Handling attacks on a community
([Distributions] Mar 11, 2020 21:07 UTC (Wed) (jake))
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By Jake Edge
March 11, 2020
A recent [2]message to the debian-project mailing list by Debian project leader (DPL) Sam Hartman is about a proposal to moderate the mailing list. There have been repeated attacks on various project members and the distribution itself posted to the list over the last few years, many from sock-puppet, throwaway email accounts, which spawned a recent discussion on the debian-private mailing list; Hartman was summarizing that discussion for those who are not on the private list. But the problems on debian-project (and other Debian public lists) are kind of just the tip of the iceberg; there is an ongoing, persistent effort to roil the distribution and its community.
The discussion on debian-private happened while Hartman was taking a vacation; his summary was partly from catching up with his email and also a continuation of the [3]consensus building work he has done during his DPL term. The debian-private discussion led to a [4]bug report that asked for debian-project to become a moderated list " for the time being ", which is where Hartman suggested the technical discussion on how to do the moderation should go. In parallel with the private discussion, there was also a [5]thread on the project list about how distributed moderation of a mailing list might work. The idea is that multiple moderators could help filter out messages from new subscribers to the list.
Moderating a mailing list can be controversial in free-software communities, but Hartman's summary and the thread on how to actually go about doing it indicate that there is a fairly strong consensus that the problems need to be addressed. As he put it:
There was strong although not universal support for the idea that we need to be doing something about abusive mails we're receiving. People describe the current climate as toxic and several people said that if we did not succeed in doing better, it would drive them away from Debian lists as a communications medium. Others indicated through words and actions that they were already cutting back their Debian involvement as a result.
Moderation of problematic lists was by far the best supported option for responding. Many people spoke in favor. Many people volunteered to help. I am not aware of anyone who favored any technical choice over moderation.
It is not hard to find examples of the kinds of messages that are being targeted (e.g. [6]here , [7]here , [8]here , and [9]here for fairly recent examples). It is also clear that many participants on the mailing list have concluded who is behind at least some of the anonymous/pseudonymous attacks: Daniel Pocock. In fact, Pocock was the subject of a different [10]message from Hartman on debian-project; while he did not directly connect the dots between the messages and his action expelling Pocock from the Debian project entirely, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the two are related.
Hartman's message was meant to explain why he felt his action as DPL was reasonable under the [11]Debian Constitution but more detail on the expulsion was provided in Hartman's [12]reply to an "intent to package" (ITP) [13]bug filed by Pocock. Hartman noted that normally the project " avoids discussing expulsions in public ", but that Pocock's use of the term "Debian Developer" and attempts to act as one after having that status revoked caused the project to make an exception. Hartman also described the expulsion in some detail:
In response to some of the same actions that ultimately ended up in your key being removed from the maintainer's keyring, you were banned from all our lists. I reviewed how to respond to this ITP with members of ftpmaster, members of the account manager team and members of the community team. As part of that discussion, the question came up as to whether you were welcome at all in our community. With the concurrence of members of the account managers, ftpmaster, and community team, I conclude that you are not welcome in the Debian Project. Please stop all interactions with our lists, our BTS [bug-tracking system], our forums, salsa.debian.org, and any other Debian Project communications channels. Allowing your activity and presence in our community would only support behavior that is not welcome in our community--behavior that you have declined to stop despite multiple requests from multiple parties over an extended period of time.
It is also hard not to connect the dots between the moderation effort, expulsion, and Hartman's comments in his [14]announcement that he would not be seeking a second consecutive term as DPL. That message, which is well worth reading in its entirety, is a sober reflection on how his term has matched up with his campaign platform. It is a balanced look at his successes and failures as DPL. Tucked into the end of that message, though, is a cautionary tale for his successor.
Throughout my entire term as DPL, Debian has been subjected to a campaign of harassment from a former project member. The primary thing I'm doing my last few months as DPL is dealing with lawyers. This is not a new thing: this issue persisted through much of my predecessor's term as well.
[...] Whoever steps forward as DPL is going to need to spend some significant energy continuing to defend our community. You won't be alone. There are a number of people who are spending significant energy on this problem inside Debian and in the greater Free Software community. But I won't lie: it is a real emotional drag.
[...] My overall reaction to this situation is disappointment and horror thinking about how much damage a single motivated person can do to a community.
The damage wrought to the community is really the crux of the matter. Projects and their communities do have the right, and, some would say, the responsibility, to determine who is allowed to be a part of their community. Regardless of the merit of the accusations, a community can conclude that someone has stepped over the line and can no longer be associated with it. [15]Freedom of association cuts both ways.
It is also worth noting that, so far at least, no one has thrown their hat into the ring to run for DPL. The [16]call for nominations went out on March 7 and the nomination period ends March 14. If the current situation persists, the nomination period may need to be extended, as it [17]was last year . Hartman's warning may be giving potential candidates pause.
Debian is not the only organization to have complained about Pocock's behavior. In May 2019, the list of subscribers to [18]Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) mailing lists was obtained and used inappropriately, [19]according to FSFE President Matthias Kirschner :
In brief, your email addresses were used by a third party to create another mailing list, unaffiliated with and without the consent and prior knowledge of the FSFE, on the web infrastructure of another company. Shortly afterwards, the third party then ran automation scripts to unsubscribe all members of the FSFE's list, which resulted in you receiving emails requesting your confirmation to unsubscribe from the FSFE's lists.
Said third-party is identified as " Daniel Pocock and/or Ready Technology (UK) Limited ", but the message makes it clear that the FSFE believes that Pocock was, at a minimum, involved in this.
Additionally, unsubscribe requests for all members of the FSFE Discussion List were automatically generated on two separate occasions: on 2 May 2019 and 5 May 2019 (one of them proven to be from Pocock), regardless of whether or not they had requested to be unsubscribed from the FSFE Discussion List. This resulted in members receiving emails requesting them to confirm their unsubscribe request from the FSFE Discussion List.
We have gathered enough evidence to be confident that these are the events that transpired, and also to identify the parties involved in the breach. Accordingly, we have banned all relevant email addresses from the FSFE web infrastructure.
More background, at least from the FSFE side, can be found in a [20]lengthy message from [21]General Assembly member Florian Snow. There may well be legitimate concerns that Pocock has with the FSFE organizational structure, as [22]noted in this message , for example, but his tactics are seemingly not welcome in that community. As Michael Kesper [23]put it in response to a [24]message from Pocock, where he pointedly does not deny the list-subscription manipulation: " We as a community want to communicate with respect to each other as otherwise no community can survive. "
The situation is undoubtedly messy, but it is the case that several organizations have determined that the behavior is not something they want in their communities. Fedora also [25]removed Pocock's blog from its [26]Planet Fedora blog aggregator due to Code of Conduct violations. Clearly Pocock believes he is being unfairly treated by these projects, which is not surprising, but is also not really germane to the question at hand. Communities must set their own standards and individuals need to either stay within the bounds—or go elsewhere. Continuing to engage, or attack, communities that have, wrongly or rightly, excluded you is as clearly wrong as it is counterproductive. On the flipside, communities must try to ensure that they are even-handed and reasonable; sometimes reputations and even employment can be seriously affected by actions of this sort.
Dissent within a community is to be expected and should be welcomed—as long as the manner of dissenting stays within the community bounds. Opinions and complaints, even if they are not shared widely, are typically not "censored" or otherwise hindered so long as they are respectfully presented. Personal attacks, veiled threats, innuendo, and the like, however, are generally seen as "not respectful" even in a community as notoriously fractious as Debian. Dissent is important, but so is community. There is a balance to be struck and it is up to the community to do so for itself.
[1] https://lwn.net/subscribe/
[2] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/tslo8tgge89.fsf@suchdamage.org/
[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/790382/
[4] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=952465
[5] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/20200223095553.xn3jhl7uulibpwdf@gpm.stappers.nl/
[6] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/D8yjhiI1gZEt8XLHtzQI8NuwVViFQYh3UNoa7FtSy4zrYhnxbcRzorRBnWCOpPZbSO2ebmHC3xsuctHdpVtXMuVgj80vOwaMjr2PpDdx23U=@protonmail.com/
[7] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/959afc2e-a0ae-bbdc-14bc-3d0b93de8903@debian.community/
[8] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/H3wJbOsvVY23EsMR7o0Y20StUbTWCkBFYV5KKlhez1xxWXyPnrd0Sr7Zxr_okyeIuEsADHXRhM-juXVUamswjXU70tCVXEpGIPNHkb4o3jY=@protonmail.com/
[9] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/ea-mime-5e072373-6227-653ea4a2@www-2.mailo.com/
[10] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/tsllfoamorb.fsf@suchdamage.org/
[11] https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
[12] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=953378#12
[13] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=953378
[14] https://lwn.net/Articles/813831/
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
[16] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-vote/20200307210304.GA3399625@roeckx.be/
[17] https://lwn.net/Articles/782786/
[18] https://fsfe.org/index.en.html
[19] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012802.html
[20] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012740.html
[21] https://fsfe.org/about/team.en.html
[22] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012760.html
[23] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012778.html
[24] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012776.html
[25] https://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/commit/?id=04afe8249f895e6e07e2ebb25c286166e40dcbad
[26] http://fedoraplanet.org/
LWN.net is a subscriber-supported publication; we rely on subscribers to keep the entire operation going. Please help out by [1]buying a subscription and keeping LWN on the net.
By Jake Edge
March 11, 2020
A recent [2]message to the debian-project mailing list by Debian project leader (DPL) Sam Hartman is about a proposal to moderate the mailing list. There have been repeated attacks on various project members and the distribution itself posted to the list over the last few years, many from sock-puppet, throwaway email accounts, which spawned a recent discussion on the debian-private mailing list; Hartman was summarizing that discussion for those who are not on the private list. But the problems on debian-project (and other Debian public lists) are kind of just the tip of the iceberg; there is an ongoing, persistent effort to roil the distribution and its community.
The discussion on debian-private happened while Hartman was taking a vacation; his summary was partly from catching up with his email and also a continuation of the [3]consensus building work he has done during his DPL term. The debian-private discussion led to a [4]bug report that asked for debian-project to become a moderated list " for the time being ", which is where Hartman suggested the technical discussion on how to do the moderation should go. In parallel with the private discussion, there was also a [5]thread on the project list about how distributed moderation of a mailing list might work. The idea is that multiple moderators could help filter out messages from new subscribers to the list.
Moderating a mailing list can be controversial in free-software communities, but Hartman's summary and the thread on how to actually go about doing it indicate that there is a fairly strong consensus that the problems need to be addressed. As he put it:
There was strong although not universal support for the idea that we need to be doing something about abusive mails we're receiving. People describe the current climate as toxic and several people said that if we did not succeed in doing better, it would drive them away from Debian lists as a communications medium. Others indicated through words and actions that they were already cutting back their Debian involvement as a result.
Moderation of problematic lists was by far the best supported option for responding. Many people spoke in favor. Many people volunteered to help. I am not aware of anyone who favored any technical choice over moderation.
It is not hard to find examples of the kinds of messages that are being targeted (e.g. [6]here , [7]here , [8]here , and [9]here for fairly recent examples). It is also clear that many participants on the mailing list have concluded who is behind at least some of the anonymous/pseudonymous attacks: Daniel Pocock. In fact, Pocock was the subject of a different [10]message from Hartman on debian-project; while he did not directly connect the dots between the messages and his action expelling Pocock from the Debian project entirely, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the two are related.
Hartman's message was meant to explain why he felt his action as DPL was reasonable under the [11]Debian Constitution but more detail on the expulsion was provided in Hartman's [12]reply to an "intent to package" (ITP) [13]bug filed by Pocock. Hartman noted that normally the project " avoids discussing expulsions in public ", but that Pocock's use of the term "Debian Developer" and attempts to act as one after having that status revoked caused the project to make an exception. Hartman also described the expulsion in some detail:
In response to some of the same actions that ultimately ended up in your key being removed from the maintainer's keyring, you were banned from all our lists. I reviewed how to respond to this ITP with members of ftpmaster, members of the account manager team and members of the community team. As part of that discussion, the question came up as to whether you were welcome at all in our community. With the concurrence of members of the account managers, ftpmaster, and community team, I conclude that you are not welcome in the Debian Project. Please stop all interactions with our lists, our BTS [bug-tracking system], our forums, salsa.debian.org, and any other Debian Project communications channels. Allowing your activity and presence in our community would only support behavior that is not welcome in our community--behavior that you have declined to stop despite multiple requests from multiple parties over an extended period of time.
It is also hard not to connect the dots between the moderation effort, expulsion, and Hartman's comments in his [14]announcement that he would not be seeking a second consecutive term as DPL. That message, which is well worth reading in its entirety, is a sober reflection on how his term has matched up with his campaign platform. It is a balanced look at his successes and failures as DPL. Tucked into the end of that message, though, is a cautionary tale for his successor.
Throughout my entire term as DPL, Debian has been subjected to a campaign of harassment from a former project member. The primary thing I'm doing my last few months as DPL is dealing with lawyers. This is not a new thing: this issue persisted through much of my predecessor's term as well.
[...] Whoever steps forward as DPL is going to need to spend some significant energy continuing to defend our community. You won't be alone. There are a number of people who are spending significant energy on this problem inside Debian and in the greater Free Software community. But I won't lie: it is a real emotional drag.
[...] My overall reaction to this situation is disappointment and horror thinking about how much damage a single motivated person can do to a community.
The damage wrought to the community is really the crux of the matter. Projects and their communities do have the right, and, some would say, the responsibility, to determine who is allowed to be a part of their community. Regardless of the merit of the accusations, a community can conclude that someone has stepped over the line and can no longer be associated with it. [15]Freedom of association cuts both ways.
It is also worth noting that, so far at least, no one has thrown their hat into the ring to run for DPL. The [16]call for nominations went out on March 7 and the nomination period ends March 14. If the current situation persists, the nomination period may need to be extended, as it [17]was last year . Hartman's warning may be giving potential candidates pause.
Debian is not the only organization to have complained about Pocock's behavior. In May 2019, the list of subscribers to [18]Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) mailing lists was obtained and used inappropriately, [19]according to FSFE President Matthias Kirschner :
In brief, your email addresses were used by a third party to create another mailing list, unaffiliated with and without the consent and prior knowledge of the FSFE, on the web infrastructure of another company. Shortly afterwards, the third party then ran automation scripts to unsubscribe all members of the FSFE's list, which resulted in you receiving emails requesting your confirmation to unsubscribe from the FSFE's lists.
Said third-party is identified as " Daniel Pocock and/or Ready Technology (UK) Limited ", but the message makes it clear that the FSFE believes that Pocock was, at a minimum, involved in this.
Additionally, unsubscribe requests for all members of the FSFE Discussion List were automatically generated on two separate occasions: on 2 May 2019 and 5 May 2019 (one of them proven to be from Pocock), regardless of whether or not they had requested to be unsubscribed from the FSFE Discussion List. This resulted in members receiving emails requesting them to confirm their unsubscribe request from the FSFE Discussion List.
We have gathered enough evidence to be confident that these are the events that transpired, and also to identify the parties involved in the breach. Accordingly, we have banned all relevant email addresses from the FSFE web infrastructure.
More background, at least from the FSFE side, can be found in a [20]lengthy message from [21]General Assembly member Florian Snow. There may well be legitimate concerns that Pocock has with the FSFE organizational structure, as [22]noted in this message , for example, but his tactics are seemingly not welcome in that community. As Michael Kesper [23]put it in response to a [24]message from Pocock, where he pointedly does not deny the list-subscription manipulation: " We as a community want to communicate with respect to each other as otherwise no community can survive. "
The situation is undoubtedly messy, but it is the case that several organizations have determined that the behavior is not something they want in their communities. Fedora also [25]removed Pocock's blog from its [26]Planet Fedora blog aggregator due to Code of Conduct violations. Clearly Pocock believes he is being unfairly treated by these projects, which is not surprising, but is also not really germane to the question at hand. Communities must set their own standards and individuals need to either stay within the bounds—or go elsewhere. Continuing to engage, or attack, communities that have, wrongly or rightly, excluded you is as clearly wrong as it is counterproductive. On the flipside, communities must try to ensure that they are even-handed and reasonable; sometimes reputations and even employment can be seriously affected by actions of this sort.
Dissent within a community is to be expected and should be welcomed—as long as the manner of dissenting stays within the community bounds. Opinions and complaints, even if they are not shared widely, are typically not "censored" or otherwise hindered so long as they are respectfully presented. Personal attacks, veiled threats, innuendo, and the like, however, are generally seen as "not respectful" even in a community as notoriously fractious as Debian. Dissent is important, but so is community. There is a balance to be struck and it is up to the community to do so for itself.
[1] https://lwn.net/subscribe/
[2] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/tslo8tgge89.fsf@suchdamage.org/
[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/790382/
[4] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=952465
[5] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/20200223095553.xn3jhl7uulibpwdf@gpm.stappers.nl/
[6] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/D8yjhiI1gZEt8XLHtzQI8NuwVViFQYh3UNoa7FtSy4zrYhnxbcRzorRBnWCOpPZbSO2ebmHC3xsuctHdpVtXMuVgj80vOwaMjr2PpDdx23U=@protonmail.com/
[7] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/959afc2e-a0ae-bbdc-14bc-3d0b93de8903@debian.community/
[8] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/H3wJbOsvVY23EsMR7o0Y20StUbTWCkBFYV5KKlhez1xxWXyPnrd0Sr7Zxr_okyeIuEsADHXRhM-juXVUamswjXU70tCVXEpGIPNHkb4o3jY=@protonmail.com/
[9] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/ea-mime-5e072373-6227-653ea4a2@www-2.mailo.com/
[10] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-project/tsllfoamorb.fsf@suchdamage.org/
[11] https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
[12] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=953378#12
[13] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=953378
[14] https://lwn.net/Articles/813831/
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
[16] https://lwn.net/ml/debian-vote/20200307210304.GA3399625@roeckx.be/
[17] https://lwn.net/Articles/782786/
[18] https://fsfe.org/index.en.html
[19] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012802.html
[20] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012740.html
[21] https://fsfe.org/about/team.en.html
[22] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012760.html
[23] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012778.html
[24] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2019-May/012776.html
[25] https://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/commit/?id=04afe8249f895e6e07e2ebb25c286166e40dcbad
[26] http://fedoraplanet.org/
Handling attacks on a community
Is there any kind of information about what Daniel Pocock's beef with Debian and FSFE is? Everyone seems to be extremely vague about it as if we're all supposed to know who this guy is, but it might be nice to have some catch-up material for those of us who haven't been following as closely.
Handling attacks on a community
Is there any kind of information about what Daniel Pocock's beef with Debian and FSFE is? Everyone seems to be extremely vague about it as if we're all supposed to know who this guy is, but it might be nice to have some catch-up material for those of us who haven't been following as closely.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
So, at one level, it doesn't matter. Debian asked Daniel to leave, and rather than leave, he engages in a campaign challenging the community.
At another level, back in 2018, some things happened while Daniel was representing Debian that the DPL and account managers (and others) were unhappy about.. Debian asked Daniel to take a six-month break and not to represent Debian (and thus not to be a developer) during that time.
Instead of taking some time away from Debian, Daniel escalated the situation, spammed a list of most project members accusing various people of misconduct, and things went from there, eventually ending up with my action Sunday.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
So, at one level, it doesn't matter. Debian asked Daniel to leave, and rather than leave, he engages in a campaign challenging the community.
At another level, back in 2018, some things happened while Daniel was representing Debian that the DPL and account managers (and others) were unhappy about.. Debian asked Daniel to take a six-month break and not to represent Debian (and thus not to be a developer) during that time.
Instead of taking some time away from Debian, Daniel escalated the situation, spammed a list of most project members accusing various people of misconduct, and things went from there, eventually ending up with my action Sunday.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
Regardless of what happened. When you asked him to take break and he didn't, and then escalated attacks (the unsubscribe thing at FSFE in particular was extremely childish) you were fully justified in telling him to get lost. As the article mentions, freedom of association goes both ways. Debian has every right to tell him to take a hike and his behavior afterwards is only further justification you made the right decision.
From my point of view, because of abuse like this there aren't that many public lists that don't moderate new members for a while to verify they aren't sock puppet accouts or bots. This type of moderation is perfectly reasonable.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
Regardless of what happened. When you asked him to take break and he didn't, and then escalated attacks (the unsubscribe thing at FSFE in particular was extremely childish) you were fully justified in telling him to get lost. As the article mentions, freedom of association goes both ways. Debian has every right to tell him to take a hike and his behavior afterwards is only further justification you made the right decision.
From my point of view, because of abuse like this there aren't that many public lists that don't moderate new members for a while to verify they aren't sock puppet accouts or bots. This type of moderation is perfectly reasonable.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
Maybe I'm being an idiot, but... how would moderation of new members help when Pocock is forging messages from *existing* members? Wouldn't they go through anyway?
Daniel Pocock and Debian
Maybe I'm being an idiot, but... how would moderation of new members help when Pocock is forging messages from *existing* members? Wouldn't they go through anyway?
Daniel Pocock and Debian
It shouldn't be too hard to block what he's doing in this case; he's using a different email address and only forging the screen name. In the long run, though, blocking spoofing might require either signed email or a move to something other than email that would let Debian vet the poster's ID better than a spoofable email address.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
It shouldn't be too hard to block what he's doing in this case; he's using a different email address and only forging the screen name. In the long run, though, blocking spoofing might require either signed email or a move to something other than email that would let Debian vet the poster's ID better than a spoofable email address.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
I hope I didn't sound critical of Debian for this most recent action. The stuff he's described as doing here is way beyond what any organization should have to tolerate. Even if he started from a legitimate gripe, he's gone far beyond acceptable means of getting redress.
Daniel Pocock and Debian
Hi Sam,
FWIW, I would like to thank you for all your effort. Being a long-time Debian user (directly and indirectly), I am deeply grateful for the work of awesome and levelheaded people like you. Being a head-shaking spectator to all the commotion, I admire your patience and I am sorry for the emotional stress you have to endure for being at the forefront of the project.
Thanks and all the best wishes!
Handling attacks on a community
> what Daniel Pocock's beef with Debian and FSFE is?
I think [1]https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/12/msg00018.... is the least shrill summary from Daniel's side. I've never seen an explanation from Debian's side any more detailed than Sam's "some things happened"; this case was also the first time the Debian Account Managers expelled/suspended a developer without immediately notifying other developers via -private (unless you count [2]https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/09/msg00029.... ), and to the best of my knowledge the reasoning/evidence has still never been provided, which seems like a spectacularly bad sign to me.
There's a few "anonymous" posts on debian.community that give more detail, presumably from Daniel's side, [3]https://debian.community/google-influence-free-open-sourc... seems to have more background than I've seen elsewhere; there was also the "mollamby" post to -project mid last year suggested some sort of summer-of-code related conflict of interest; but there wasn't any public response from those accused, and the accusation was then scrubbed from the -project archives. [4]https://debian.community/assets/mollamby.pdf looks like an accurate snapshot of the post though.
My guess from all that is that Chris Lamb (the Debian project leader at the time) was irritated with Daniel due to reimbursement hassles, then there was some scandal in GSoC involving a relationship between a student and either a mentor or admin; so I'm guessing it was Daniel (who was both an admin and a mentor), and all the secrecy is to protect the privacy of the student involved. Then that put a question mark over the $17k in GSoC funding or the validity of all the Debian students' participation in GSoC, and maybe it all got resolved by brute force by temporarily kicking Daniel out of Debian entirely? Meanwhile there was some conflict with the FSFE where Daniel had been elected Fellowship representative or something and took that as meaning his job was to hold the board accountable to the members, which involved irritating either many of the same people making it hard for Daniel in Debian, or at least friends of the same people? And it seems Daniel's father died during all of this. So I assume Daniel feels hard done by given he was trying to do his best and having been treated unprecedentedly harshly while at the same time going through a personal tragedy. That's all wild speculation though; I haven't seen anything in public or private that says any of the above. Fortunately Debian's commitment that "We won't hide problems" only refers to bug reports.
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/12/msg00018.html
[2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2018/09/msg00029.html
[3] https://debian.community/google-influence-free-open-source-software-community-threats-sanctions-bullying/
[4] https://debian.community/assets/mollamby.pdf
Handling attacks on a community
> That's all wild speculation
I fail to understand why you think "making shit up out of whole cloth" is adding any value.
Handling attacks on a community
> That's all wild speculation
I fail to understand why you think "making shit up out of whole cloth" is adding any value.
Handling attacks on a community
Perhaps he's trying to invoke Cunningham's Law.
Handling attacks on a community
Perhaps he's trying to invoke Cunningham's Law.
Handling attacks on a community
I want to add a point here: It's not that there is a struggle within Debian whether Pocock's demands are acceptable or not. While, for reasons that should be easy to understand, much of the discussion refered to was carried out in a nonpublic mailing list (debian-private@lists.debian.org), *none* of the many participants of the discussion argued that Pocock was treated unfairly.
I want to make explicit my full support (and admiration to the energy invested in this issue) to Sam Hartman, as well as to other people who have been harassed and abused by Pocock. The Debian community did all it could not to "feed the troll", to contact Pocock privately and in friendlier terms, to mediate... To no avail.
I can even say, I believe we are colectively beffudled as to *what* Pocock is trying to achieve. It is more than clear that it is *impossible* for him to regain Debian Developer status. He burned all possible bridges. Why does he keep investing energy in harassing the project? I don't know.
But, at this point, I don't particularly care anymore. I only want him to stop.
Criminal Behaviour
Reading the article, I'm struck by the fact that it quite clearly accuses Pocock of criminal behaviour.
Obtaining the list of FSFE subscribers was almost certainly criminal under European Law. Unsubscribing them from the mailing lists is pretty certainly criminal too.
Of course, seeing as I understand he is an Australian in Australia, pressing said criminal charges is likely to be difficult, but he might get a nasty shock if someone tried.
Cheers,
Wol
Criminal Behaviour
Australia? Damn, that's a shame. After seeing that he cowers behind a UK company I was hoping he'd get his house door battering-rammed off its hinges, a good few years in a cell under the Computer Misuse Act, and a footnote in some local newspaper.
Criminal Behaviour
Australia? Damn, that's a shame. After seeing that he cowers behind a UK company I was hoping he'd get his house door battering-rammed off its hinges, a good few years in a cell under the Computer Misuse Act, and a footnote in some local newspaper.
Criminal Behaviour
FWIW: Back then Daniel was an elected representative for the FSFE Fellows as per its constitution. Thus it can be expected that he has a right to contact those fellows and report to them. The FSFE didn't want any information to go out to their fellows without first being filtered. Thus Daniel was in the conflict that he could not achieve his duties. I supported and defended his right to contact those who he represented. I am not aware what happened later because shortly after that turmoil I unsubscribed from all FSFE MLs and later even terminated my membership despite being one of its founders. Anyway it should be clear that I did not and do not support any kind of rogue behaviour at FSFE or any other places.
Werner Koch
Access to supporter database in FSFE
To cite from Florian's email (linked above in the article):
At around that time, he [Daniel] requested a mailing to be sent to all Supporters. At the time, we had a pretty informal policy of how those got sent out and even though we felt his mailing was inflammatory, we sent it out unchanged. We installed a more formal policy for mailings afterwards which applies to everyone and he called that censorship.
So Daniel's mail went out as he wanted it. And later FSFE crafted an improved policy more matching the expectations and consent supporters had been giving FSFE to contact them.
The event of someone gathering and abusing subscriber email addresses of FSFE's public mailing lists was much later (as far as I remember) and not directly connected.
Regards,
Bernhard Reiter (FSFE GA member and co-founder)
Access to supporter database in FSFE
To cite from Florian's email (linked above in the article):
At around that time, he [Daniel] requested a mailing to be sent to all Supporters. At the time, we had a pretty informal policy of how those got sent out and even though we felt his mailing was inflammatory, we sent it out unchanged. We installed a more formal policy for mailings afterwards which applies to everyone and he called that censorship.
So Daniel's mail went out as he wanted it. And later FSFE crafted an improved policy more matching the expectations and consent supporters had been giving FSFE to contact them.
The event of someone gathering and abusing subscriber email addresses of FSFE's public mailing lists was much later (as far as I remember) and not directly connected.
Regards,
Bernhard Reiter (FSFE GA member and co-founder)
Criminal Behaviour
It was my understanding Australia has much more draconian laws covering this type of behavior, much more similar to US CFAA rules that broadly criminalize everything that isn't explicitly permitted. At least in comparison to the much more sane EU rules that is. Given that being true it wouldn't be out of the realm for a prosecution to happen in Australia if someone wanted to spend the time and money to get Australian law enforcement involved but it would likely take significant time and very significant amounts of money. (it would probably require hiring a local Australian lawyer to do the leg work that would be required). There's also the option of getting an Australian court to issue the equivalent of a do not contact order because of the past behavior. Subsequent bad behavior after that order would be much easier to extract penalties from.
In addition, the actions of impersonating people, and several of the other actions listed could probably fall under Australia's defamation laws which IIRC aren't that different than the UK's if someone wanted to go after him Civilly.
As always in these situations the burden is on the harassed because the internet makes harassment a million times easier.
Criminal Behaviour
Currently resident in Switzerland, I understand: holds British and Australian nationality, I believe. Three amateur radio callsigns are respectively Australian, Swiss and British.
As ever, I could be very wrong :)
Criminal Behaviour
Currently resident in Switzerland, I understand: holds British and Australian nationality, I believe. Three amateur radio callsigns are respectively Australian, Swiss and British.
As ever, I could be very wrong :)
Criminal Behaviour
[1]https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06823839/officers
Irish in Switzerland apparently.
[1] https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06823839/officers
Handling attacks on a community
It's probably worth mentioning that, while in most cases it's obvious that the nominal sender of the harassment emails was forged (either being members of the Debian community or people who are clearly not linked to the free software community at all), the one claiming to be from Mary-Anne Wolf is an extreme example - she's someone with some involvement in the free software community but with no real links to Debian. I checked with her and she did not send that mail. Pocock has demonstrated willingness to use entirely innocent people's identities to push his agenda.
Handling attacks on a community
If so, then this article should be edited to make clear that she did not send the mail that was linked to.
Handling attacks on a community
If so, then this article should be edited to make clear that she did not send the mail that was linked to.
Handling attacks on a community
I'm sorry to be so blunt but - while this Pocock-person certainly seems to have acted in a seriously weird way (very lightly put) - the idea that the open source community would "welcome dissent" instead of considering "personal attacks, veiled threats, innuendo, and the like" THE perfect method for handling it is laughable. To paraphrase Kurt Tucholsky "a group can be summarily judged based on the worst kind of behaviour its willing to tolerate from those it considers members". And this means (for instance) Robert Landley flaming people to a crisp because they dare to criticize his technical decisions, to pick a single example of the many I have encountered myself.
Handling attacks on a community
Codes of Conduct (CoC) have become expected, imposed and as we see, enforced.
Many folks today appear to be what is colloquially termed "snowflakes" - so emotionally fragile that even giving a (any, whatsoever) trigger warning, is considered itself "triggering" and therefore subject to CoC censorship, etc., see e.g. [1]https://reason.com/2018/07/29/triggered-by-trigger-warnings/
This is depressing to see - from Linus Torvalds and the Linux Foundation, to Git in recent times, to Richard Stallman (RMS), founder of the Free Software Foundation (USA) being "resigned" by the so-called "FSF community", and of course Debian and most other FLOSS "communities".
It is true - holding strictly to certain principles such as freedom of speech (modulo "that which is not actually unlawful"), is not easy, likely not possible, for a "community" that wants to be maximally inclusive of humans with fragile egos and/or fragile emotional natures).
So as humans we are different, with different needs and different wants. "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear. Staunch free speech upholders want rigorous and robust discussions, with the right to, at least sometimes, offend the "wilting flower" types.
These two types of communities are to some degree not compatible.
Either bend the knee as Linus Torvalds has done, and to some extent RMS, or advocate for your preferred environment, or create your preferred environment - but to attack a so called "community" which has, by the authority of those in authority in that community, expelled you from that community, is probably a fruitless and counter productive exercise.
Embrace your truth, and find others of like spirit/temperament, and create that which you are moved to create.
[1] https://reason.com/2018/07/29/triggered-by-trigger-warnings/
Handling attacks on a community
Codes of Conduct (CoC) have become expected, imposed and as we see, enforced.
Many folks today appear to be what is colloquially termed "snowflakes" - so emotionally fragile that even giving a (any, whatsoever) trigger warning, is considered itself "triggering" and therefore subject to CoC censorship, etc., see e.g. [1]https://reason.com/2018/07/29/triggered-by-trigger-warnings/
This is depressing to see - from Linus Torvalds and the Linux Foundation, to Git in recent times, to Richard Stallman (RMS), founder of the Free Software Foundation (USA) being "resigned" by the so-called "FSF community", and of course Debian and most other FLOSS "communities".
It is true - holding strictly to certain principles such as freedom of speech (modulo "that which is not actually unlawful"), is not easy, likely not possible, for a "community" that wants to be maximally inclusive of humans with fragile egos and/or fragile emotional natures).
So as humans we are different, with different needs and different wants. "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear. Staunch free speech upholders want rigorous and robust discussions, with the right to, at least sometimes, offend the "wilting flower" types.
These two types of communities are to some degree not compatible.
Either bend the knee as Linus Torvalds has done, and to some extent RMS, or advocate for your preferred environment, or create your preferred environment - but to attack a so called "community" which has, by the authority of those in authority in that community, expelled you from that community, is probably a fruitless and counter productive exercise.
Embrace your truth, and find others of like spirit/temperament, and create that which you are moved to create.
[1] https://reason.com/2018/07/29/triggered-by-trigger-warnings/
Handling attacks on a community
What is fascinating to observe in all of this is how "fragile" some of the people complaining about codes of conduct seem to be, to the point that "broflake" looks like a perfectly reasonable coinage for describing them.
Handling attacks on a community
What is fascinating to observe in all of this is how "fragile" some of the people complaining about codes of conduct seem to be, to the point that "broflake" looks like a perfectly reasonable coinage for describing them.
Handling attacks on a community
> "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear.
Just like you crying here, begging for CoCs to disappear? What a broflake.
Handling attacks on a community
> "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear.
> Just like you crying here, begging for CoCs to disappear? What a broflake.
Not what I said, but meh...
So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?
It is of course your right to agree with such treatment of various founders, as we have witnessed a fair bit of in recent times. Good lessons for future founders (to enshrine their "broflake" power CoCs before the snowflakes have a chance to usurp power and damage the founders).
Long term, I believe this is a functional parting of the ways between humans with different preferred ways of being in this world.
The CoC for those of robust temperament, is a different CoC to those of snowflake temperament.
Snowflakes are entitled to their CoC, "broflakes" and those who prefer more freedom in their communication environment, are entitled to their CoC - although I have yet to see a broflake CoC in writing :)
In the mean time we continue in this time of turmoil where unspoken expectations of some, in some cases many, have begun to be put first into CoCs and then into force, and this clash of expectations and turmoil is made public. Over, and over, again.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the "broflakes", those of robust emotional temperament, though evidently a minority, are inherently pioneers, willing and able to blaze new trails which few others see or would dare, until the land is cleared and first settlements built.
Most are settlers or homies.
'Tis the way of things.
Handling attacks on a community
> "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear.
> Just like you crying here, begging for CoCs to disappear? What a broflake.
Not what I said, but meh...
So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?
It is of course your right to agree with such treatment of various founders, as we have witnessed a fair bit of in recent times. Good lessons for future founders (to enshrine their "broflake" power CoCs before the snowflakes have a chance to usurp power and damage the founders).
Long term, I believe this is a functional parting of the ways between humans with different preferred ways of being in this world.
The CoC for those of robust temperament, is a different CoC to those of snowflake temperament.
Snowflakes are entitled to their CoC, "broflakes" and those who prefer more freedom in their communication environment, are entitled to their CoC - although I have yet to see a broflake CoC in writing :)
In the mean time we continue in this time of turmoil where unspoken expectations of some, in some cases many, have begun to be put first into CoCs and then into force, and this clash of expectations and turmoil is made public. Over, and over, again.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the "broflakes", those of robust emotional temperament, though evidently a minority, are inherently pioneers, willing and able to blaze new trails which few others see or would dare, until the land is cleared and first settlements built.
Most are settlers or homies.
'Tis the way of things.
Handling attacks on a community
See you later, then...
Handling attacks on a community
See you later, then...
Handling attacks on a community
> So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?
Absolutely. People should learn to behave like decent human beings, and not like entitled brats.
Handling attacks on a community
> So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?
> Absolutely. People should learn to behave like decent human beings, and not like entitled brats.
In other words:
Cyberax: "Richard Matthew Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and staunch catalyst, visionary, upholder and all around grandfather for the entire FLOSS/Libre movement for ~30 years now, behaved or spoke, in my ever so high opinion, "like an entitled brat," and so therefore (I say) it is a great thing that he was "resigned" from his FSF."
So ... speaking of "entitled brats" ...
["Mummy told me I am fully entitled to be free from all confronting words by anyone forever." - You know, that's not a bad definition of "snowflake", not bad at all ... we shall be making use of that :D]
Handling attacks on a community
> So is it fair to assume then that you agree with all the resignations (RMS), knee-bending (Torvalds), and turmoil (openSUSE and many others)?
> Absolutely. People should learn to behave like decent human beings, and not like entitled brats.
In other words:
Cyberax: "Richard Matthew Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and staunch catalyst, visionary, upholder and all around grandfather for the entire FLOSS/Libre movement for ~30 years now, behaved or spoke, in my ever so high opinion, "like an entitled brat," and so therefore (I say) it is a great thing that he was "resigned" from his FSF."
So ... speaking of "entitled brats" ...
["Mummy told me I am fully entitled to be free from all confronting words by anyone forever." - You know, that's not a bad definition of "snowflake", not bad at all ... we shall be making use of that :D]
Handling attacks on a community
Please make use of it elsewhere; we really do not need more trolling here.
Thank you.
Handling attacks on a community
Please make use of it elsewhere; we really do not need more trolling here.
Thank you.
Handling attacks on a community
Nice. Thank you. This is why I pay for my subscription to LWN.
Handling attacks on a community
Nice. Thank you. This is why I pay for my subscription to LWN.
Handling attacks on a community
> Please make use of it elsewhere; we really do not need more trolling here.
Thanks
Seems to be a rather higher incidence of trolling in the last week or two... what's with that?
Handling attacks on a community
Like most of the population currently, they're grounded.
Handling attacks on a community
Like most of the population currently, they're grounded.
Handling attacks on a community
This appears to be the broflake CoC:
[1]https://nocodeofconduct.com/
[1] https://nocodeofconduct.com/
Handling attacks on a community
This kind of non-CoC can actually work in small-to-medium projects. Most people can just stick to technical issues and keep discussions professional.
But it breaks down in large projects when a broflake decides that somebody is oppressing them.
Handling attacks on a community
This kind of non-CoC can actually work in small-to-medium projects. Most people can just stick to technical issues and keep discussions professional.
But it breaks down in large projects when a broflake decides that somebody is oppressing them.
Handling attacks on a community
I hate to have to say this but ... name-calling and such aren't really better just because $WE do it, for whatever value of $WE. Let's try to avoid that, please?
Handling attacks on a community
Apologies, both sides of the debate appeared to embrace the word in question. It was a mistake for me to continue use of the term.
Handling attacks on a community
Apologies, both sides of the debate appeared to embrace the word in question. It was a mistake for me to continue use of the term.
Handling attacks on a community
"knee-bending", FWIW, is a serious red-flag to me that the author is drinking the kool aid.
Handling attacks on a community
And as any good engineer will concur, better to bend than to be brittle.
Handling attacks on a community
And as any good engineer will concur, better to bend than to be brittle.
Handling attacks on a community
One of the things RMS is accused of is treating women as potential dates instead of potential colleagues. Had he been gay and openly treated men as potential dates instead of as potential colleagues, he would have gotten himself ostracized; at no point in the last hundred years have gay men in the US been able to get away with hitting indiscriminately on other men. In fact, while RMS was in college, homosexuality was still illegal in Massachusetts. I imagine that the Free Software community has only gotten more tolerant of gay men hitting on people at conferences and the like.
Which is the problem with the idea of "snowflakes". People have always been "so emotionally fragile"; if you don't want to talk about gay panic, we could talk about how people freaked out about everything vaguely Twin Towers related after 9/11, including a Starbucks ad with two drinks, a dragonfly, and the logo "Collapse into cool". There's a serious discussion here, but that can't start so long as people are acting like "snowflakes" are something new, nor if you use a term also used by people who would criminalize flag burning and blasphemy.
> "Snowflakes" want momma to make all the bad words disappear. Staunch free speech upholders want rigorous and robust discussions, with the right to, at least sometimes, offend the "wilting flower" types.
Rigorous and robust discussion doesn't involve saying things like "Snowflakes want momma to make all the bad words disappear". It involves understanding the positions of other people and treating them seriously. In my experiences, rigorous and robust discussions often get derailed by free speech, and having a code of conduct can keep every discussion from disintegrating into an argument about someone's bête noire or some dead horse.
And no, many free speech upholders simply want to shitpost and cause offense and disruption, or push their own goals with no concern about anyone else.
Handling attacks on a community
> Codes of Conduct (CoC) have become expected, imposed and as we see, enforced.
>
> Many folks today appear to be what is colloquially termed "snowflakes"
So not wanting people's names to be used in forged, widely-distributed public emails that claim you said something that you did not in fact say and that you may well disagree with is acceptable behaviour to you?!
Handling attacks on a community
(Um. I double-negatived that up rather badly, didn't I.)
Handling attacks on a community
(Um. I double-negatived that up rather badly, didn't I.)
Handling attacks on a community
I don't have much to add, but a while back Daniel harvested email address from the libreplanet mailing lists and mass emailed people with the reply set to libreplanet's mailing list. It was confusing and unwanted as I had unsubscribed years back and didn't understand why libreplanet was seemingly emailing me unwanted email.
Eventually I figured it out, and told him to stop spamming me with unwanted email whenever he'd send off an email disguised as a genuine mailing list email. I didn't get a reply the first few times, so I eventually sent an email to his alternate email list he kept advertising to bring attention to this behavior, but surprisingly this prompted him to remove me from his mass unsolicited mail script with a weak excuse of it using public information and that anybody could do what he did.
Strangely enough my email didn't make it through to his anti-censorship mailing list, I wonder why?
Sounds like a blatant GDPR violation
Subject says it all.
Cheers,
Wol
Sounds like a blatant GDPR violation
Subject says it all.
Cheers,
Wol
Handling attacks on a community
While I understand a longing for consensus, as a Debian user following all this I must say I am disappointed in Sam Hartman's tenure as DPL on one aspect: his continuing to try and build consensus with people who are quite simply not interested.
At a certain point you just have to say: "Don't like systemd? Move to Devuan"; "Harassing asshole? Get out". That it took until Daniel's meltdown for Sam to finally lose his patience has not helped detoxifying the community.
Handling attacks on a community
If you read his DPL manifesto, his style can not possibly be the slightest bit surprising: [1]https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/platforms/hartmans
It would arguably be more disappointing if he wasn't faithful to his manifesto, which is kind of a social contract.
[1] https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/platforms/hartmans
Handling attacks on a community
If you read his DPL manifesto, his style can not possibly be the slightest bit surprising: [1]https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/platforms/hartmans
It would arguably be more disappointing if he wasn't faithful to his manifesto, which is kind of a social contract.
[1] https://www.debian.org/vote/2019/platforms/hartmans
Handling attacks on a community
Overall I'm quite happy with how Sam handled his duties.
Unfortunately, the project has recently had a few very toxic episodes where I think the better solution would be to just expel the members who keep stoking the flames, regarding of past contributions. The way they keep people away is, I think, a bigger loss than the potential contributions of less abrasive replacements.
This of course is not the DPL's responsibility under the constitution, unless it gets so bad it falls under "3. Make any decision which requires urgent action." But Sam did use his power under "9. Lead discussions amongst Developers."[1] to quench toxic threads on the mailing lists, and in my personal opinion too many times waited 2 or 3 mails too long.
[1] I assume that is the article Sam used to declare threads closed, from my reading of the constitution.
Handling attacks on a community
Overall I'm quite happy with how Sam handled his duties.
Unfortunately, the project has recently had a few very toxic episodes where I think the better solution would be to just expel the members who keep stoking the flames, regarding of past contributions. The way they keep people away is, I think, a bigger loss than the potential contributions of less abrasive replacements.
This of course is not the DPL's responsibility under the constitution, unless it gets so bad it falls under "3. Make any decision which requires urgent action." But Sam did use his power under "9. Lead discussions amongst Developers."[1] to quench toxic threads on the mailing lists, and in my personal opinion too many times waited 2 or 3 mails too long.
[1] I assume that is the article Sam used to declare threads closed, from my reading of the constitution.
When Consensus is Appropriate
I'll admit to being somewhat confused. I never tried to build consensus between people who believe systemd is the focus and people who wish more of the project to focus on alternatives.
Consensus was not possible there, and it was obvious to me by the time I was elected that was true.
Similarly, I have never tried to engage with Daniel Pocock in a consensus discussion while I was DPL.
Why didn't I fully ban Daniel from the project earlier? Honestly, by the time I became DPL, I thought that had effectively been done.
I didn't consider that he'd use the bug tracking system in that way until he did.
Why didn't we make a public statement about Daniel earlier?
For a while, we weren't sure it was necessary. Especially during the first part of my term, I was deferring to others.
Later, though, we weren't quite sure how to do it. But then the time for immediate action was at hand and I made that statement because it was necessary.
In no point was this about building a consensus with Daniel.
Some parts of Debian's response did involve waiting for consensus to emerge within teams responsible for handling harassment. And some decisions aren't entirely the DPL's to make and so I waited on others to come to their decisions.
Consensus is a valuable tool, but I assure you it is not always the right answer.
When Consensus is Appropriate
Oh, I've read enough of your contributions on the mailing lists to know that you're not *endlessly* searching for consensus. And in fact I like that you are judicious; I myself am a black-and-white kind of person.
That difference in personality also means that sometimes I thought when a discussion was exploding "I wish Sam was a little more decisive". You do eventually come to the conclusion that consensus is impossible, and then you are decisive. I just think that you left it a few iterations of discussion too long on occasion.
And yes, I picked the recent flare-up of systemd as an example, because on debian-devel and debian-project you were focusing more on process issues and less on keeping the Devuan supporters in line, IMO. I could have read that wrong, that's inherent in non-FtF communication. In that case I apologise.
When Consensus is Appropriate
Oh, I've read enough of your contributions on the mailing lists to know that you're not *endlessly* searching for consensus. And in fact I like that you are judicious; I myself am a black-and-white kind of person.
That difference in personality also means that sometimes I thought when a discussion was exploding "I wish Sam was a little more decisive". You do eventually come to the conclusion that consensus is impossible, and then you are decisive. I just think that you left it a few iterations of discussion too long on occasion.
And yes, I picked the recent flare-up of systemd as an example, because on debian-devel and debian-project you were focusing more on process issues and less on keeping the Devuan supporters in line, IMO. I could have read that wrong, that's inherent in non-FtF communication. In that case I apologise.
Handling attacks on a community
Unsurprisingly, Daniel has now added LWN to his list of targets:
[1]https://debian.community/debian-community-news-is-indepen...
If you ever run into him, run for the hills. Don't pause to wait and see what happens.
[1] https://debian.community/debian-community-news-is-independent/
Handling attacks on a community
Amazing. A sneering narcissistic quip targeting just about every post in this thread, like some bad cartoon villain. Or a 4chan teenager throwing a public tantrum. The “anonymity” suits him well.
Clearly he's trying to make the history books like the previous worst troll, that one from OpenOffice I can't remember the name of any more. ;-)
Handling attacks on a community
Amazing. A sneering narcissistic quip targeting just about every post in this thread, like some bad cartoon villain. Or a 4chan teenager throwing a public tantrum. The “anonymity” suits him well.
Clearly he's trying to make the history books like the previous worst troll, that one from OpenOffice I can't remember the name of any more. ;-)