

I concur with this position. Either the CoC applies in all of the openSUSE community spaces, or it is not useful.

Being "technically not in violation of the CoC" isn't sufficient, IMO. Violating the spirit of the CoC is just as bad as violating the letter of it. It's about intent.

As I understand it, one of the ops in that channel is someone who violated the forum rules repeatedly over years and got themselves banned from the forums permanently. I cannot fathom how someone who repeatedly violates the rules of one of our community spaces is still allowed to be a moderator in another area.

The answer is that it is not acceptable. I do not want someone who was banned in one area to be in charge of another. That's dangerous.

...

"Because it's always been there" is not a good reason to do nothing.

If people want to sit around and make fart jokes, there are plenty of places on the Internet to do that that are not associated with the openSUSE name. That it's not easily findable isn't the issue. Bad behavior that is hidden is still bad behavior.

If the majority of the board feels the way Simon does, then I'm not sure where that leaves us.

I don't think that's the feeling of the majority of the board. From the meeting in question, it was mostly reluctance to do something when Simon and Georg were telling us it's fixable. Gertjan, Doug, and I all basically said that we need to see this improve.

So the board's position is that the status quo isn't acceptable.

In the last board meeting Simon confirmed that there are no issues with the channel. Quoting the meeting minutes from 2024-04-08: """ * Simon has been monitoring ... and found not need for moderation for the time being. """ I do not understand this lobbying against IRC from people who do not frequent the respective IRC channels themselves (and partially ones who do not even like IRC as a whole) - and I especially do not understand why this discussion is starting again after the topic was considered closed. I am permanently present in #opensuse and it is a welcoming place where people receive help and learn about openSUSE. Also people joining from IRC frequently help users on the Matrix end and vice versa.

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 20:32:18 +0200, Knurpht-openSUSE wrote:

It definitely is not a lobby against IRC.

+1. I understand that some people find live chat a great way to get support. I personally don't, but that's not what this is about. -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 6:39 PM Attila Pinter wrote:

On Wednesday, April 10th, 2024 at 11:52 PM, Neal Gompa wrote:

...

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 12:23 PM Jim Henderson hendersj@gmail.com wrote:

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If the majority of the board feels the way Simon does, then I'm not sure where that leaves us.

This is exactly how I felt reading this conversation, and frankly, I still do.

...

I don't think that's the feeling of the majority of the board. From the meeting in question, it was mostly reluctance to do something when Simon and Georg were telling us it's fixable. Gertjan, Doug, and I all basically said that we need to see this improve.

So the board's position is that the status quo isn't acceptable.

-- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

Given that only Simon had been commenting on the issue until recently, and was tasked with monitoring the problematic channels, his assertion that everything was "fine" is concerning to me. When members of the Board want to selectively enforce the Code of Conduct, it raises questions about the trustworthiness of the entire Board. My 2C.

I don't know about the others, but at least for me, I only responded today because I've been busy this week on lots of other things. I'm preparing to fly out for a conference tomorrow! 😅 Most of the board is of the opinion that our conduct rules should be applied equally, *regardless* of venue. One of the members made the case that IRC is culturally too different and needs special care. We acceded to them to give them a chance to improve things, but at the same time we reaffirmed that IRC is not allowed to remain special. It is an openSUSE venue and must operate in-line with all other openSUSE venues. -- 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

On 4/11/24 12:09 PM, Attila Pinter wrote:

On Thursday, April 11th, 2024 at 6:06 AM, Neal Gompa wrote:

...

Most of the board is of the opinion that our conduct rules should be applied equally, regardless of venue. One of the members made the case that IRC is culturally too different and needs special care. We acceded to them to give them a chance to improve things, but at the same time we reaffirmed that IRC is not allowed to remain special. It is an openSUSE venue and must operate in-line with all other openSUSE venues.

I understand what you're saying, and appreciate your reply, but the fact that it even crosses the mind of a board member to loosen up the CoC for certain channels/platforms is - in my opinion - is deeply concerning. It feels like a betrayal of the work put in by moderators over the years. I've been moderating for a while, and I've never hesitated to enforce the rules, even when it meant taking action against friends. I know I'm not alone in this experience. If members of the board aren't willing to uphold the same standards, it raises some questions.

That is a gross misunderstanding of any of my statements, presuming its me that you are referencing. I by no means believe that behavior that goes against the CoC should be tolerated or allowed. What we seem to be discussing is what language beyond the CoC should be allowed in our "Social" channels. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

On 4/11/24 1:19 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:

On Thu, 11 Apr 2024 12:38:45 +0930, Simon Lees wrote:

...

That is a gross misunderstanding of any of my statements, presuming its me that you are referencing. I by no means believe that behavior that goes against the CoC should be tolerated or allowed. What we seem to be discussing is what language beyond the CoC should be allowed in our "Social" channels.

The "social" channels are still part of the community, Simon.

I recently had cause to ban a member from the forums because he decided to take a run at the GNOME developers in the "Open Chat" section. When called out about it, declared the space as having some sort of "woke agenda" and threw a tantrum in public.

The forums Terms & Conditions predate the CoC, but the CoC codifies a lot of things that we specifically have included for years - including:

--- snip ---

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech. * Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit. * Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information. * Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

Context is important here, and in the context I witnessed such a statement in (as a long running and obvious joke between friends), in my mind it didn't violate this section of the CoC. But I am happy to agree to disagree with people on this. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

On 2024-04-11 05:03, Simon Lees wrote:

Sorry if I didn't make it clear in my previous email but absolutely the CoC does and should apply in this channel and people violating it should be banned. I thought that was implied from my previous reply in the thread.

Having said that If "User1" has known "User2" for many years, I don't think that "User1" sending a message "/me farts at User2" as a morning greeting (and then User2 maybe farting back) would be considered a CoC violation. In almost all our communications spaces it'd be very much off topic but in what is mostly a social space its probably not off topic.

Also i'm unsure how you'd write such guidelines for social channels and probably it should be up to the individual social channel to come up with any guidelines that are required beyond what's currently in the CoC.

But again such behavior is obviously off-topic for our support and development channels and any members action's that violate the CoC should absolutely have appropriate action taken.

Simon, I have been sanctioned by the Board for things I have said in a non-openSUSE channel (Twitter/X), in a discussion in which none of the participants were aggrieved and all parties involved disagreed with the sanction of the Board. The justification for the sanction was precisely that the CoC is scoped in a way to hold account all members of this community as representatives of the Project to all who witness their behaviour. The tone and content of -chat is wholly unacceptable. The Board need to do something about it, not provide a safe-space for toxicity worse than the Board would act upon elsewhere. Your “old boys defence” is wholly unacceptable and, if representative of the Board as a whole, dramatically undermines my faith in any decision regarding conduct. I think our moderators deserve better support from you Regards -- Richard Brown Distributions Architect SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461 Nuremberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich

On 2024-04-11 07:10, Simon Lees wrote:

It may have been in the past, it may still be at times now, however since recently rejoining the channel I am yet to see any such behavior which makes it very hard to take any action. Even the loose example I gave on this list is years old at this point and not something I have personally seen recently.

If you or anyone else have any RECENT examples of such behavior please email them to board@ so that action can be taken as appropriate. Currently we don't have any concrete examples and therefore can't do much other then monitor the situation and hope that things stay pleasant.

If they do not then of course we will actually be able to take action.

Simon, The RECENT behaviour I have issue with is as follows: Your suggestion in this discussion that unacceptable tone between “long running friends” is somehow acceptable. Also Your failure to address the concerns of our moderators in this thread that you are not supporting them as a Board member. Our CoC should be applied consistently or not at all. This is a topic that has already been long learned by the Board. They once trod the path of holding some members to stricter standards than others just because some members have a higher public profile. As one of those with such a profile, I found it grossly unfair that I had to be more careful with what I said in _any_ (not just openSUSE) venues or else risk the wrath of the Board. Given the Board made it clear at the time that they wouldn’t be lowering the standards I have to adhere to (rightly so I might add) the only satisfactory conclusion was the premise that all future cases would be treated to that same strict standard. That is how our moderators operate They deserve your support, or the project deserves a better Board -- Richard Brown Distributions Architect SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461 Nuremberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich

On 2024-04-11 09:23, Simon Lees wrote:

During the period of writing this email Someone has said something which is clearly a CoC violation and has been given a one and only warning, which I believe is fair if we are going to start properly enforcing higher standards after many years. Personally I'm slightly supprised its taken this long. But equally while I expect the CoC to be upheld I also don't believe in punishing people without evidence and due process.

During the process of writing this email, the board has also been given some more specific information about other instances that are more then just "Toilet Humor" and are clear CoC violations which again means appropriate action can actually be taken.

If I compare your responses in this thread with that of folk like Shawn, Attila and Gertjan I'm struck with the unshakable feeling that you're either utterly ignorant to their established positions in the community, or somehow believe your casual engagement for a couple of days somehow outweighs their expertise. Gertjan is both a Board member AND a most grizzled veteran forum moderator for ages Attila is our most active moderator on the busiest platforms we have these days Shawn's been around the block for years also and been consistently engaged in recurrently problematic communities with overly demanding entitled users I am at a loss how you could possibly think to overrule their opinions based on a brief overview of a channel which is clearly problematic. They have been using terms like "a kick in the nuts for moderators" and "the Board want to selectively enforce the Code of Conduct" to describe your responses on this thread. Now they need to read that their views were actually meaningless because the Board is only considering things now they've been given "specific information" Our moderators are there so the Board shouldn't need to be given "specific information".. our moderators should be trusted. I fear the attitude you are demonstrating here shows contempt for those who do significant work keeping our community aligned with our Code of Conduct. If those volunteers choose to no longer do that work, the Board will be increasingly burdened with more such nonsense, nonsense which you could have left to our moderators if you trusted them. I know that as of this thread, Attila is has already ceased moderating reddit and telegram. Shawn will be using his upcoming vacation to decide whether or not to continue working inside openSUSE. If he chooses not to I expect the death of his Kalpa project. This is already causing a greater loss to the openSUSE project than sensible moderation, or even the entire removal of #opensuse-chat would have been. I hope you re-evaluate your priorities as a Board member going forward because I do not think this is a sensible operating model. -- Richard Brown Distributions Architect SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461 Nuremberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich

On 2024-04-11 10:43, Simon Lees wrote:

Until today in my time of monitoring I hadn't seen any issues even close to worth reporting and or moderating (The one I bought up in this list is an example from memory years back and me guessing based off the reports received). As such I made the truthful and accurate statement that in my time of monitoring the channels I hadn't seen any issues and so that was what the basis of this thread was.

Indeed, so we're back to my salient point You're demonstrating a tendency to trust what you witness for a limited period of time over the views of multiple trusted community members who have witnessed this problem for a much longer period of time. These multiple trusted community members who volunteer to deal with this stuff every day, so the Board don't have to. And based on that limited view that you, individually, established yourself, you (and by proxy the whole Board by backing up you alone) effectively undermined the work our moderators do. Literally, figuratively, and practically establishing yourself as a singular arbiter of what whether or not the Code of Conduct applies, counter to those trusted to do so on a daily basis. "Kick in the teeth" indeed The fact you keep on defending yourself and your right to singularly overrule the concerns of our moderators really shows me you are not understanding my objections here at all. Hopefully this mail finally clears things up for you and you can realise how unacceptable a way of working this is. -- Richard Brown Distributions Architect SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461 Nuremberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich

On 4/11/24 9:11 PM, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

Am 11.04.24 um 10:49 schrieb Richard Brown:

...

You're demonstrating a tendency to trust what you witness for a limited period of time over the views of multiple trusted community members who have witnessed this problem for a much longer period of time.

These multiple trusted community members who volunteer to deal with this stuff every day, so the Board don't have to.

That's all fine and good. But even if we all trust the moderators doing a fine job, I still feel like it is a good idea to have a second, separate entity take a look at the issue.

And I could not read Simon saying "there never was an isuse". He clearly stated (quoting from Memory, that's what I remember from my reading the previous thread): "I have been watching this for , and during this time no issues were present, so it seems like the situation is reasonable *right now*".

Personally, I think that's OK.

Also IRC was the first openSUSE community I joined back in 2011, and while we were both on the board Richard, the board appointed me as a moderator of the then #suse irc channel which I have been active in since including the transition to libera chat that you also helped with. It is true that I handn't been in #opensuse-chat as regularly because I was never a mod there and I found it interrupted my productivity if I had it on auto join I have spent significant time there. I have been having issues with my IRC client (the fun of patching and building from source) which means I wasn't in the channel at the time of the initial report but since it was raised with the board I made it a priority to keep it working as well as scroll back and keep track of what was happening over night. The same with #opensuse-chat once it was raised with the board some weeks later. Although I have since been informed that when my client was down the other day and before I re joined #opensuse-chat I did miss a couple of messages that clearly violated the CoC. But the "I have been watching this for X, and during this time no issues were present, so it seems like the situation is reasonable *right now*". Is an accurate statement as to what was said in the board meeting, additionally I stated that generally before that time I was also regularly present in #opensuse although I hadn't been as much in the month before the issue was raised due to client issues. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

On Friday, April 12th, 2024 at 8:13 AM, Attila Pinter wrote:

On Thursday, April 11th, 2024 at 6:41 PM, Stefan Seyfried stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com wrote:

...

Am 11.04.24 um 10:49 schrieb Richard Brown:

...

You're demonstrating a tendency to trust what you witness for a limited period of time over the views of multiple trusted community members who have witnessed this problem for a much longer period of time.

These multiple trusted community members who volunteer to deal with this stuff every day, so the Board don't have to.

That's all fine and good. But even if we all trust the moderators doing a fine job, I still feel like it is a good idea to have a second, separate entity take a look at the issue.

You're correct, but I believe that you're not familiar with the processes of the moderation team. When bans happen it gets announced on a shared channel (at the time when I was part we had 20 members), decisions are always up for debate. Same channel serves as a decision making or supporting place in case things are difficult. On top of that if anybody feels like that a ban is not justified they're always explained that A.) they can reach out to the board for further investigation, B.) open a ticket on code-o-o with the details, or C.) (and this happened on multiple occasions) reach out to other moderators to look into the matter.

This process worked really well in the past, and would continue to work I believe. With that said there is always place for improvements, new mods to take part as well, new ideas for better processes. Hope this helps a bit. The mods-team is not exactly the illuminati :)

-- Br, A.

Apologies, forgot to add the links to the relevant sections in the CoC: - https://en.opensuse.org/Code_of_Conduct#Scope - https://en.opensuse.org/Code_of_Conduct#Who_to_Approach

On 4/12/24 10:43 AM, Attila Pinter wrote:

On Thursday, April 11th, 2024 at 6:41 PM, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

...

Am 11.04.24 um 10:49 schrieb Richard Brown:

...

You're demonstrating a tendency to trust what you witness for a limited period of time over the views of multiple trusted community members who have witnessed this problem for a much longer period of time.

These multiple trusted community members who volunteer to deal with this stuff every day, so the Board don't have to.

That's all fine and good. But even if we all trust the moderators doing a fine job, I still feel like it is a good idea to have a second, separate entity take a look at the issue.

You're correct, but I believe that you're not familiar with the processes of the moderation team. When bans happen it gets announced on a shared channel (at the time when I was part we had 20 members), decisions are always up for debate. Same channel serves as a decision making or supporting place in case things are difficult. On top of that if anybody feels like that a ban is not justified they're always explained that A.) they can reach out to the board for further investigation, B.) open a ticket on code-o-o with the details, or C.) (and this happened on multiple occasions) reach out to other moderators to look into the matter.

This process worked really well in the past, and would continue to work I believe. With that said there is always place for improvements, new mods to take part as well, new ideas for better processes. Hope this helps a bit. The mods-team is not exactly the illuminati :)

To the best of my knowledge IRC mods such as myself were never involved in any part of the setup of this group and have not been invited to join it. This is likely something worth fixing if we'd like more unified moderation across IRC as well. I believe I mentioned this when I first saw such a group being discussed but I never heard anything back. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

On 2024-04-11 10:43, Simon Lees wrote:

All I will say is as a board member, I will personally not take action to remove any member of the community unless I can see good reason.

Initially the board did not receive a detailed report that user X should be banned, just a I think there is an issue here and we might need more moderation. As the boards action on this topic I was asked to monitor #opensuse more closely, which I have, and then more recently #opensuse-chat to see if that was true or if there was one or two isolated instances.

Until today in my time of monitoring I hadn't seen any issues even close to worth reporting and or moderating (The one I bought up in this list is an example from memory years back and me guessing based off the reports received). As such I made the truthful and accurate statement that in my time of monitoring the channels I hadn't seen any issues and so that was what the basis of this thread was.

I also think its rather disingenuous to try and cast yourself here as some neutral arbiter trying to find the truth and acting upon it when, it's quite clear to read on #opensuse-chat that you are actively seeking to defend the channel and the problematic individuals who poorly represent openSUSE within. "<Simotek-Work> paka, yep I know, i'm trying to stand up for it" And sure you gave an official warning today..to an IRC user who lists their Real Name as "Pinche Pendejo" which in Mexican directly translates to something most certainly not PG so I can't explain without breaking the CoC myself. As of writing this mail though, they are still in the channel. And you wonder why people have such a poor opinion of the channel

Until today in my time of monitoring I hadn't seen any issues even close to worth reporting and or moderating (The one I bought up in this list is an example from memory years back and me guessing based off the reports received). As such I made the truthful and accurate statement that in my time of monitoring the channels I hadn't seen any issues and so that was what the basis of this thread was.

To help you see the issues, here are some examples. 2024-April-03 05:40 Masklin: It is a 05:41 Masklin: Wrathful Wednesday 05:42 Masklin: ... because I was forced to start the day changing both tube and tyre on my bike. 05:43 Masklin: ... so I was late to a bunch of things, and got grease on my hands and I was so angry that I absolutely destroyed my toilet with explosive defecation. Masklin: I have a hypothesis that bicycles are the least cooperative inanimate object in existence. Masklin: Sigh. 05:44 Masklin: At least the new tyre is high quality. 10:46 microdroid: Puttanas 2024-April-04 03:57 Masklin: It is a 03:58 Masklin: Thirsty Thursday Masklin: ... because I saw a cute doctor when leaving my PI's office, just for a brief second. She might've been smiling. 03:59 ** Masklin cries incel tears Masklin: microdroid, why do you change name now and then? ** Masklin farts aggressively on microdroid's circuits 04:59 microchip_: I don't change names, microdroid is my tablet :p <---- IRC Channel Op 05:18 Masklin: Mhm 08:16 -Furi-Yuri ** microdroid farts loud The first message is disgusting and I would be having words to that person if they were in the openSUSE Discord (where I am a moderator) The second is straight up sexualisation of women in an inappropriate manner, and then the references to them being an incel is a very large red flag that they like have other sexist or discriminatory beliefs. I would have handed out a warning on first instance, and ban's on subsequent. Just from these messages alone, I would not be going near the openSUSE community if that was shown to me as a new user. I hope now you can "see" that issues are present, and that action should be taken.

On 4/11/24 01:24, Richard Brown wrote:

On 2024-04-11 09:23, Simon Lees wrote:

If those volunteers choose to no longer do that work, the Board will be increasingly burdened with more such nonsense, nonsense which you could have left to our moderators if you trusted them.

I know that as of this thread, Attila is has already ceased moderating reddit and telegram. Shawn will be using his upcoming vacation to decide whether or not to continue working inside openSUSE. If he chooses not to I expect the death of his Kalpa project.

This is already causing a greater loss to the openSUSE project than sensible moderation, or even the entire removal of #opensuse-chat would have been.

I hope you re-evaluate your priorities as a Board member going forward because I do not think this is a sensible operating model.

I'll be honest, this interaction has basically killed my faith in the board to do the things it claims to do. If the only way that any action can be taken, is for egregious, obvious, and documented violations of the Code of Conduct, then it's not worth the bits it takes up on a drive somewhere. I fully support having a Code of Conduct, but there are people that know *exactly* how to play the game, and toe right up to the edge of documented rules and codes of conduct, and stand there, and basically do whatever they want, without "technically" violating said rules, or code. It's a game for them. The user(s) in question have a documented track record, going back *years*, They are permanently banned from *some* parts of the project for their conduct, which is also documented. And nothing has been done. Obviously this board can't be held fully responsible for the actions, or lack of actions of past boards, that would be unreasonable, but to just brush under the rug, that past evidence, really makes *me* question exactly what it is that these user(s) bring to the project that is so damned valuable, that we're willing to continually tolerate their behavior. So yes. Completely coincidentally, and for me, unfortunately the timing is working out, that I've got 24 hours of driving coming up starting at 0600 Friday Morning, where I get to sit in my truck, alone, and really have a good long hard think, about whether this is a project that I'm willing to continue to volunteer my time and effort to. And another 24 hours of the same on the way home in a couple weeks. So lots of time to think. I'm not so egotistical that I think me deciding to stop contributing means anything in the grand scheme of things, to anybody other than myself, and my own peace of mind, and I hate making ultimatums, so I'm not doing so. But If the board can't be trusted to manage users with a clear track record of poor behavior even if that behavior isn't *technically* crossing the line where the Code of Conduct applies, exactly how can the board be trusted to handle more subtle issues, where the Code of Conduct might not come into play at all? Right now, the board doesn't have that trust from me. For what that's worth. If there were a mechanism for a vote of no-confidence in the current board and or governance structure of the project, I'd be seriously considering calling for it.

On Thu 2024-04-11, Shawn W Dunn wrote:

I fully support having a Code of Conduct, but there are people that know *exactly* how to play the game, and toe right up to the edge of documented rules and codes of conduct, and stand there, and basically do whatever they want, without "technically" violating said rules, or code.

This is why when we created the Code of Conduct I was concerned about being too explicit in listing different aspects. On the other hand, like in the world of public law, rules need to be rather clear.

really makes *me* question exactly what it is that these user(s) bring to the project that is so damned valuable, that we're willing to continually tolerate their behavior.

Contributions or whatever anyone may bring to the table should have no bearing on what is acceptable behavior and CoC-compliant and what not. Drive safely! Gerald PS: You have not heard from "the board" as a body those last couple of days; I'll be working to change that.

Hi Simon and others, Even though I'm not a board member I do have an opinion about "toilet humour". It has no place in an open and welcoming environment. If you want to forge a stable and caring community and strive together for a better product toilet humour is borderline bigotry. Appeasement is not something that contributes to that stable and caring community where newcomers and advanced users can exchange thoughts without name calling, insults, and threats. Letting these people roam free is a direct threat to that goal and the principles that are at the core of the CoC. I think the board needs to have a long hard look in the mirror and think if it is able to enforce the Code of Conduct. If not it is a dead letter and not worth the paper it's written on. When can those rules be not applied because it is only "Toilet Humour" and "Boys will be boys". You can't have it both ways. It's time to choose. Kind regards, Natasha Op do 11 apr 2024 om 09:23 schreef Simon Lees :

On 4/11/24 3:20 PM, Richard Brown wrote:

...

On 2024-04-11 07:10, Simon Lees wrote:

...

It may have been in the past, it may still be at times now, however since recently rejoining the channel I am yet to see any such behavior which makes it very hard to take any action. Even the loose example I gave on this list is years old at this point and not something I have personally seen recently.

If you or anyone else have any RECENT examples of such behavior please email them to board@ so that action can be taken as appropriate. Currently we don't have any concrete examples and therefore can't do much other then monitor the situation and hope that things stay pleasant.

If they do not then of course we will actually be able to take action.

Simon,

The RECENT behaviour I have issue with is as follows:

Your suggestion in this discussion that unacceptable tone between “long running friends” is somehow acceptable.

As someone who has been the parent of 4 year olds, one thing I learned is there is a time and place for "Toilet Humor", while my children are now older sometimes being on the board feels a lot like once again being the parent of a 4 year old.

In my personal opinion most Toilet humor likely isn't against the CoC. It is almost certainly off topic in almost all our communication channels, but I tend to lean towards it not being so in our social channels unless it is constant repeated and annoying.

...

Also

Your failure to address the concerns of our moderators in this thread that you are not supporting them as a Board member.

Our CoC should be applied consistently or not at all.

This is a topic that has already been long learned by the Board. They once trod the path of holding some members to stricter standards than others just because some members have a higher public profile.

As one of those with such a profile, I found it grossly unfair that I had to be more careful with what I said in _any_ (not just openSUSE) venues or else risk the wrath of the Board.

Given the Board made it clear at the time that they wouldn’t be lowering the standards I have to adhere to (rightly so I might add) the only satisfactory conclusion was the premise that all future cases would be treated to that same strict standard.

That is how our moderators operate

They deserve your support, or the project deserves a better Board

The original complaint the board received was about some "Toilet Humor" in #opensuse making its way from irc to matrix over the bridge. In the context of #opensuse this is very much off topic, in the context of #opensuse-chat this really isn't enough info to take any action on.

During the period of writing this email Someone has said something which is clearly a CoC violation and has been given a one and only warning, which I believe is fair if we are going to start properly enforcing higher standards after many years. Personally I'm slightly supprised its taken this long. But equally while I expect the CoC to be upheld I also don't believe in punishing people without evidence and due process.

During the process of writing this email, the board has also been given some more specific information about other instances that are more then just "Toilet Humor" and are clear CoC violations which again means appropriate action can actually be taken.

-- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net

Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

On Thu 2024-04-11, Natasha Ament wrote:

Even though I'm not a board member I do have an opinion about "toilet humour". It has no place in an open and welcoming environment.

Agreed. I'll try to get this added to our CoC. Gerald

Op vrijdag 12 april 2024 04:59:01 CEST schreef Emily Gonyer:

The CoC needs to be applied everywhere, equally. IRC, Discord, Matrix, Telegram, forums, reddit, the mailing list, etc. Some places will undoubtedly be harder than others. But the sooner we stop treating some places with kid gloves, and like they can get away with everything, the better off ALL of our communities will be. A full and buig YES to that,

-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board openSUSE Forums Team

Newcomers to the project may rarely stumble onto openSUSE-chat as their first point of contact any longer, but I'm sure it still happens. There are still millions of people out there with crappy Internet connections, for whom things like voice and video chat are still cumbersome and IRC are still fast and easy. On Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 2:28 AM Stefan Seyfried < stefan.seyfried@googlemail.com> wrote:

Am 11.04.24 um 21:53 schrieb Natasha Ament:

...

Hi Simon and others,

Even though I'm not a board member I do have an opinion about "toilet humour". It has no place in an open and welcoming environment. If you want to forge a stable and caring community and strive together for a better product toilet humour is borderline bigotry. Appeasement is not something that contributes to that stable and caring community where newcomers and advanced users can exchange thoughts without name calling, insults, and threats. Holy crap! (is this now bigotry, toilet humor, or even both? ;-)

Just to put some perspective in: I cannot imagine a newcomer trying to first contact openSUSE stumblig accidentally into opensuse-chat irc channel.

Newcomers don't use IRC. By definition, "uses IRC" means that this is not a newcomer but a (very) old fart. I mean, heck, even I am too young to still use IRC :-P

At least in my case, all these torches and pitchforks being wielded in this thread *is* about as much driving me (as a contributor) away as the stupid "humor" shown in some obscure communication channel. -- Stefan Seyfried

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard Feynman

Am Freitag, 12. April 2024, 08:27:48 CEST schrieb Stefan Seyfried:

[...] At least in my case, all these torches and pitchforks being wielded in this thread *is* about as much driving me (as a contributor) away as the stupid "humor" shown in some obscure communication channel.

Sadly, I have to agree with that. And I, as a human, don't want to be a member of a community that eventually rewards treating others in this way. -- The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

On Sat 2024-04-13, Attila Pinter wrote:

IMO this is a lot more about the board suggesting that certain channels or people should be moderated differently than others, and enforce the CoC selectively.

I very much don't believe that's how the board (as a body) sees things. I very much do believe there have been unfortunate communications, misunderstandings and many assumptions these last couple of days - not with any bad intentions, mind, alas with sad consequences.

With that said, I believe that the CoC covers "toilet humor" under civility.

Yes, or so I would have hoped. Still from what I've seen the last days I wanted to clarify (and for us as a project to communicate) that beyond doubt. Gerald PS: https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/project@lists.opensuse.org/thread/E... is an example of an official statement from the board, not (me as) an individual or individual board member.

On Wed 2024-04-10, Lubos Kocman wrote:

It would be nice if the AI effort would be in sync with the open source policy team in SUSE. It's on our agenda too.

AI in the context of openSUSE board meeting minutes stands for "Action Item". In particular when used as in "AI Gerald: bake a cake for Lubos" it means the real me needs to get into the kitchen, not some piece of software. 😎 Gerald