Hi Ludo and Guix, I am not part of any teams, so if I'm making a faux pas by writing to this channel, then please by all means disregard my mail and my apologies. However, I have previously submitted a couple of patches (my Codeberg alias is 'nemin', if this email somehow messes it up) and I've been following the recent development around GCD008 and so have caught this message of yours. I wanted to reflect on one particular part that I think could be interesting to consider. Namely:
> 2. Mandatory transparency reports that the team would send > periodically to summarize its actions (without giving any details > on the cases themselves). As someone who moderated various communities for around in total 11 years and as someone who avidly enjoys taking part in the programming-related link aggregator Lobste.rs which utilizes a moderation methodology like this: I think you cannot effectively half-open moderation. You can either have fully closed moderation (this, in my humble opinion, sucks and is only applicable for extremely hierarchical groups and communities where a single misdeed can carry huge repercussions and there is absolutely no place for disputes). Or you can have fully open moderation. This is, as mentioned before, what Lobste.rs does[0] and in my (and, from what I can see, the majority's) opinion, it results in a far healthier mutual engagement between moderators and users. Associating disciplinary actions with names ensures a level of impartiality, because grudges quickly become very obvious. Dubious cases may be raised and discussed (in an appropriate way, be that a personal email towards the mod or a public chain if it's warranted). And there is never a feeling of moderators being "above" anyone else, because they are the ones under highest scrutiny. Especially, if there is also a mechanism to recall them (be that a quorum of maintainers or some other high-bar.) You mentioned that you've not received adequate responses to your own worries. I don't have the full context, nor (as I'm not part of the maintainers, nor even the active contributors) any sort of entitlement to judge, so I won't even try, but what I do hold is that if moderation were open, then a case like yours could be much more effectively discussed: Those actually involved could see that there is an obvious lack of actions and could raise said inaction as a discussion, that would eventually either prompt a response or a reaction. It is my experience and belief, that a "we did X bans, Y warnings, Z reprimands last month" with zero context and details about the actions taken only engenders eventual mistrust and a lack of clarity, as users will only see "negative" actions and not the causes that required moderators to act. And that will only ever lead to mods burning out and users loathing and losing trust in people, who just want to do their job and keep a community tidy. Thank you kindly for hearing me out. All the best, Nemin [0]: https://lobste.rs/moderations
