On 4/17/24 00:03, Michal Hrusecky wrote:
> Attila Pinter - 1:18 17.04.24 wrote:
>> On Tuesday, April 16th, 2024 at 3:03 PM, Richard Brown <rbrown@suse.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Project,
>>> The latest incident on this list has me questioning the efficacy of the
>>> openSUSE Board
>>>
>>
>> It is difficult to read these words and not agree with it.
>> Many of you interpreted Richard's message as a personal attack on Doug
>> and Patrick, but I fail to see that. The Board supposed to "provide
>> guidance" which in this last incident it failed at doing so miserably
>> well. In the conversation that triggered all this I called on the
>> Board to make a stand on multiple occasions which still not happened.
>> I called Simon's view the Board's view which Neal, and Gerald
>> disagreed with, yet there is still no official stand on the matter
>> from the Board, other than an awkward, long message from Simon which
>> supposed to be an apology? Couldn't tell really...
>
> I don't see it as failure of the board, I think some moderation could
> take place to stop unjustified attacks and all the FUD going on in that
> thread, but I understand that given it was a response to the board mail,
> there is more leniency towards people attacking them as they opted in to
> be a public figure.
>
I've been staying out of this thread, as I'm one of the folks involved,
and doing my best to not see individual responses from board members, as
"The Boards Position" But I take issue with your (and others) assertion
that this is nothing but unjustified attacks and FUD.
This is anything but.
As a moderator on a number of our "Communication Platforms" (Discord,
Matrix, IRC, and tangentially the kbin.social magazine), I can tell you
that if this were just a complaint about a single instance, or even the
odd use of $expletive_of_choice now and then, I don't care, and wouldn't
consider that to be something actionably under the CoC, and haven't in
the past. And I have no intention of doing so in the future.
This issue has popped up because of a repeated pattern of behavior,
language and/or conduct, on multiple of our communication platforms that
obviously makes some of our community members uncomfortable. This isn't
speculation on my part, or spreading FUD, and some of those members have
spoken up in the threads over the last week or so. And to just
discount this all as FUD is disingenuous at best.
> If you ask for a board to take a unified stance, it has to take some
> time. There are several people and to coordinate takes time. Especially
> if you know that you have to be prepared for another troll attack.
>
Again, you call anybody that doesn't agree with your stance a troll.
And I don't appreciate it.
I haven't been engaging with the threads, because I am in fact waiting
for the board to meet, and decide what the official response is going to
be, and I haven't wanted to pour more fuel onto this fire.
>
> While community fights over CoC where everybody says that they support
> it and nobody is against it and it's enforcement 🤷
This is actually patently untrue, as I know from personal experience,
and can go back through the mail archive and find the evidence, if
required, that there are project members, that do oppose the existence
of a Code of Conduct, and pop up basically every time the CoC has to be
enforced.
For the CoC to mean anything, it has to be something thats applied to
the community equally, and it has to actually be applied, not just held
as some sort of stick to threaten people with. And yes, not all of us
are always going to agree with every facet of the Code of Conduct, or
any other official stance of the Project. That's how communities work,
and it's perfectly valid to have community discussions, about the Code,
and to review it over time, to make sure it's still serving the
community.
In communities, as in compromises, nobody is ever fully happy with
things when they have to be written down and enforced, and that's kind
of the point.
But if the lack of enforcement of the CoC and/or community standards is
something that is making a not insignificant portion of the community
uncomfortable in project spaces, or dissuading people from becoming
members and/or contributors, then *I* have a problem with that.
Equally, if our lack of enforcement of that same CoC and/or community
standards is something that makes the project *attractive* to some
people, well, those are largely people that *I* don't personally want to
"work" with.
But this is all academic at this point, until such time as I see a
unified policy response on the matter from the board. I'm trying very
hard to not read any of the individual responses from board members as
any sort of indicator of which way the board is going to decide, and
only as the board members individual opinions as project members.
+1
I have taken a huge step away from the project over the last couple of years, because as far as I can tell the CoC doesn't seem to matter to most of the project.
openSUSE, like the rest of the tech world would love to pretend and believe it is open and welcoming. But, it's not. It is, of course, if you're the right kind of person.
If you're not? Well then. The project will accept your contributions, if it must. It'll accept you as a member... After a LOT of questioning. But, no, it doesn't really want you around.