openSUSE Board minutes 2024-07-08
Board Meeting Monday 2024-07-08 14:00 CEST Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Simon, Shawn, Patrick Missed: Guests: From Previous Meetings We never made a formal decision on the policies for Permanent bans. Syncing after openSUSE Conference Shawn could not attend in person Gerald attended on Thursday, then sick and stuck in bed the following days :-( Those present in person report many constructive discussions. Talk generally perceived well. Only one member noting "If the name changes I'll leave". Several raised a desire to consider alternate names to "Geeko(s)". General feedback at the event was people were fine with renaming part of the talk at oSC24, less so with a removing the commuity brand outlook and splitting up the projects Discord/Matrix/IRC feedback has generally been ambivalent. A fair bit of narrative of "being forced" by SUSE. It seems that there is enough positive desire within the community to a good extent since this shouldn't just be the board driving proposals. It seems that more contributors are open to the idea of changing then the general userbase, at the same time there are some more SUSE employees that are less likely to want to change. Board to await the maturation period for the community to discuss before moving forward with a planning/phased approach Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
On Wednesday, July 24th, 2024 at 11:49 AM, ddemaio openSUSE <ddemaio@opensuse.org> wrote:
Board Meeting Monday 2024-07-08 14:00 CEST
Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Simon, Shawn, Patrick Missed: Guests:
From Previous Meetings
We never made a formal decision on the policies for Permanent bans.
Based on this, it seems to me that the Board might be overlooking the established moderation team's role and expertise. Is this a correct understanding? Would this also mean that all previous permanent bans are invalidated by the Board? To provide some context for my interpretation let's take a look at the tasks defined under Governance[1]: - Act as a central point of contact - Help resolve conflicts - Communicate community interests to SUSE - Facilitate communication with all areas of the community - Facilitate decision making processes where needed Which of these tasks justifies interfering with or overruling the moderation team's ongoing work and efforts?
Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
Wouldn't it be more consistent with the governance tasks to communicate with the community promptly, rather than waiting for the "discussion to die down"? -- Br, A. [1]: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles#Governance
Op donderdag 1 augustus 2024 02:37:34 CEST schreef Attila Pinter:
On Wednesday, July 24th, 2024 at 11:49 AM, ddemaio openSUSE <ddemaio@opensuse.org> wrote:
Board Meeting Monday 2024-07-08 14:00 CEST
Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Simon, Shawn, Patrick Missed: Guests:
From Previous Meetings
We never made a formal decision on the policies for Permanent bans.
Based on this, it seems to me that the Board might be overlooking the established moderation team's role and expertise. Is this a correct understanding? Would this also mean that all previous permanent bans are invalidated by the Board?
To provide some context for my interpretation let's take a look at the tasks defined under Governance[1]:
- Act as a central point of contact - Help resolve conflicts - Communicate community interests to SUSE - Facilitate communication with all areas of the community - Facilitate decision making processes where needed
Which of these tasks justifies interfering with or overruling the moderation team's ongoing work and efforts?
Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
Wouldn't it be more consistent with the governance tasks to communicate with the community promptly, rather than waiting for the "discussion to die down"?
-- Br, A.
[1]: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles#Governance I can only say that I fully share the concerns expressed here, Attila. To be honest, I have no words to express my disappoinment in our governance. To add: Coming up with some "Banning rules" is outright a violation of the Board rules. As in : "The board should provide guidance[1] and support existing governance structures, but shouldn't direct or control development, since community mechanisms exist to accomplish the goals of the project. The board should document decisions and policies. " Where did this go wrong ? -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Forums Team openSUSE Mods Team
-------- [1] https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles
On 8/1/24 10:07 AM, Attila Pinter wrote:
On Wednesday, July 24th, 2024 at 11:49 AM, ddemaio openSUSE <ddemaio@opensuse.org> wrote:
Board Meeting Monday 2024-07-08 14:00 CEST
Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Simon, Shawn, Patrick Missed: Guests:
From Previous Meetings
We never made a formal decision on the policies for Permanent bans.
Based on this, it seems to me that the Board might be overlooking the established moderation team's role and expertise. Is this a correct understanding? Would this also mean that all previous permanent bans are invalidated by the Board?
To provide some context for my interpretation let's take a look at the tasks defined under Governance[1]:
- Act as a central point of contact - Help resolve conflicts - Communicate community interests to SUSE - Facilitate communication with all areas of the community - Facilitate decision making processes where needed
Speaking as myself. I believe the primary trigger here was there has been conflicts that have been escalated from the mod team to the board where some of the actions that we looked at taking as a Board were lifetime bans. This lead us to a discussion around whether after a certain number of years people should be able to make a case that they have changed and the life ban should be lifted. We were aiming to discuss this further during our face to face meeting but due to the other topics we didn't get to that which is why its still listed as a reminder in the minutes. As an aside to that someone if someone came to the board stating that a moderator banned me ten years ago for X and still wont unban me then that is a conflict between two people in the community that the board is entitled to help resolve but that wasn't the case in this instance.
Which of these tasks justifies interfering with or overruling the moderation team's ongoing work and efforts?
Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
Wouldn't it be more consistent with the governance tasks to communicate with the community promptly, rather than waiting for the "discussion to die down"?
If the board had something further to communicate then what was already communicated then yes. In this case the board made the decision to engage in the discussion as individuals rather then reach a formal consensus on the topic as the board and release a statement. This note in the minutes was more relating to the boards role of "Facilitating communication" and "Facilitating decision making", At the time of this board meeting the "Rebranding of the Project" thread on the mailing list had probably been running for less then 48 hrs. At that point we didn't need to facilitate discussion further as plenty of discussion was happening and we weren't ready for any decision making. The board is close to but still working on the topic of how to further facilitate communication and decision making you will see an official message from the board on that topic soon so I wont comment further in this thread. -- 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 Thursday, August 1st, 2024 at 10:54 AM, Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
Speaking as myself.
I believe the primary trigger here was there has been conflicts that have been escalated from the mod team to the board where some of the actions that we looked at taking as a Board were lifetime bans.
This lead us to a discussion around whether after a certain number of years people should be able to make a case that they have changed and the life ban should be lifted. We were aiming to discuss this further during our face to face meeting but due to the other topics we didn't get to that which is why its still listed as a reminder in the minutes.
As an aside to that someone if someone came to the board stating that a moderator banned me ten years ago for X and still wont unban me then that is a conflict between two people in the community that the board is entitled to help resolve but that wasn't the case in this instance.
It seems there's a mix-up between active moderation duties and the Board's conflict resolution responsibilities. To prevent situations where it might appear that the Board is overstepping its boundaries, I suggest closer coordination and communication with the moderation team.
Which of these tasks justifies interfering with or overruling the moderation team's ongoing work and efforts?
Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
Wouldn't it be more consistent with the governance tasks to communicate with the community promptly, rather than waiting for the "discussion to die down"?
If the board had something further to communicate then what was already communicated then yes. In this case the board made the decision to engage in the discussion as individuals rather then reach a formal consensus on the topic as the board and release a statement.
This note in the minutes was more relating to the boards role of "Facilitating communication" and "Facilitating decision making", At the time of this board meeting the "Rebranding of the Project" thread on the mailing list had probably been running for less then 48 hrs. At that point we didn't need to facilitate discussion further as plenty of discussion was happening and we weren't ready for any decision making.
Quote from Shawn's original mail that opened up the whole "Rebranding of the Project" conversation: "I do want to be clear, this message is me posting as "Community Member SFalken" not "openSUSE Board Member SFalken"" Based on this quote, it appears that the Board did not facilitate this conversation. Additionally, there has been no official response from the Board addressing the significant misconduct revealed during that discussion. -- Br, A.
On 8/1/24 4:13 PM, Attila Pinter wrote:
On Thursday, August 1st, 2024 at 10:54 AM, Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
Speaking as myself.
I believe the primary trigger here was there has been conflicts that have been escalated from the mod team to the board where some of the actions that we looked at taking as a Board were lifetime bans.
This lead us to a discussion around whether after a certain number of years people should be able to make a case that they have changed and the life ban should be lifted. We were aiming to discuss this further during our face to face meeting but due to the other topics we didn't get to that which is why its still listed as a reminder in the minutes.
As an aside to that someone if someone came to the board stating that a moderator banned me ten years ago for X and still wont unban me then that is a conflict between two people in the community that the board is entitled to help resolve but that wasn't the case in this instance.
It seems there's a mix-up between active moderation duties and the Board's conflict resolution responsibilities. To prevent situations where it might appear that the Board is overstepping its boundaries, I suggest closer coordination and communication with the moderation team.
Well in this case the moderation team approached the board asking us to consider taking project wide action beyond each of the platforms that they moderate. And yes working with the moderation team to improve the processes and communication in this area is something this board has been doing and is now documented at [1]
Which of these tasks justifies interfering with or overruling the moderation team's ongoing work and efforts?
Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
Wouldn't it be more consistent with the governance tasks to communicate with the community promptly, rather than waiting for the "discussion to die down"?
If the board had something further to communicate then what was already communicated then yes. In this case the board made the decision to engage in the discussion as individuals rather then reach a formal consensus on the topic as the board and release a statement.
This note in the minutes was more relating to the boards role of "Facilitating communication" and "Facilitating decision making", At the time of this board meeting the "Rebranding of the Project" thread on the mailing list had probably been running for less then 48 hrs. At that point we didn't need to facilitate discussion further as plenty of discussion was happening and we weren't ready for any decision making.
Quote from Shawn's original mail that opened up the whole "Rebranding of the Project" conversation: "I do want to be clear, this message is me posting as "Community Member SFalken" not "openSUSE Board Member SFalken""
Based on this quote, it appears that the Board did not facilitate this conversation. Additionally, there has been no official response from the Board addressing the significant misconduct revealed during that discussion.
Yes, had Shawn not started this discussion I was going to suggest that the board send a similar email to start it in our meeting that would have been within a day or two of the email going out. Before that would have been harder as I was still traveling back from the conference and I suspect others were as well. 1. https://code.opensuse.org/project/mod-team/blob/main/f/moderation-flow.md -- 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 Thursday, August 1st, 2024 at 2:40 PM, Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
Yes, had Shawn not started this discussion I was going to suggest that the board send a similar email to start it in our meeting that would have been within a day or two of the email going out. Before that would have been harder as I was still traveling back from the conference and I suspect others were as well.
I understand that travel from the conference can impact timing. However, the fact remains that the discussion was initiated by Shawn as an individual, rather than by the Board as a coordinated effort. Since this wasn't new information to the Board, it points to a lack of communication and raises questions about the Board's proactive involvement with the community. My 2C. -- Br, A.
On 8/1/24 03:27, Attila Pinter wrote:
On Thursday, August 1st, 2024 at 2:40 PM, Simon Lees <sflees@suse.de> wrote:
Yes, had Shawn not started this discussion I was going to suggest that the board send a similar email to start it in our meeting that would have been within a day or two of the email going out. Before that would have been harder as I was still traveling back from the conference and I suspect others were as well.
I understand that travel from the conference can impact timing. However, the fact remains that the discussion was initiated by Shawn as an individual, rather than by the Board as a coordinated effort. Since this wasn't new information to the Board, it points to a lack of communication and raises questions about the Board's proactive involvement with the community.
My 2C.
-- Br, A.
I considered this an important thing to get started, and collect data. So yeah, I lit the fire on it, rather than waiting, and wanted to make it clear that I was acting as a project member, and not a board member. Was it a mistake to do so? I don't believe it was, but I also didn't feel I had the authority to present it in my role as a board member, as I was operating with the understanding from our previous board meeting, that a statement "From the Board" would be forthcoming. Maybe I was wrong. But I also don't feel this is ultimately the boards decision to *make*, other than to facilitate the discussion, and to deal with the communications between SUSE and the Project, and whatever legal snafu's might arise as part of this discussion. This may, or may not put me at odds with my other board members, I honestly don't know.
On Friday, August 2nd, 2024 at 12:11 AM, Shawn W Dunn <sfalken@cloverleaf-linux.org> wrote:
On 8/1/24 03:27, Attila Pinter wrote:
On Thursday, August 1st, 2024 at 2:40 PM, Simon Lees sflees@suse.de wrote:
Yes, had Shawn not started this discussion I was going to suggest that the board send a similar email to start it in our meeting that would have been within a day or two of the email going out. Before that would have been harder as I was still traveling back from the conference and I suspect others were as well.
I understand that travel from the conference can impact timing. However, the fact remains that the discussion was initiated by Shawn as an individual, rather than by the Board as a coordinated effort. Since this wasn't new information to the Board, it points to a lack of communication and raises questions about the Board's proactive involvement with the community.
My 2C.
-- Br, A.
I considered this an important thing to get started, and collect data.
So yeah, I lit the fire on it, rather than waiting, and wanted to make it clear that I was acting as a project member, and not a board member.
Was it a mistake to do so? I don't believe it was, but I also didn't feel I had the authority to present it in my role as a board member, as I was operating with the understanding from our previous board meeting, that a statement "From the Board" would be forthcoming.
Maybe I was wrong.
But I also don't feel this is ultimately the boards decision to make, other than to facilitate the discussion, and to deal with the communications between SUSE and the Project, and whatever legal snafu's might arise as part of this discussion.
This may, or may not put me at odds with my other board members, I honestly don't know.
You did nothing wrong. Better to facilitate the conversation on the community level then waiting for the Board to start it. Honestly, I find myself skeptical about any communications from the current Board, and given some of their actions and the lack of communication, I believe this skepticism is warranted. After some reflection, I think it is best to focus on rebranding and restructuring our governance for the future of the project, and just ignore these issues. -- Br, A.
On 2024-08-01 05:54, Simon Lees wrote:
On 8/1/24 10:07 AM, Attila Pinter wrote:
On Wednesday, July 24th, 2024 at 11:49 AM, ddemaio openSUSE <ddemaio@opensuse.org> wrote:
Board Meeting Monday 2024-07-08 14:00 CEST
Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Simon, Shawn, Patrick Missed: Guests:
From Previous Meetings
We never made a formal decision on the policies for Permanent bans.
Based on this, it seems to me that the Board might be overlooking the established moderation team's role and expertise. Is this a correct understanding? Would this also mean that all previous permanent bans are invalidated by the Board?
To provide some context for my interpretation let's take a look at the tasks defined under Governance[1]:
- Act as a central point of contact - Help resolve conflicts - Communicate community interests to SUSE - Facilitate communication with all areas of the community - Facilitate decision making processes where needed
Speaking as myself.
As an aside to that someone if someone came to the board stating that a moderator banned me ten years ago for X and still wont unban me then that is a conflict between two people in the community that the board is entitled to help resolve but that wasn't the case in this instance.
This is basically how it went. Helping to resolve conflicts is the key point here. Think of these note serving as a memory for those in the future. Maybe at some point we can over the governance for some things to the almighty AI. Dissenting views provide context for future discussions, so thanks for adding more context.
Which of these tasks justifies interfering with or overruling the moderation team's ongoing work and efforts?
Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
Wouldn't it be more consistent with the governance tasks to communicate with the community promptly, rather than waiting for the "discussion to die down"?
If the board had something further to communicate then what was already communicated then yes. In this case the board made the decision to engage in the discussion as individuals rather then reach a formal consensus on the topic as the board and release a statement.
This note in the minutes was more relating to the boards role of "Facilitating communication" and "Facilitating decision making", At the time of this board meeting the "Rebranding of the Project" thread on the mailing list had probably been running for less then 48 hrs. At that point we didn't need to facilitate discussion further as plenty of discussion was happening and we weren't ready for any decision making.
Perhaps proves the point made above with context and timelines.
The board is close to but still working on the topic of how to further facilitate communication and decision making you will see an official message from the board on that topic soon so I wont comment further in this thread.
dito
On Thu, 1 Aug 2024 13:24:08 +0930, Simon Lees wrote:
I believe the primary trigger here was there has been conflicts that have been escalated from the mod team to the board where some of the actions that we looked at taking as a Board were lifetime bans.
My understanding is that this would be *project-wide* lifetime bans, as opposed to platform-specific bans. From a forums standpoint, we generally issue temporary bans for rules/CoC violations. Individuals who attempt to circumvent the temporary ban, or who show no interest in following the established rules/CoC standards will earn a permaban on the platform that will be lifted only if they agree to follow the rules and code of conduct as laid down. We haven't yet encountered a situation where someone has followed up and agreed to that, so it hasn't been tested yet (nor what to do if someone agrees to follow the rules and then doesn't anyways; my personal expectation is that at that point, they've demonstrated that we can't trust their word, and the permaban becomes irrevocable). -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits
On 7/31/24 17:37, Attila Pinter wrote:
On Wednesday, July 24th, 2024 at 11:49 AM, ddemaio openSUSE <ddemaio@opensuse.org> wrote:
Board Meeting Monday 2024-07-08 14:00 CEST
Present: Doug, Gerald, Neal, Simon, Shawn, Patrick Missed: Guests:
From Previous Meetings
We never made a formal decision on the policies for Permanent bans.
Based on this, it seems to me that the Board might be overlooking the established moderation team's role and expertise. Is this a correct understanding? Would this also mean that all previous permanent bans are invalidated by the Board?
To provide some context for my interpretation let's take a look at the tasks defined under Governance[1]:
- Act as a central point of contact - Help resolve conflicts - Communicate community interests to SUSE - Facilitate communication with all areas of the community - Facilitate decision making processes where needed
Which of these tasks justifies interfering with or overruling the moderation team's ongoing work and efforts?
Action Item: Gerald, statement from the board after discussion dies down.
Wouldn't it be more consistent with the governance tasks to communicate with the community promptly, rather than waiting for the "discussion to die down"?
-- Br, A.
[1]: https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Guiding_principles#Governance
I will be honest, I thought this was settled, at the board level, and the reason that the following was added to https://code.opensuse.org/project/mod-team/blob/main/f/moderation-flow.md: "Flow of Moderation Consideration Platform Moderators -> Mod-Team -> Board Platform Moderators are generally responsible for the moderation of their platform, and act mostly autonomously, within the needs of that Platform (e.g. The Moderation needs of a platform like the Forums, don't necessarily align with Matrix or IRC for instance, just due to the nature of the platforms) The Mod-Team and their Pagure Project are a bit of a mixed role, being a single point of contact to reach the moderators of all of our Official Platforms, as well as being the Point of Contact for appeals of platform moderators decisions if required The openSUSE Board is the final arbiter of disputes within the Project, including Moderation actions, and will generally defer to the Moderators, when considering appeals, and is unlikely to overturn Moderation decisions without extraordinary circumstances or evidence. Role of the openSUSE Board in Moderation The openSUSE Board does not engage in direct moderation action, and will refer reports sent to them, back down to the Mod-Team, for the Moderators to handle. The only exception being reports sent directly to board@opensuse.org that are clear and egregious violations of the Code of Conduct The Board is there to support the Moderation team, and will continue to act in that capacity, the Mod-Team or individual platform moderators can reach out at any time, for assistance." I didn't commit that document until after I'd had the board look it over, and suggest some changes. I'd like to *think* that makes the boards role clear, and I thought the issue was settled. Is there some confusion as to whether this is the case? Do I, or somebody need to reword this? Or is this another case of an official statement regarding moderation actions never actually having been formulated by the board and communicated to the Membership?
participants (6)
-
Attila Pinter -
ddemaio openSUSE -
Jim Henderson -
Knurpht-openSUSE -
Shawn W Dunn -
Simon Lees