Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Fæ]

On Thu, 16 Aug 2018 at 03:14, bawolff  wrote:
> Thank your for your well considered response. I know this can be an
> emotionally draining topic and I appreciate your engagement.
>
> Thanks,
> Brian

This has been one of the longer email discussion threads, itself made
controversial due to quasi-official interventions apparently made with
the intention of closing it down early. I agree, this does make the
topic draining but it has been an important one to have, if the CoC
and the non-transparent procedures that seem to enforce it and
interpret it are to be seen to be held to account.

I would like to join in the thanks from Brian, and extend that to
thank all those that have expressed well supported views in the
discussion. Naturally, we should all be thankful to the original
whistle-blower, as whether you feel this was undue or not, it has
resulted in an opportunity for improvement for a fairer and more open
process. It would be jolly nice if CoC Committee members might use
this case as a reason to re-examine the ethical need for the Committee
to adopt a governance policy that respects and protects
whistle-blowers, even if the contents of such a complaint or query may
damage the reputation of the Committee, and even if the whistle-blower
uses an external forum like this email list.

Around the middle of the discussion there was mention that the way
that WMF employees and unpaid volunteers are handled under the Code of
Conduct is different. A later response was framed in a way that made
it appear that this was a false statement. Though the CoC itself does
not mention employees, this was discussed in detail during its
creation, along with requirements being firmly stated by WMF legal. As
far as I am aware, the Committee does process complaints involving WMF
employees differently, because it will share evidence, and presumably
any statements made even if these are not "objective evidence", with
WMF legal and WMF HR. It is also clear from past statements by WMF
legal that any information shared with the WMF is not guaranteed to
remain confidential, there are no guarantees as to who will have
access to the information or allegations or if they will ever be
deleted from WMF databases, and that WMF internal procedures and
policies will offer no protection or compensation for
non-employees.[1][2] If my understanding of the current state of
affairs is wrong, I welcome a factual and supported correction.

1. 
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Archive_1#Reports_involving_WMF_employees
2. 
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Code_of_Conduct/Archive_2#September_22,_2016_revision_by_WMF_Legal

Thanks
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[bawolff]

Thank you for your detailed reply. I'm going to respond inline:

On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 12:12 AM, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> I write all answers in one place:
>
> Brian:
>> So we are going to magically assume that somehow this block is going to
> change mcbride's behaviour when it took a 100 message email thread before
> he even found out the reason he was blocked (which differs from the implied
> reason in the email which was sent to an email account he usually doesnt
> check)?
> That's actually an argument against making cases public. The temporarily
> bans and incremental steps usually work. We had cases that one warning was
> enough and we never got any more report about the person, we had cases that
> a temporarily ban was enough (and those didn't cause a +100 email thread,
> no one knew about them expect some admins, the reporter and the person who
> got banned) and it worked. I can't disclose much. The reason that took 100
> emails until the user realizes is banned was because of they missed the
> email sent to them. It happens but not 100% of all cases. When the user
> found the email, they forwarded them to a public mailing list and defending
> themselves in public. There are ways to appeal as mentioned in the CoC, why
> that didn't happen? By forwarding such emails to public, they just make the
> tip of the iceberg public and everyone thinks "Someone got banned just for
> saying WTF" and with limited knowledge they can jump to conclusions or
> become angry. For sake of protection of the reporters, we won't show you
> how much is behind each and every case. People should not judge cases based
> on defenses of the banned person.
>
> More communication and harder job of doing so by trying to explain the
> rationale has been always the cost of more transparency. In English
> Wikipedia lots of times discussions about banning a person can be turned to
> a public circus making these threads like a quiet village in Alps in
> comparison. If you don't believe me, just search in WP:ANI.

Indeed, I don't doubt it. Although I would note that enwikipedia is
orders of magnitude bigger, so it stands to reason that it has a
magnitude more drama. Ultimately though I feel that transparency is
needed to trust that the committee is acting just and wisely (Power
corrupts. Power without oversight is pretty absolute, and you know
what they say about absolute power). I don't believe the committee
will be trusted without public oversight, and I don't think the
committee can function without trust.

>
>> However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after
> facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that
> there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour
> of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
> resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
> where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be
> clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the
> converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full
> disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift
> that has opened up.
>
> When they see a violation of CoC, as outlined in the CoC, they need to send
> an email to the committee and explain the reasoning but what happened? They
> publicly accused the other party of violating CoC. This is not how it
> works. It causes more tension and ends up as really long threads. CoC can
> be good mediators in such cases if used.

While I agree that the committee can't act in a situation unless
notified, I disagree that it can only act directly on the notification
received. In fact, I would say the committee has a duty to fully
investigate any conflict it involves itself in. Have you ever seen a
dispute in the history of anything that only involved one party? At
the bare minimum when processing a complaint, the CoC should at least
ask the alleged perpetrator has anything to say for him/herself, no
matter how clear cut the case appears to be. I don't know how anyone
could claim justice is being done without even talking to the accused
party. Given that MZMcbride claimed to initially not know what's going
on, it would certainly appear that no attempt was made to investigate
his side of the situation. Additionally, this seems to be a pattern as
he is not the first person I have heard complain about sanctions being
taken against them without any notification or other communication.


> One big misconception is that lots of people think the other party reported
> them but lots of reports we've had so far came from by-passers and not
> "their enemy" and it's not to retaliate to silence their voice. I really
> encourage this type of behavior. If you see something is not right even if
> it's not related to you, stand up and report.

To clarify, I never meant to suggest otherwise then this. If I did, I apologize.

>
> Regarding unfair 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[MZMcBride]

Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
>[...] Did they have access to all of the user's history and reports made?

Amir Ladsgroup also wrote:
> [...] 2- There are cases that in the gray area but by looking at the
>history of the user, the pattern is obvious.

Can a user, such as myself, view his or her own "history" in this sense?
It sounds like you all are compiling private dossiers about users. Is that
correct? Do these records include only complaints or other parts of the
user's history as well?

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Amir Ladsgroup]

I write all answers in one place:

Brian:
> So we are going to magically assume that somehow this block is going to
change mcbride's behaviour when it took a 100 message email thread before
he even found out the reason he was blocked (which differs from the implied
reason in the email which was sent to an email account he usually doesnt
check)?
That's actually an argument against making cases public. The temporarily
bans and incremental steps usually work. We had cases that one warning was
enough and we never got any more report about the person, we had cases that
a temporarily ban was enough (and those didn't cause a +100 email thread,
no one knew about them expect some admins, the reporter and the person who
got banned) and it worked. I can't disclose much. The reason that took 100
emails until the user realizes is banned was because of they missed the
email sent to them. It happens but not 100% of all cases. When the user
found the email, they forwarded them to a public mailing list and defending
themselves in public. There are ways to appeal as mentioned in the CoC, why
that didn't happen? By forwarding such emails to public, they just make the
tip of the iceberg public and everyone thinks "Someone got banned just for
saying WTF" and with limited knowledge they can jump to conclusions or
become angry. For sake of protection of the reporters, we won't show you
how much is behind each and every case. People should not judge cases based
on defenses of the banned person.

More communication and harder job of doing so by trying to explain the
rationale has been always the cost of more transparency. In English
Wikipedia lots of times discussions about banning a person can be turned to
a public circus making these threads like a quiet village in Alps in
comparison. If you don't believe me, just search in WP:ANI.

> However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after
facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that
there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour
of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be
clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the
converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full
disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift
that has opened up.

When they see a violation of CoC, as outlined in the CoC, they need to send
an email to the committee and explain the reasoning but what happened? They
publicly accused the other party of violating CoC. This is not how it
works. It causes more tension and ends up as really long threads. CoC can
be good mediators in such cases if used.

One big misconception is that lots of people think the other party reported
them but lots of reports we've had so far came from by-passers and not
"their enemy" and it's not to retaliate to silence their voice. I really
encourage this type of behavior. If you see something is not right even if
it's not related to you, stand up and report.

Regarding unfair bias towards staff, it has lots of incorrect assumptions.
How from one case with very limited knowledge this can be judged? As I said
there is an appealing body and we trust them to be fair.

Michael:
> What I think has people talking past one another here is that the "final
straw" that led to the ban wasn't a per se ban-worthy offense, *and* there
is no clear standard or process for determining when past patterns of
behavior can be taken into account in determining whether a given action
crosses the line.

This is very subjective and can be true but making everyone a judge is not
a good idea. Does everyone have read CoC fully? Did they have trainings or
experience with dealing harassments? Did they have access to all of the
user's history and reports made? I'm not even slightly proposing that no
one should judge CoC, this is pretty dangerous and can lead to horrible
things but there is a right way called appeal as outlined in the CoC to
make sure correct checks and balances are in place.


Isarra:
> A nice sentiment, but unrealistic. We come from too many backgrounds,
too many cultures, make too many typos, and are sufficiently bad at
communicating overall as a movement that there will be many things that
require clarification. We should always be open to making these
clarifications - this is the key to better communication, and thus
better understanding. Only from understanding can we improve things, not
just ourselves, but our processes, our work, and our movement.

I disagree with some parts. Members of The CoCC are also from different
cultures and backgrounds and they should be aware of these differences but
problematic comments are in three types: 1- These are clear violation of
CoC. A real world example is that you can't grope someone's private 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[MZMcBride]

David Barratt wrote:
>>  the unclear CoCC action
>
>Why do you feel that you need clarity on the CoCC's actions? or perhaps a
>better way to ask would be: What do you gain from getting more clarity?

I get the feeling you've never interacted with this group of people or
similar groups within Wikimedia Foundation Inc. In my experience, you
occasionally receive a vaguely threatening e-mail and when asking for
details, you're told that those details are private. That is, I've been
told that alleged incidents involving me cannot be discussed with me due
to privacy concerns. Perhaps someone can explain how this makes sense.

I agree with Bináris that being compared to a Nazi or the Eye of Sauron is
often a lot more offensive than a simple "What the fuck." This "conduct
committee" is a political tool and it can easily be misused or abused as
such via, for example, selective reporting and selective enforcement.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

"We absolutely do not need this all to happen again in another six 
months with yet another incident which cannot be explained."


On 15/08/18 23:08, David Barratt wrote:

  the unclear CoCC action


Why do you feel that you need clarity on the CoCC's actions? or perhaps a
better way to ask would be: What do you gain from getting more clarity?

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:58 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:


On 10/08/18 14:31, David Barratt wrote:

yet this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like

this

in the future.


Based on what has been provided in this thread, I do *not* see this as an
incident that needs to be avoided in the future.

To clarify, the incident I was referring to was the unclear CoCC action
taken and subsequent confusion and disagreement, including this email
thread.

We absolutely do not need this all to happen again in another six months
with yet another incident which cannot be explained.

-I


On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 9:23 AM Isarra Yos  wrote:


It's sounds nice, but no. It is not a feature. One of the arguments I
was given when the CoC was initially pushed through was that of course
it wasn't perfect as was, that it would be amended and fixed based on
the real incidents it came into contact with. I maintain that it is
impossible to do this - to amend, fix, and generally refine a document
based on the real cases - when the details of the real cases and even
the stats about what they are in general remain unavailable, and yet
this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like this in
the future.

There has been considerable disagreement as to where we should be
drawing the line between the public cases, the generalised, and the
private, but this too is something we need to figure out out a community
and clearly draw, and the only way to do so is with clear information on
what is possible, common, and feasible.

-I

On 09/08/18 22:39, David Barratt wrote:

I'm not sure I completely understand the problem. What is being called

a

"lack of transparency" is the opposite of "privacy by design." What is
being called a bug, is perhaps a feature. The irony of this, ought not

be

missed.

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 6:33 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:


An interesting comparison, democracy. Community consensus and
transparency were what brought our shared project to the great heights
we now see, and yet the CoC and especially its enforcement are rooted

in

none of this. If this trainwreck that we are currently experiencing on
this list is truly our best shot at an open, welcoming, and supportive
environment when it flies in the face of everything that brought us

here

in the first place, then all of that was a lie.

I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, though. Keeping everything behind
closed doors is the opposite of open. Community members having the CoC
used against them as a club and being afraid of retribution for

seeking

help is the opposite of a welcoming and supportive environment. I

would

put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all

to

step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement,
but to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside

the

committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken

is

available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible
even when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.

Because if we do not base this in open process, consensus, and
transparency, then all platitudes aside, it's just not going to be
very... good. It's not going to address our needs, and we're not going
to be able to refine it as things come up. Not doing this /isn't
working/, and we need it work.

-I

On 09/08/18 20:48, Victoria Coleman wrote:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a

remote

mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw

this

today:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/

<

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/

This is us. This is our shared project. What an incredible privilege

it

is to have the opportunity to be part of something utopian, yet real,

that

is seen by the world as the last bastion of shared reality. This is no
accident, no fluke. It’s because of us. This incredible community of

ours.

We are all different and yet we all, staff and volunteers alike,

strive

to

bring the best of ourselves to this monumental project of ours.

Sometimes

we get it wrong. We get emotional, we say the wrong thing, we get
frustrated with each other.  But we are all in this together. And we

hold

ourselves to a higher standard. I hope we can also forgive each other

when

we fall down and offer a helping hand instead 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

>
>  the unclear CoCC action
>

Why do you feel that you need clarity on the CoCC's actions? or perhaps a
better way to ask would be: What do you gain from getting more clarity?

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:58 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:

> On 10/08/18 14:31, David Barratt wrote:
> >> yet this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like
> this
> >> in the future.
> >>
> > Based on what has been provided in this thread, I do *not* see this as an
> > incident that needs to be avoided in the future.
>
> To clarify, the incident I was referring to was the unclear CoCC action
> taken and subsequent confusion and disagreement, including this email
> thread.
>
> We absolutely do not need this all to happen again in another six months
> with yet another incident which cannot be explained.
>
> -I
>
> > On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 9:23 AM Isarra Yos  wrote:
> >
> >> It's sounds nice, but no. It is not a feature. One of the arguments I
> >> was given when the CoC was initially pushed through was that of course
> >> it wasn't perfect as was, that it would be amended and fixed based on
> >> the real incidents it came into contact with. I maintain that it is
> >> impossible to do this - to amend, fix, and generally refine a document
> >> based on the real cases - when the details of the real cases and even
> >> the stats about what they are in general remain unavailable, and yet
> >> this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like this in
> >> the future.
> >>
> >> There has been considerable disagreement as to where we should be
> >> drawing the line between the public cases, the generalised, and the
> >> private, but this too is something we need to figure out out a community
> >> and clearly draw, and the only way to do so is with clear information on
> >> what is possible, common, and feasible.
> >>
> >> -I
> >>
> >> On 09/08/18 22:39, David Barratt wrote:
> >>> I'm not sure I completely understand the problem. What is being called
> a
> >>> "lack of transparency" is the opposite of "privacy by design." What is
> >>> being called a bug, is perhaps a feature. The irony of this, ought not
> be
> >>> missed.
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 6:33 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:
> >>>
>  An interesting comparison, democracy. Community consensus and
>  transparency were what brought our shared project to the great heights
>  we now see, and yet the CoC and especially its enforcement are rooted
> in
>  none of this. If this trainwreck that we are currently experiencing on
>  this list is truly our best shot at an open, welcoming, and supportive
>  environment when it flies in the face of everything that brought us
> here
>  in the first place, then all of that was a lie.
> 
>  I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, though. Keeping everything behind
>  closed doors is the opposite of open. Community members having the CoC
>  used against them as a club and being afraid of retribution for
> seeking
>  help is the opposite of a welcoming and supportive environment. I
> would
>  put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
>  implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all
> to
>  step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
>  forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement,
>  but to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
>  consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside
> the
>  committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken
> is
>  available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible
>  even when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.
> 
>  Because if we do not base this in open process, consensus, and
>  transparency, then all platitudes aside, it's just not going to be
>  very... good. It's not going to address our needs, and we're not going
>  to be able to refine it as things come up. Not doing this /isn't
>  working/, and we need it work.
> 
>  -I
> 
>  On 09/08/18 20:48, Victoria Coleman wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a
> remote
>  mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw
> >> this
>  today:
> >>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/
>  <
> >>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/
> > This is us. This is our shared project. What an incredible privilege
> it
>  is to have the opportunity to be part of something utopian, yet real,
> >> that
>  is seen by the world as the last bastion of shared reality. This is no
>  accident, no fluke. It’s because of us. This incredible community of
> >> ours.
>  We are all different and yet we all, staff and volunteers alike,
> strive
> >> to
>  bring the best 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

On 10/08/18 14:31, David Barratt wrote:

yet this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like this
in the future.


Based on what has been provided in this thread, I do *not* see this as an
incident that needs to be avoided in the future.


To clarify, the incident I was referring to was the unclear CoCC action 
taken and subsequent confusion and disagreement, including this email 
thread.


We absolutely do not need this all to happen again in another six months 
with yet another incident which cannot be explained.


-I


On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 9:23 AM Isarra Yos  wrote:


It's sounds nice, but no. It is not a feature. One of the arguments I
was given when the CoC was initially pushed through was that of course
it wasn't perfect as was, that it would be amended and fixed based on
the real incidents it came into contact with. I maintain that it is
impossible to do this - to amend, fix, and generally refine a document
based on the real cases - when the details of the real cases and even
the stats about what they are in general remain unavailable, and yet
this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like this in
the future.

There has been considerable disagreement as to where we should be
drawing the line between the public cases, the generalised, and the
private, but this too is something we need to figure out out a community
and clearly draw, and the only way to do so is with clear information on
what is possible, common, and feasible.

-I

On 09/08/18 22:39, David Barratt wrote:

I'm not sure I completely understand the problem. What is being called a
"lack of transparency" is the opposite of "privacy by design." What is
being called a bug, is perhaps a feature. The irony of this, ought not be
missed.

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 6:33 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:


An interesting comparison, democracy. Community consensus and
transparency were what brought our shared project to the great heights
we now see, and yet the CoC and especially its enforcement are rooted in
none of this. If this trainwreck that we are currently experiencing on
this list is truly our best shot at an open, welcoming, and supportive
environment when it flies in the face of everything that brought us here
in the first place, then all of that was a lie.

I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, though. Keeping everything behind
closed doors is the opposite of open. Community members having the CoC
used against them as a club and being afraid of retribution for seeking
help is the opposite of a welcoming and supportive environment. I would
put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to
step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement,
but to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the
committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is
available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible
even when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.

Because if we do not base this in open process, consensus, and
transparency, then all platitudes aside, it's just not going to be
very... good. It's not going to address our needs, and we're not going
to be able to refine it as things come up. Not doing this /isn't
working/, and we need it work.

-I

On 09/08/18 20:48, Victoria Coleman wrote:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a remote

mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw

this

today:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/

<

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/

This is us. This is our shared project. What an incredible privilege it

is to have the opportunity to be part of something utopian, yet real,

that

is seen by the world as the last bastion of shared reality. This is no
accident, no fluke. It’s because of us. This incredible community of

ours.

We are all different and yet we all, staff and volunteers alike, strive

to

bring the best of ourselves to this monumental project of ours.

Sometimes

we get it wrong. We get emotional, we say the wrong thing, we get
frustrated with each other.  But we are all in this together. And we

hold

ourselves to a higher standard. I hope we can also forgive each other

when

we fall down and offer a helping hand instead of a harsh, hurtful word.

The

CoC , like democracy, is not perfect but it’s our best shot at an open,
welcoming and supportive environment in our technical spaces. Let’s
continue refining it and let’s get back to work.

Warmly,

Victoria


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion <

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion>



On Aug 9, 2018, at 7:24 PM, Stas Malyshev 

wrote:

Hi!


to me that this could easily 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

I did not mean to imply that we would not make errors in communicating with
one another, we are only human* after all. :)

I believe we can do so with civility and respect and by giving the other
the benefit of the doubt, but, if for whatever reason, someone feels that
can no longer happen, I am thankful that their are avenues to pursue
alternative resolutions.

*or are we dancer? :P
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_(The_Killers_song)#Lyrics

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:46 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:

> On 15/08/18 22:40, David Barratt wrote:
> >> In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted.
> >>
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20180803232905/https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4475216
> >
> >
> > And no, my intention was not to imply "if you did nothing wrong, you have
> > nothing to hide", it was only that, our public actions ought to speak for
> > themselves.
>
> A nice sentiment, but unrealistic. We come from too many backgrounds,
> too many cultures, make too many typos, and are sufficiently bad at
> communicating overall as a movement that there will be many things that
> require clarification. We should always be open to making these
> clarifications - this is the key to better communication, and thus
> better understanding. Only from understanding can we improve things, not
> just ourselves, but our processes, our work, and our movement.
>
> -I
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

On 15/08/18 22:40, David Barratt wrote:

In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted.


https://web.archive.org/web/20180803232905/https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4475216


And no, my intention was not to imply "if you did nothing wrong, you have
nothing to hide", it was only that, our public actions ought to speak for
themselves.


A nice sentiment, but unrealistic. We come from too many backgrounds, 
too many cultures, make too many typos, and are sufficiently bad at 
communicating overall as a movement that there will be many things that 
require clarification. We should always be open to making these 
clarifications - this is the key to better communication, and thus 
better understanding. Only from understanding can we improve things, not 
just ourselves, but our processes, our work, and our movement.


-I

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

>
> In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted.
>

https://web.archive.org/web/20180803232905/https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4475216


And no, my intention was not to imply "if you did nothing wrong, you have
nothing to hide", it was only that, our public actions ought to speak for
themselves.

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:20 PM Stas Malyshev 
wrote:

> Hi!
>
> > This isn't a he said, she said
> >  type of issue, it's
> > based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to
> > delete.
>
> In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted. And
> of course most content in our technical spaces (those managed by WMF,
> not sure about Github and such) is deletable by admins.
>
> > If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the
> > behavior ought to be self-examined.
>
> This sounds suspiciously like "if you did nothing wrong, you have
> nothing to hide". Which I hope everybody knows is not how it works -
> after all, that's why we have our privacy policies - so I assume it was
> not the intended meaning. We can have disagreement, and we can make
> mistakes, and this is why good process is important. Saying "if you're
> worried about good process, maybe it's because you're guilty" - that's
> how this comment sounded to me - is not right.
> --
> Stas Malyshev
> smalys...@wikimedia.org
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

On 15/08/18 22:08, David Barratt wrote:

This isn't a he said, she said
 type of issue, it's
based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to
delete.
If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the
behavior ought to be self-examined.


One of the complaints here has consistently been that the accusations, 
evidence, and deliberations are all not made public, so this statement 
doesn't make a whole lot of sense.


Even then, we shouldn't assume every accusation is made in good faith, 
nor that every accusation is based on correct interpretations of events. 
Misunderstandings happen, and sometimes the entire problem is lack of 
clarity, or context. Given the lack of any public access, this becomes 
particularly difficult to remedy, or even identify, in any instances 
where it does come up.


-I

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Stas Malyshev]

Hi!

> This isn't a he said, she said
>  type of issue, it's
> based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to
> delete.

In this particular case, it was based on a comment that was deleted. And
of course most content in our technical spaces (those managed by WMF,
not sure about Github and such) is deletable by admins.

> If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the
> behavior ought to be self-examined.

This sounds suspiciously like "if you did nothing wrong, you have
nothing to hide". Which I hope everybody knows is not how it works -
after all, that's why we have our privacy policies - so I assume it was
not the intended meaning. We can have disagreement, and we can make
mistakes, and this is why good process is important. Saying "if you're
worried about good process, maybe it's because you're guilty" - that's
how this comment sounded to me - is not right.
-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalys...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

>
> If someone accuses me, I have no way to defend myself.
>

This isn't a he said, she said
 type of issue, it's
based on evidence that is public and difficult (if not impossible) to
delete.
If you feel that you would have to defend your behavior, perhaps the
behavior ought to be self-examined.

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 5:00 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:

> On 15/08/18 20:50, Nuria Ruiz wrote:
> >> Given that
> >> here is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in
> favour
> >> of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
> >> resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
> > The deliberations as well as the reporter are confidential and they will
> > continue to be so everyone feels safe to report and be part of the
> > committee.
> > (note that you are assuming the reporter is just one person that works
> for
> > WMF).
>
> This makes me feel the opposite of safe, and is why I will never report
> anything to the committee as things stand.
>
> If someone accuses me, I have no way to defend myself. If I seek help or
> accuse another, I have no way to be sure my words won't be used against
> me, or against said other to far greater harm than I ever expected or
> intended.
>
> -I
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

On 15/08/18 20:50, Nuria Ruiz wrote:

Given that
here is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour
of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute

The deliberations as well as the reporter are confidential and they will
continue to be so everyone feels safe to report and be part of the
committee.
(note that you are assuming the reporter is just one person that works for
WMF).


This makes me feel the opposite of safe, and is why I will never report 
anything to the committee as things stand.


If someone accuses me, I have no way to defend myself. If I seek help or 
accuse another, I have no way to be sure my words won't be used against 
me, or against said other to far greater harm than I ever expected or 
intended.


-I

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Nuria Ruiz]

>Given that
>here is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour
>of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
>resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute

The deliberations as well as the reporter are confidential and they will
continue to be so everyone feels safe to report and be part of the
committee.
(note that you are assuming the reporter is just one person that works for
WMF).


On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 10:04 PM, Brian Wolff  wrote:

> Thanks Amir for clarifying this. This is the first I remember hearing this
> was the reason for the sactions against mcbride, and differs significantly
> from what I assumed was the reason.
>
> However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after
> facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that
> there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour
> of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
> resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
> where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be
> clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the
> converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full
> disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift
> that has opened up.
>
> Thank you
> --
> Bawolff
>
> On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> > Hey Petr,
> > We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
> people
> > said it's a straw man.
> >
> > The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
> mere
> > use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
> "Harming
> > the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
> > interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
> > [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
> > "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
> > value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
> consensus.
> > Compare this with later comments made, for example:
> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
> >
> > I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
> >
> > [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> > Best
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:
> >
> >> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
> >> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
> >> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
> >> that what really happened?
> >>
> >> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
> >> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
> >> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
> >> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
> >> removal of content.
> >>
> >> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
> >> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
> >> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
> >> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
> >> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
> >> a language, but personal attack itself.
> >>
> >> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
> >> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
> >> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
> >> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
> >> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
> >> take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
> >> by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
> >>
> >> P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
> >> recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
> >> an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
> >> interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
> >> randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
> >> explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
> >>
> >> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt 
> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
> >> the
> >> >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
> and
> >> >> backstory.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > That seems like really toxic behavior.
> >> >
> >> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
> george.herb...@gmail.com
> >> >
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
> >> >> alleged long term abuse pattern.
> >> >>
> >> >> Again, this 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Petr Bena]

Wiktionary, such a nice website, I wonder who operates it...

I think "language police" is a winner. So again: I hope our community
won't turn into a bunch of language cops and put focus back on
technical awesome things instead.

Now back to work, there is still big backlog of tasks last time I checked.

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 7:45 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
> Pedants?
> Prescriptivists? Etc... https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/grammar_Nazi
>
>
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2018, 18:10 Petr Bena,  wrote:
>
>> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
>> with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
>> doesn't sound dull?
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Bence Damokos]

Pedants?
Prescriptivists? Etc... https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/grammar_Nazi


On Wed, 15 Aug 2018, 18:10 Petr Bena,  wrote:

> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
> with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
> doesn't sound dull?
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

Slang terms, typically do not maintain the same meaning and intention when
used crossed-culturally (otherwise they wouldn't be slang terms). To
preserve the intended meaning, I would suggest using a term or phrase that
conveys what you are trying to say in a more cross-cultural way.

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 12:26 PM Petr Bena  wrote:

> But that not only does sound very dull, but it doesn't even sound like
> you don't like or disagree with such behaviour
>
> See the difference between these two sentences, which are trying to
> say same thing using your definition of "grammar nazi":
>
> * My posts are constantly checked by people who believe that my
> grammar and spelling should be proper everywhere possible, who keep
> notifying me when I make mistakes.
> * I am being terrorized by grammar nazis.
>
> In first sentence, half of people would just not read it because it's
> too long and dull and other half wouldn't care or understand the
> point.
>
> The second sentence, on other hand... Proper speech is often boring
> and ignored, which leads to desperation, which leads to insults and
> swear words. It's not ideal, but that's how world seems to work.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Siebrand Mazeland 
> wrote:
> >
> >> Op 15 aug. 2018 om 18:10 heeft Petr Bena  het
> volgende geschreven:
> >>
> >> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
> >> with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
> >> doesn't sound dull?
> >
> > A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by
> everyone whenever possible.
> >
> > --
> > Siebrand
> >
> >
> > ___
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>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Petr Bena]

Hi Joe,

Of course I am not talking Amir, he's a nice guy. I think "language
bully" probably works here. Thanks for tip ;)

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:25 PM, Joe Matazzoni  wrote:
> Petr asks:
>> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
> with absence of word "nazi”
>
> Interesting question (in the abstract—meaning as long as we’re not talking 
> about Amir).
>
> There is no standard phrase that comes to mind. Tyrant and despot are too 
> classy, authoritarian too long, stickler not pejorative enough…I’d go with 
> bully.
> _
>
> Joe Matazzoni
> Product Manager, Collaboration
> Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco
> mobile 202.744.7910
> jmatazz...@wikimedia.org
>
> "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the 
> sum of all knowledge."
>
>
>
>
>> On Aug 15, 2018, at 9:10 AM, Petr Bena  wrote:
>>
>> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
>> with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
>> doesn't sound dull?
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Bináris  wrote:
>>> 2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena :
>>>
 Is that
 what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
 experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?

>>>
>>> Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except
>>> definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word.
>>> Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions.
>>> I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use
>>> this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any
>>> behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of
>>> people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.
>>>
>>> This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people
>>> deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize
>>> the importance of this or that.
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>>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Petr Bena]

But that not only does sound very dull, but it doesn't even sound like
you don't like or disagree with such behaviour

See the difference between these two sentences, which are trying to
say same thing using your definition of "grammar nazi":

* My posts are constantly checked by people who believe that my
grammar and spelling should be proper everywhere possible, who keep
notifying me when I make mistakes.
* I am being terrorized by grammar nazis.

In first sentence, half of people would just not read it because it's
too long and dull and other half wouldn't care or understand the
point.

The second sentence, on other hand... Proper speech is often boring
and ignored, which leads to desperation, which leads to insults and
swear words. It's not ideal, but that's how world seems to work.



On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Siebrand Mazeland  wrote:
>
>> Op 15 aug. 2018 om 18:10 heeft Petr Bena  het volgende 
>> geschreven:
>>
>> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
>> with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
>> doesn't sound dull?
>
> A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by 
> everyone whenever possible.
>
> --
> Siebrand
>
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Joe Matazzoni]

Petr asks: 
> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
with absence of word "nazi” 

Interesting question (in the abstract—meaning as long as we’re not talking 
about Amir). 

There is no standard phrase that comes to mind. Tyrant and despot are too 
classy, authoritarian too long, stickler not pejorative enough…I’d go with 
bully.
_

Joe Matazzoni 
Product Manager, Collaboration
Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco
mobile 202.744.7910
jmatazz...@wikimedia.org

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum 
of all knowledge." 




> On Aug 15, 2018, at 9:10 AM, Petr Bena  wrote:
> 
> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
> with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
> doesn't sound dull?
> 
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Bináris  wrote:
>> 2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena :
>> 
>>> Is that
>>> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
>>> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
>>> 
>> 
>> Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except
>> definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word.
>> Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions.
>> I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use
>> this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any
>> behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of
>> people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.
>> 
>> This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people
>> deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize
>> the importance of this or that.
>> ___
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>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Siebrand Mazeland]

> Op 15 aug. 2018 om 18:10 heeft Petr Bena  het volgende 
> geschreven:
> 
> Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
> with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
> doesn't sound dull?

A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by everyone 
whenever possible.

--
Siebrand 


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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Petr Bena]

Out of curiousity, how would you say "grammar nazi" or "language nazi"
with absence of word "nazi" so that it still has same effect and
doesn't sound dull?

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 8:31 AM, Bináris  wrote:
> 2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena :
>
>>  Is that
>> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
>> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
>>
>
> Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except
> definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word.
> Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions.
> I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use
> this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any
> behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of
> people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.
>
> This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people
> deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize
> the importance of this or that.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Bináris]

2018-08-13 18:35 GMT+02:00 Petr Bena :

>  Is that
> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
>

Folks, please never use the word "nazi" for people in any context except
definitely stating they are nazis in the origonal meaning of the word.
Neither with prefixes or suffixes or in compositions.
I know you didn't want to say anything bad with that and many people use
this phrase, but to call somebody *any kind of a *nazi or comparing any
behaviour to nazis is much more abusive then to use the f word for a lot of
people in whose personal or local history nazis appear and play a role.

This is not addressed to you, Petr. This is just an example, that people
deal with one thing and don't even notice the other one, and don't realize
the importance of this or that.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Bináris]

2018-08-08 22:51 GMT+02:00 Strainu :

> 2018-08-08 18:53 GMT+03:00 Bináris :
> > This happens when American culture and behavioral standard is extended to
> > an international community.
>
> FWIW, the CoC itself is quite neutral and contains (at least in my
> view) no American specificities, only general principles that most
> developers can identify with. Also, I would note that the majority of
> the current committee members are *not* US-based (from what I can
> tell) and that there is a good gender balance, so it's hard to argue
> it could get more diverse than that.

Well, perhaps I wasn't accurate enough. What I meant that the whole *need*
of such paper as a CoC is in my mind related to political correctness and
other Western trends. I was not a fan of the idea when people just said
that a CoC would be constructed becuase it is so neccessary instead of such
simple rules of normality like
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_jerk. Either somebody
understand his sentence or any kind of detailed rules and laws of how not
to be a jerk will be useless for him.
Anyway, we are over it, and this is not worth too many word already, I just
wanted to higlight this connection and think out of the box for a moment..
A detailed philosophical and cultural discuss is really not a Wikitech
topic.


> That, together with the history
> of MZMcBride should make us give credit to the committee (and question
> some of our own stereotypes ;))
>
I am not familiar with his history, so I have no opinion here.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Brian Wolff]

So we are going to magically assume that somehow this block is going to
change mcbride's behaviour when it took a 100 message email thread before
he even found out the reason he was blocked (which differs from the implied
reason in the email which was sent to an email account he usually doesnt
check)?

--
bawolff


On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> Brian, that's actually exactly how Wikipedia operates, as an admin in
> Wikipedia serving for more than 9.5 years. The only difference is that
it's
> not punitive, and I don't think this ban was also punitive either. The ban
> is made to prevent further damage.
>
> Best
>
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 22:23 Brian Wolff  wrote:
>
>> Given that many of our users are from wikipedia, and as far as i
understand
>> (I am not a wikipedian), on Wikipedia, using increasing length blocks as
as
>> a punative punishment for rule infractions isn't allowed, I would guess
>> many of our community don't see it valid to block people temporarily just
>> because the warnings arent working out.
>>
>>
>> --
>> bawolff
>> On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
>> > That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an
>> > unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it
happens
>> > too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that
when
>> > it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option
>> is
>> > to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
>> >
>> > One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they
>> > don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who
>> the
>> > user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report
>> about
>> > the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that
shows
>> > the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
>> >
>> > Best
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos  wrote:
>> >
>> >> Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward
>> >> seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the
>> >> vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to
fully
>> >> explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move
forward,
>> >> or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't
>> >> directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others
>> >> that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed
>> >> sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that
>> >> there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
>> >>
>> >> A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually
>> >> clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off
>> topic.
>> >>
>> >> -I
>> >>
>> >> On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
>> >> > Hey Petr,
>> >> > We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
>> >> people
>> >> > said it's a straw man.
>> >> >
>> >> > The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before
the
>> >> mere
>> >> > use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
>> >> "Harming
>> >> > the discussion or community with methods such as sustained
disruption,
>> >> > interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e.
>> trolling).".
>> >> > [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just*
comment
>> >> > "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding
any
>> >> > value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
>> >> consensus.
>> >> > Compare this with later comments made, for example:
>> >> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
>> >> >
>> >> > I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
>> >> >
>> >> > [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>> >> > Best
>> >> >
>> >> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena 
wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed
that
>> >> >> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if
they
>> >> >> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but
is
>> >> >> that what really happened?
>> >> >>
>> >> >> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really
>> see
>> >> >> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here
it
>> >> >> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
>> >> >> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant
ban +
>> >> >> removal of content.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
>> >> >> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
>> >> >> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
>> >> >> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a
problem,
>> >> >> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is
>> not
>> >> >> 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Amir Ladsgroup]

Brian, that's actually exactly how Wikipedia operates, as an admin in
Wikipedia serving for more than 9.5 years. The only difference is that it's
not punitive, and I don't think this ban was also punitive either. The ban
is made to prevent further damage.

Best

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 22:23 Brian Wolff  wrote:

> Given that many of our users are from wikipedia, and as far as i understand
> (I am not a wikipedian), on Wikipedia, using increasing length blocks as as
> a punative punishment for rule infractions isn't allowed, I would guess
> many of our community don't see it valid to block people temporarily just
> because the warnings arent working out.
>
>
> --
> bawolff
> On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> > That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an
> > unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens
> > too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when
> > it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option
> is
> > to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
> >
> > One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they
> > don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who
> the
> > user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report
> about
> > the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows
> > the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
> >
> > Best
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos  wrote:
> >
> >> Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward
> >> seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the
> >> vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully
> >> explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward,
> >> or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't
> >> directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others
> >> that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed
> >> sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that
> >> there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
> >>
> >> A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually
> >> clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off
> topic.
> >>
> >> -I
> >>
> >> On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
> >> > Hey Petr,
> >> > We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
> >> people
> >> > said it's a straw man.
> >> >
> >> > The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
> >> mere
> >> > use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
> >> "Harming
> >> > the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
> >> > interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e.
> trolling).".
> >> > [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
> >> > "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
> >> > value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
> >> consensus.
> >> > Compare this with later comments made, for example:
> >> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
> >> >
> >> > I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
> >> >
> >> > [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> >> > Best
> >> >
> >> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
> >> >> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
> >> >> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
> >> >> that what really happened?
> >> >>
> >> >> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really
> see
> >> >> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
> >> >> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
> >> >> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
> >> >> removal of content.
> >> >>
> >> >> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
> >> >> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
> >> >> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
> >> >> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
> >> >> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is
> not
> >> >> a language, but personal attack itself.
> >> >>
> >> >> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them.
> Banning
> >> >> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
> >> >> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
> >> >> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
> >> >> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
> >> >> take hundreds of them... We don't 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Brian Wolff]

Given that many of our users are from wikipedia, and as far as i understand
(I am not a wikipedian), on Wikipedia, using increasing length blocks as as
a punative punishment for rule infractions isn't allowed, I would guess
many of our community don't see it valid to block people temporarily just
because the warnings arent working out.


--
bawolff
On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an
> unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens
> too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when
> it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option is
> to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?
>
> One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they
> don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who the
> user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report about
> the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows
> the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.
>
> Best
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos  wrote:
>
>> Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward
>> seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the
>> vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully
>> explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward,
>> or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't
>> directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others
>> that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed
>> sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that
>> there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
>>
>> A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually
>> clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
>>
>> -I
>>
>> On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
>> > Hey Petr,
>> > We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
>> people
>> > said it's a straw man.
>> >
>> > The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
>> mere
>> > use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
>> "Harming
>> > the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
>> > interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
>> > [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
>> > "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
>> > value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
>> consensus.
>> > Compare this with later comments made, for example:
>> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
>> >
>> > I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
>> >
>> > [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>> > Best
>> >
>> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:
>> >
>> >> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
>> >> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
>> >> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
>> >> that what really happened?
>> >>
>> >> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
>> >> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
>> >> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
>> >> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
>> >> removal of content.
>> >>
>> >> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
>> >> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
>> >> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
>> >> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
>> >> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
>> >> a language, but personal attack itself.
>> >>
>> >> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
>> >> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
>> >> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
>> >> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
>> >> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
>> >> take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
>> >> by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
>> >>
>> >> P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
>> >> recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
>> >> an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
>> >> interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
>> >> randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
>> >> explanation, seems more 1984 style 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

But this wasn't an unconstructive comment. And as a designer, angry 
comments are particularly useful, to a point, as they help give us 
insight into our users and thus better prioritise problems that require 
immediate address. You cite my later response as an example of better 
communication, and yet without comments such as MZMcBride's to highlight 
the nature of the situation, I would never have thought there any NEED 
to leave such a comment.


Now I actually sort of wonder if, had I been less busy at the time being 
sick and backlogged (still backlogged, but wow did things get out of 
hand) and just replied then when he originally brought the situation to 
my attention, all of this might have been avoided?


-I

On 14/08/18 20:02, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:

That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an
unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens
too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when
it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option is
to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?

One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they
don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who the
user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report about
the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows
the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.

Best



On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos  wrote:


Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward
seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the
vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully
explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward,
or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't
directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others
that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed
sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that
there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.

A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually
clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.

-I

On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:

Hey Petr,
We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other

people

said it's a straw man.

The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the

mere

use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is

"Harming

the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
[1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
"WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a

consensus.

Compare this with later comments made, for example:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463

I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.

[1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
Best

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:


I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
that what really happened?

The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
removal of content.

I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
a language, but personal attack itself.

If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
by giving them bans that are hardly justified.

P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
explanation, seems more 1984 style 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Michael Holloway]

What I think has people talking past one another here is that the "final
straw" that led to the ban wasn't a per se ban-worthy offense, *and* there
is no clear standard or process for determining when past patterns of
behavior can be taken into account in determining whether a given action
crosses the line.  In legal contexts we account for past behavior with
things like repeat-offender rules/"three-strikes" rules, point systems (as
with driver's licenses), and so on.  Without such rules or processes in
place, banning someone for conduct that is permitted of others risks at
least the appearance of arbitrariness.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:04 PM Brian Wolff  wrote:

> Thanks Amir for clarifying this. This is the first I remember hearing this
> was the reason for the sactions against mcbride, and differs significantly
> from what I assumed was the reason.
>
> However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after
> facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that
> there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour
> of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
> resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
> where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be
> clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the
> converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full
> disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift
> that has opened up.
>
> Thank you
> --
> Bawolff
>
> On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> > Hey Petr,
> > We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
> people
> > said it's a straw man.
> >
> > The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
> mere
> > use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
> "Harming
> > the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
> > interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
> > [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
> > "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
> > value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
> consensus.
> > Compare this with later comments made, for example:
> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
> >
> > I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
> >
> > [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> > Best
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:
> >
> >> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
> >> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
> >> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
> >> that what really happened?
> >>
> >> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
> >> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
> >> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
> >> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
> >> removal of content.
> >>
> >> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
> >> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
> >> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
> >> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
> >> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
> >> a language, but personal attack itself.
> >>
> >> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
> >> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
> >> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
> >> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
> >> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
> >> take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
> >> by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
> >>
> >> P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
> >> recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
> >> an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
> >> interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
> >> randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
> >> explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
> >>
> >> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt 
> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
> >> the
> >> >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
> and
> >> >> backstory.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > That seems like really toxic behavior.
> >> >
> >> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
> george.herb...@gmail.com
> >> >
> >> > wrote:

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Brian Wolff]

Thanks Amir for clarifying this. This is the first I remember hearing this
was the reason for the sactions against mcbride, and differs significantly
from what I assumed was the reason.

However, MZMcbride has also claimed his comment was in exasperation after
facing the same breach of the CoC you have cited, from varnent. Given that
there is a narrative going around that the CoC is unfairly biased in favour
of staff, would you mind sharing what deliberations took place that
resulted in sactions against only one of the participants in a dispute
where both participants are alleged to have committed the same fault. To be
clear, im not neccesarily sugesting (nor am i neccesarily suggesting the
converse) that the CoC is wrong in this - only that it seems full
disclosure of the rationale seems like the only method to heal this rift
that has opened up.

Thank you
--
Bawolff

On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> Hey Petr,
> We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other people
> said it's a straw man.
>
> The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
mere
> use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is "Harming
> the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
> interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
> [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
> "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
> value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
consensus.
> Compare this with later comments made, for example:
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
>
> I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
>
> [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> Best
>
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:
>
>> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
>> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
>> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
>> that what really happened?
>>
>> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
>> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
>> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
>> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
>> removal of content.
>>
>> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
>> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
>> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
>> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
>> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
>> a language, but personal attack itself.
>>
>> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
>> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
>> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
>> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
>> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
>> take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
>> by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
>>
>> P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
>> recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
>> an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
>> interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
>> randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
>> explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt 
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
>> the
>> >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
>> >> backstory.
>> >>
>> >
>> > That seems like really toxic behavior.
>> >
>> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herb...@gmail.com
>> >
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
>> >> alleged long term abuse pattern.
>> >>
>> >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
>> the
>> >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
>> >> backstory.  That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
>> >> just answer the question?  What happened leading up to this to justify
>> the
>> >> block?  If it's that well known, you can document it.
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight 
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Hi Petr,
>> >> >
>> >> > Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
>> >> and
>> >> > creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
>> have to
>> >> > waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
>> >> 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Amir Ladsgroup]

That's very valid but you don't see the CoCC bans anyone who makes an
unconstructive or angry comment. The problem here happens when it happens
too often from one person. When a pattern emerges. Do you agree that when
it's a norm for one person and warnings are not working out, the option is
to ban to show this sort of behavior is not tolerated?

One hard part of these cases is that people see tip of an iceberg, they
don't see number of reports, pervious reports and number of people who the
user made uncomfortable so much that they bothered to write a report about
the user for different comments and actions. That's one thing that shows
the committee that it's a pattern and not a one-time thing.

Best



On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 21:49 Isarra Yos  wrote:

> Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward
> seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the
> vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully
> explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward,
> or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't
> directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others
> that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed
> sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that
> there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
>
> A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually
> clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
>
> -I
>
> On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
> > Hey Petr,
> > We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
> people
> > said it's a straw man.
> >
> > The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
> mere
> > use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
> "Harming
> > the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
> > interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
> > [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
> > "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
> > value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
> consensus.
> > Compare this with later comments made, for example:
> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
> >
> > I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
> >
> > [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> > Best
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:
> >
> >> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
> >> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
> >> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
> >> that what really happened?
> >>
> >> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
> >> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
> >> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
> >> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
> >> removal of content.
> >>
> >> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
> >> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
> >> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
> >> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
> >> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
> >> a language, but personal attack itself.
> >>
> >> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
> >> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
> >> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
> >> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
> >> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
> >> take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
> >> by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
> >>
> >> P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
> >> recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
> >> an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
> >> interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
> >> randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
> >> explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
> >>
> >> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt 
> >> wrote:
>  Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
> >> the
>  administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
> and
>  backstory.
> 
> >>> That seems like really toxic behavior.
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
> george.herb...@gmail.com
> >>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
>  I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Alex Monk]

It's probably also worth noting that that is not the standard imposed by
the quoted CoC line.

On Tue, 14 Aug 2018, 20:49 Isarra Yos,  wrote:

> Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward
> seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the
> vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully
> explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward,
> or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't
> directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others
> that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed
> sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that
> there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.
>
> A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually
> clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.
>
> -I
>
> On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
> > Hey Petr,
> > We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other
> people
> > said it's a straw man.
> >
> > The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the
> mere
> > use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is
> "Harming
> > the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
> > interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
> > [1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
> > "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
> > value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a
> consensus.
> > Compare this with later comments made, for example:
> > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
> >
> > I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
> >
> > [1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> > Best
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:
> >
> >> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
> >> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
> >> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
> >> that what really happened?
> >>
> >> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
> >> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
> >> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
> >> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
> >> removal of content.
> >>
> >> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
> >> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
> >> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
> >> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
> >> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
> >> a language, but personal attack itself.
> >>
> >> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
> >> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
> >> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
> >> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
> >> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
> >> take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
> >> by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
> >>
> >> P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
> >> recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
> >> an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
> >> interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
> >> randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
> >> explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
> >>
> >> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt 
> >> wrote:
>  Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
> >> the
>  administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
> and
>  backstory.
> 
> >>> That seems like really toxic behavior.
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
> george.herb...@gmail.com
> >>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
>  I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
>  alleged long term abuse pattern.
> 
>  Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
> >> the
>  administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
> and
>  backstory.  That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
> someone
>  just answer the question?  What happened leading up to this to justify
> >> the
>  block?  If it's that well known, you can document it.
> 
>  On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight 
> >> wrote:
> > Hi Petr,
> >
> > Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
> 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Chico Venancio]

How are these arguments against the Code of Conduct Commitee's actions not
arguments that the status quo for the technical community is fine and has
always been fine? Is it the opinion here that we a very welcoming
environment to new and estabilished contributors alike and that no one has
ever stepped over the line? From my, limited, point of view this is how the
discussion reads.

Yes, Code of Conduct enforcement is a very different process then enwiki
blocking, this is not at all a bug. How enwiki is being argued as a gold
standard for community health? Our movement requires a lot of emotional
work of its participants and this is not at all an asset. It is great that
we could finally have a Code of Conduct and have a community-led process
for enforcing it.

There is a lot that we can improve in the CoC and its enforcement, but it
is not in the direction of freely allowing non-constructive repeated
behavior in technical spaces.

Chico Venancio
___
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

Expecting every single comment to specifically move things forward 
seems... a bit excessive, frankly. Not everyone is going to have the 
vocabulary to properly express themselves, let alone the skill to fully 
explain exactly what the issues are, why they are, how to move forward, 
or whatever. And even then, I would argue that having input that isn't 
directly doing any of this can still be useful to indicating to others 
that can that such might indeed be in order, that there is indeed 
sufficient interest to merit the effort, or sufficient confusion that 
there might be more issue than immediately met the eye.


A wtf from one person can help to get others involved to actually 
clarify, or ask followup questions, or what have you. It's not off topic.


-I

On 14/08/18 19:41, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:

Hey Petr,
We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other people
said it's a straw man.

The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is "Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
[1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
"WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463

I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.

[1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
Best

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:


I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
that what really happened?

The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
removal of content.

I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
a language, but personal attack itself.

If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
by giving them bans that are hardly justified.

P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt 
wrote:

Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at

the

administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
backstory.


That seems like really toxic behavior.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert 
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
alleged long term abuse pattern.

Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at

the

administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
backstory.  That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone
just answer the question?  What happened leading up to this to justify

the

block?  If it's that well known, you can document it.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight 

wrote:

Hi Petr,

Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior

and

creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't

have to

waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.

I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the

means

to

accomplish this.  I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to

the

nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives

diverge

at

that point.  I also see lots of people on this list standing up for

what

they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized

better

so that we're 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Amir Ladsgroup]

Hey Petr,
We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other people
said it's a straw man.

The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the mere
use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is "Harming
the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption,
interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).".
[1]  When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment
"WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any
value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a consensus.
Compare this with later comments made, for example:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463

I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.

[1]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
Best

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena  wrote:

> I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
> this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
> continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
> that what really happened?
>
> The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
> what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
> appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
> language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
> removal of content.
>
> I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
> someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
> silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
> are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
> but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
> a language, but personal attack itself.
>
> If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
> someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
> our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
> of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
> not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
> take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
> by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
>
> P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
> recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
> an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
> interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
> randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
> explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
>
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
> the
> >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
> >> backstory.
> >>
> >
> > That seems like really toxic behavior.
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert  >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
> >> alleged long term abuse pattern.
> >>
> >> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
> the
> >> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
> >> backstory.  That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone
> >> just answer the question?  What happened leading up to this to justify
> the
> >> block?  If it's that well known, you can document it.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Hi Petr,
> >> >
> >> > Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
> >> and
> >> > creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
> have to
> >> > waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
> >> >
> >> > I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community
> >> > friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
> means
> >> to
> >> > accomplish this.  I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
> the
> >> > nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
> diverge
> >> at
> >> > that point.  I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
> what
> >> > they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
> >> better
> >> > so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
> shared
> >> > statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
> while
> >> > more effectively addressing the worst in us.
> >> >
> >> > This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been
> >> > thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and
> >> > libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't
> >> > handle "negative laws" [1] well.  For example, the Code of Conduct is
> >> > mostly focused on "unacceptable 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Petr Bena]

I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that
this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they
continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is
that what really happened?

The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see
what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it
appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any
language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban +
removal of content.

I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If
someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's " it may sounds a bit
silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you
are a f retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem,
but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not
a language, but personal attack itself.

If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning
someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think
our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind
of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's
not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could
take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away
by giving them bans that are hardly justified.

P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously
recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build
an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for
interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And
randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic
explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt  wrote:
>>
>> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the
>> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
>> backstory.
>>
>
> That seems like really toxic behavior.
>
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert 
> wrote:
>
>> I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
>> alleged long term abuse pattern.
>>
>> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the
>> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
>> backstory.  That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone
>> just answer the question?  What happened leading up to this to justify the
>> block?  If it's that well known, you can document it.
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight  wrote:
>>
>> > Hi Petr,
>> >
>> > Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
>> and
>> > creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to
>> > waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
>> >
>> > I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community
>> > friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means
>> to
>> > accomplish this.  I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the
>> > nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge
>> at
>> > that point.  I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what
>> > they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
>> better
>> > so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared
>> > statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while
>> > more effectively addressing the worst in us.
>> >
>> > This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been
>> > thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and
>> > libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't
>> > handle "negative laws" [1] well.  For example, the Code of Conduct is
>> > mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite
>> it
>> > in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
>> each
>> > other and the less powerful person in any conflict.  We have a duty to
>> > speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social
>> > space and have to maintain it together.  If you see where I'm headed?
>> > Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project,
>> but
>> > it might be fun.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > Adam
>> >
>> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
>> >
>> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena  wrote:
>> >
>> > > I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days
>> > > discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying
>> > > "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the
>> > > community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that
>> > > what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
>> > > experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
>> > >
>> > > We have 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

>
> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the
> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
> backstory.
>

That seems like really toxic behavior.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert 
wrote:

> I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
> alleged long term abuse pattern.
>
> Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the
> administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
> backstory.  That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone
> just answer the question?  What happened leading up to this to justify the
> block?  If it's that well known, you can document it.
>
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight  wrote:
>
> > Hi Petr,
> >
> > Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
> and
> > creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to
> > waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
> >
> > I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community
> > friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means
> to
> > accomplish this.  I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the
> > nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge
> at
> > that point.  I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what
> > they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
> better
> > so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared
> > statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while
> > more effectively addressing the worst in us.
> >
> > This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been
> > thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and
> > libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't
> > handle "negative laws" [1] well.  For example, the Code of Conduct is
> > mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite
> it
> > in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
> each
> > other and the less powerful person in any conflict.  We have a duty to
> > speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social
> > space and have to maintain it together.  If you see where I'm headed?
> > Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project,
> but
> > it might be fun.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Adam
> >
> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena  wrote:
> >
> > > I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days
> > > discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying
> > > "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the
> > > community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that
> > > what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
> > > experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
> > >
> > > We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of
> > > doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come
> > > on...
> > >
> > > We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to
> > > use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules,
> > > people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend
> > > their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are
> > > volunteers, we don't get money for this.
> > >
> > > P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into
> > > solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it
> > > would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so
> > > desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
> > >
> > > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren 
> wrote:
> > > >  Nuria Ruiz  wrote:
> > > >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort
> of
> > > the
> > > >> majority.
> > > >
> > > > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
> anyone's
> > > > safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems
> > like
> > > > just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and
> > > > majority here?
> > > >
> > > >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
> > > engineer
> > > >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
> > teams
> > > do
> > > >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
> but
> > > the
> > > >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line
> > for
> > > >> while.
> > > >
> > > > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the
> > use
> > > > of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride.
> > What
> > > > this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
> 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Daniel Kinzler]

Am 14.08.2018 um 09:18 schrieb Adam Wight:
> Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior and
> creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to
> waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.

[Note: this is in the abstract, touching on what I feel are the concerns that
several of the people involved in this thread have. I'm not commenting on the
case that triggered this discussion. That was merely the trigger, it's no longer
what this discussion is about.]

I'm asking myself whether this is about form, or about substance. What I mean
is: personal attacks are clearly not ok. Constructive criticism is ok. How about
aggressive yet objective criticism? And does it make a difference what
vocabulary that criticism uses?

Examples:

1) "You clearly didn't read the style guide. Go do that before you waste more of
our time".

2) "Go read the fucking manual"!

3) "I can't believe this still hasn't been fixed! This buck has been open for
two years, it's clearly a problem for the community! Someone apparently isn't
doing their job!"

4) "What the fuck? Still not fixed? What are you guys doing all day?"

These are all Not Nice (tm). They are all aggressive. None of them contain a
personal attack. Does it make a difference that two of them contain the word
"fuck"? Is expressing anger ok, or a reason for blocking?

I personally don't care much about being "nice", I don't care about vocabulary.
I care much about being objective and constructive. And I think it's ok to
express anger and disappointment, as long as no personal attacks are involved.

Making people feel safe and welcome should be our goal, but making people feel
uncomfortable is sometimes necessary if we want clear and direct communication.
I personally consider it an insult to my intelligence if people wrap criticism
in pretty language.

Emotionally processing criticism is something adults should be able to do as a
matter of course. If we don't make mistakes, we probably don't do anything
worthwhile. If nobody can tell us off for making mistakes, we are missing an
opportunity to learn from them. If criticism has to be formulated as
suggestions, we are loosing clarity, and open up to miscommunication.

So, is this about form? Or substance? Is it about how the recipient feels? About
how to formulate criticism?

In my mind, "don't say anything that could make anyone feel bad" cannot be the
criterion. "I find your CR-1 offensive" is not something we can accommodate.
What, then, shall the criterion be to avoid personal attacks and to prevent
verbal abuse?

-- 
Daniel Kinzler
Principal Platform Engineer

Wikimedia Deutschland
Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[George Herbert]

I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the
alleged long term abuse pattern.

Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and
backstory.  That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone
just answer the question?  What happened leading up to this to justify the
block?  If it's that well known, you can document it.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight  wrote:

> Hi Petr,
>
> Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior and
> creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to
> waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
>
> I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community
> friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means to
> accomplish this.  I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the
> nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge at
> that point.  I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what
> they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized better
> so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared
> statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while
> more effectively addressing the worst in us.
>
> This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been
> thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and
> libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't
> handle "negative laws" [1] well.  For example, the Code of Conduct is
> mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite it
> in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support each
> other and the less powerful person in any conflict.  We have a duty to
> speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social
> space and have to maintain it together.  If you see where I'm headed?
> Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project, but
> it might be fun.
>
> Regards,
> Adam
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
>
> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena  wrote:
>
> > I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days
> > discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying
> > "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the
> > community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that
> > what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
> > experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
> >
> > We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of
> > doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come
> > on...
> >
> > We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to
> > use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules,
> > people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend
> > their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are
> > volunteers, we don't get money for this.
> >
> > P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into
> > solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it
> > would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so
> > desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren  wrote:
> > >  Nuria Ruiz  wrote:
> > >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of
> > the
> > >> majority.
> > >
> > > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's
> > > safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems
> like
> > > just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and
> > > majority here?
> > >
> > >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
> > engineer
> > >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
> teams
> > do
> > >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but
> > the
> > >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line
> for
> > >> while.
> > >
> > > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the
> use
> > > of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride.
> What
> > > this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was
> a
> > > blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say
> > > something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
> there's a
> > > lack of transparency here.
> > >
> > > -Yaron
> > > ___
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> > ___
> > Wikitech-l mailing 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Adam Wight]

Hi Petr,

Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.

I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the means to
accomplish this.  I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives diverge at
that point.  I also see lots of people on this list standing up for what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.

This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been
thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and
libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't
handle "negative laws" [1] well.  For example, the Code of Conduct is
mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could rewrite it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict.  We have a duty to
speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social
space and have to maintain it together.  If you see where I'm headed?
Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting project, but
it might be fun.

Regards,
Adam

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights

On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena  wrote:

> I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days
> discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying
> "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the
> community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that
> what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
> experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
>
> We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of
> doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come
> on...
>
> We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to
> use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules,
> people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend
> their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are
> volunteers, we don't get money for this.
>
> P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into
> solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it
> would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so
> desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
>
> On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren  wrote:
> >  Nuria Ruiz  wrote:
> >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of
> the
> >> majority.
> >
> > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's
> > safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems like
> > just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and
> > majority here?
> >
> >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
> engineer
> >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams
> do
> >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but
> the
> >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line for
> >> while.
> >
> > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the use
> > of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride. What
> > this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was a
> > blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say
> > something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a
> > lack of transparency here.
> >
> > -Yaron
> > ___
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
> ___
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> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Petr Bena]

I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days
discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying
"WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that the
community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that
what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best
experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?

We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of
doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh, come
on...

We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile to
use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules,
people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend
their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are
volunteers, we don't get money for this.

P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into
solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it
would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so
desperate with the situation to use some swear words.

On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren  wrote:
>  Nuria Ruiz  wrote:
>> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of the
>> majority.
>
> This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's
> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems like
> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and
> majority here?
>
>> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an engineer
>> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams do
>> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but the
>> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line for
>> while.
>
> This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the use
> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride. What
> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was a
> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say
> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a
> lack of transparency here.
>
> -Yaron
> ___
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Yaron Koren]

 Nuria Ruiz  wrote:
> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of the
> majority.

This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe anyone's
safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it seems like
just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority and
majority here?

> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an engineer
> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams do
> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but the
> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line for
> while.

This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about the use
of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by MZMcBride. What
this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up was a
blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say
something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out, there's a
lack of transparency here.

-Yaron
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Kunal Mehta]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

On 08/09/2018 04:55 AM, Aryeh Gregor wrote:
> The main problem here that needs to be solved is communicating
> what the problem was in a manner that is clear to the parties whom
> the CoC committee seeks to deter.  A one-week ban is not going to
> help anything if the object of the ban doesn't understand what
> about his behavior elicited the ban.

This. Blocks should be preventative, not punitive[1]. If after a week
is up, and the subject doesn't understand the problematic behavior, or
has no intentions of fixing their behavior, then we're just going to
find ourselves in another wikitech-l thread about the same issues a
few months later. And I'd rather we not.

[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Blocks_should_be
_preventative

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Kunal Mehta]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA512

Hi,

On 08/08/2018 03:08 AM, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
> I disabled the account and now I disabled it again. It's part of a
> CoC ban. We sent the user an email using the "Email to user"
> functionality from mediawiki.org the moment I enforced the ban.
> 
> We rather not to discuss details of cases publicly but I feel this 
> clarification is very much needed.

Regardless of whether the amendment of a public disclosure of stuff
passes, there needs to be a way for Phabricator administrators to know
not to reverse a disabling. The disable log is fairly useless, it just
shows the actor and the target - it doesn't even say whether the
account was enabled or disabled.

Had I been online when MZMcBride sent his email, I probably would have
acted similarly to Mukunda, assuming it was an accident of some sort,
and re-enabled the account.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Nuria Ruiz]

>After several negative examples discussed in the last few months on this
list,* this action conclusively proves in my eyes the failure of the Code
of conduct to be a positive force for our community, at least so far >and
in the present conditions.
The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the comfort of the
majority. It might not be perfect but it is sure already working well to
echo and document the concerns of many in the community that really do not
feel comfortable to reply to a thread in this e-mail list. Or phabricator.
Or a talk page. Reports are confidential and would continue to be so to
make sure everyone feels safe to report *any* incident of *any* severity.
On this specific case discussing whether profanity is OK or not is just a
distraction as there is a long history of hostility and harsh criticism.
The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an engineer
agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical teams do
track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure) but the
harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of line for
while.

Thanks,

Nuria



On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 8:42 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) 
wrote:

> Thanks Amir and MZMcBride for disclosing the action.
>
> A volunteer has been punished for speaking up in defense of fellow
> volunteer and paid contributors, whose contribution was being sidelined and
> suffocated by people "in charge" of the specific space, i.e. the people
> they were doing their best to help.
>
> The message which was sanctioned was even of an especially thoughtful
> kind, in my opinion, because it didn't attempt to submerge the other users
> with walls of text, politically correct tirades or otherwise charged
> statements. It was merely a heartfelt interjection to help people stop,
> reconsider their actions and self-improve without the need of lectures. Was
> this peculiar effort at constructive facilitation considered? If not, what
> alternatives or constructive suggestions were provided?
>
> After several negative examples discussed in the last few months on this
> list,* this action conclusively proves in my eyes the failure of the Code
> of conduct to be a positive force for our community, at least sso far and
> in the present conditions.
>
> The committee needs to immediately resign or be disbanded, and be reformed
> on a more solid basis.
>
> Federico
>
> (*) And not a single disclosed positive action, as far as I know. But it
> might have been lost due to the lack of a transparency report. If one was
> released or is upcoming, sorry; I'll revise my conclusions accordingly.
>
>
> ___
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> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[C. Scott Ananian]

I'd like to echo/reinforce Adam's conclusion:

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 7:39 PM, Adam Wight  wrote:

>
> Thank you for your energy and insights, and I hope we can work together to
> root out the bad decisions and corruption, without this nonsense of having
> to bail you out of Phabricator jail every few months.
>

FWIW, I value the "loyal opposition" in open source projects as a healthy
counterweight.  I have worked with other open source projects in the past
where the "loyal opposition" proved to outlast the original project in
dedication to the shared cause.

I also care deeply about preventing harassment of our community.  It is a
hard line to draw beween "difficult truths" and "deliberately hurtful".
"Assume good faith" is our mantra to try to concentrate on the "truth"
instead of the "difficult" part, but it's a never-ending challenge to get
the balance right.

MZ is a canary in our coal mine, in two ways.  On one hand MZ continually
challenges us to revisit our assumptions and do better in our work.  This
is hard but terribly useful.

On the other hand, MZ tests and probes our community guidelines.  We need
to ensure they are well calibrated to protect the community from harm.  And
I'm not going to minimize the harm that careless criticism can do,
especially to new contributors or soft voices.  I don't think a temporary
ban in this case is outrageous (although I echo Chad's concern), and I
don't think that close scrutiny of MZ's words is unreasonable.  I think
there are many measures we can take to listen carefully to MZ without
allowing MZ's actions to effect harm, and we should continue to do them.

I hope that we will continue to do the difficult balancing work, and not
fall into the easy extremes.  We must not ignore difficult truths, though
it is easy to do so if the messenger is unappealing. But we also must not
assume that because the criticism is legit the presentation is ipso facto
acceptable.
  --scott, speaking for myself only

-- 
(http://cscott.net)
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

>
> yet this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like this
> in the future.
>

Based on what has been provided in this thread, I do *not* see this as an
incident that needs to be avoided in the future.

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 9:23 AM Isarra Yos  wrote:

> It's sounds nice, but no. It is not a feature. One of the arguments I
> was given when the CoC was initially pushed through was that of course
> it wasn't perfect as was, that it would be amended and fixed based on
> the real incidents it came into contact with. I maintain that it is
> impossible to do this - to amend, fix, and generally refine a document
> based on the real cases - when the details of the real cases and even
> the stats about what they are in general remain unavailable, and yet
> this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like this in
> the future.
>
> There has been considerable disagreement as to where we should be
> drawing the line between the public cases, the generalised, and the
> private, but this too is something we need to figure out out a community
> and clearly draw, and the only way to do so is with clear information on
> what is possible, common, and feasible.
>
> -I
>
> On 09/08/18 22:39, David Barratt wrote:
> > I'm not sure I completely understand the problem. What is being called a
> > "lack of transparency" is the opposite of "privacy by design." What is
> > being called a bug, is perhaps a feature. The irony of this, ought not be
> > missed.
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 6:33 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:
> >
> >> An interesting comparison, democracy. Community consensus and
> >> transparency were what brought our shared project to the great heights
> >> we now see, and yet the CoC and especially its enforcement are rooted in
> >> none of this. If this trainwreck that we are currently experiencing on
> >> this list is truly our best shot at an open, welcoming, and supportive
> >> environment when it flies in the face of everything that brought us here
> >> in the first place, then all of that was a lie.
> >>
> >> I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, though. Keeping everything behind
> >> closed doors is the opposite of open. Community members having the CoC
> >> used against them as a club and being afraid of retribution for seeking
> >> help is the opposite of a welcoming and supportive environment. I would
> >> put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
> >> implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to
> >> step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
> >> forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement,
> >> but to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
> >> consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the
> >> committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is
> >> available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible
> >> even when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.
> >>
> >> Because if we do not base this in open process, consensus, and
> >> transparency, then all platitudes aside, it's just not going to be
> >> very... good. It's not going to address our needs, and we're not going
> >> to be able to refine it as things come up. Not doing this /isn't
> >> working/, and we need it work.
> >>
> >> -I
> >>
> >> On 09/08/18 20:48, Victoria Coleman wrote:
> >>> Hi everyone,
> >>>
> >>> I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a remote
> >> mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw
> this
> >> today:
> >>>
> >>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/
> >> <
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/
> >>>
> >>> This is us. This is our shared project. What an incredible privilege it
> >> is to have the opportunity to be part of something utopian, yet real,
> that
> >> is seen by the world as the last bastion of shared reality. This is no
> >> accident, no fluke. It’s because of us. This incredible community of
> ours.
> >> We are all different and yet we all, staff and volunteers alike, strive
> to
> >> bring the best of ourselves to this monumental project of ours.
> Sometimes
> >> we get it wrong. We get emotional, we say the wrong thing, we get
> >> frustrated with each other.  But we are all in this together. And we
> hold
> >> ourselves to a higher standard. I hope we can also forgive each other
> when
> >> we fall down and offer a helping hand instead of a harsh, hurtful word.
> The
> >> CoC , like democracy, is not perfect but it’s our best shot at an open,
> >> welcoming and supportive environment in our technical spaces. Let’s
> >> continue refining it and let’s get back to work.
> >>> Warmly,
> >>>
> >>> Victoria
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion <
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion>
> >>>
> >>>
>  On Aug 9, 2018, at 7:24 PM, Stas 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

It's sounds nice, but no. It is not a feature. One of the arguments I 
was given when the CoC was initially pushed through was that of course 
it wasn't perfect as was, that it would be amended and fixed based on 
the real incidents it came into contact with. I maintain that it is 
impossible to do this - to amend, fix, and generally refine a document 
based on the real cases - when the details of the real cases and even 
the stats about what they are in general remain unavailable, and yet 
this is clearly precisely what is needed to avoid incidents like this in 
the future.


There has been considerable disagreement as to where we should be 
drawing the line between the public cases, the generalised, and the 
private, but this too is something we need to figure out out a community 
and clearly draw, and the only way to do so is with clear information on 
what is possible, common, and feasible.


-I

On 09/08/18 22:39, David Barratt wrote:

I'm not sure I completely understand the problem. What is being called a
"lack of transparency" is the opposite of "privacy by design." What is
being called a bug, is perhaps a feature. The irony of this, ought not be
missed.

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 6:33 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:


An interesting comparison, democracy. Community consensus and
transparency were what brought our shared project to the great heights
we now see, and yet the CoC and especially its enforcement are rooted in
none of this. If this trainwreck that we are currently experiencing on
this list is truly our best shot at an open, welcoming, and supportive
environment when it flies in the face of everything that brought us here
in the first place, then all of that was a lie.

I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, though. Keeping everything behind
closed doors is the opposite of open. Community members having the CoC
used against them as a club and being afraid of retribution for seeking
help is the opposite of a welcoming and supportive environment. I would
put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to
step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement,
but to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the
committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is
available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible
even when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.

Because if we do not base this in open process, consensus, and
transparency, then all platitudes aside, it's just not going to be
very... good. It's not going to address our needs, and we're not going
to be able to refine it as things come up. Not doing this /isn't
working/, and we need it work.

-I

On 09/08/18 20:48, Victoria Coleman wrote:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a remote

mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw this
today:



https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/





On Aug 9, 2018, at 7:24 PM, Stas Malyshev 

wrote:

Hi!


to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If

the

block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might

be

hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public

of

everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people

reporting,

but also the reported.

You have a good point here. Maybe it should not be permanent, but should
expire after the ban is lifted. I can see how that could be better
(though nothing that was ever public is completely forgotten, but still
not carrying it around in our spaces might be good). So I'd say public
record while the 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Joaquin Oltra Hernandez]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 12:05 PM Joaquin Oltra Hernandez <
jhernan...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Thanks Ori for sharing your perspective, you are alone.
>

Sorry, Ori, you are *NOT *alone. :/


>
> Thanks Amir and Lucie for sharing your perspectives. They are very much
> appreciated.
>
> We are people interacting with other people. We must never forget that and
> we should treat each other with respect, specially in the online spaces
> with written communication, as there is so much context lost.
>
> I think it is disingenuous to think this is about using offensive language
> once. Keep it in mind when discussing the actions of the CoC committee,
> because they are reasonable *people* doing their best to uphold our
> communities and spaces to great standards in their volunteer time. Please
> re-read https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct to put things in
> context. Some excerpts that I consider relevant:
>
>
>>
>> *In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we are
>> committed to making participation in Wikimedia technical projects a
>> respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone, [...][...] Prolific
>> contributions and technical expertise are not a justification for lower
>> standards of behavior.Unacceptable behavior
>> *
>>
>>- *Personal attacks, [...], or deliberate intimidation.*
>>
>>
>>- *Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments.*
>>
>>
>>- *[...]*
>>
>>
>>- *Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication,
>>following, or any form of stalking.*
>>
>>
>>- *[...]*
>>
>>
>>- *Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained
>>disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e.
>>trolling).*
>>
>>
>>- *[...]*
>>
>>
>>- *Attempting to circumvent a decision of the Committee or appeals
>>body, e.g. unblocking someone during a period the Committee banned them.*
>>
>>
> I am personally very thankful that we have it and of the work that the
> committee members have been doing for all of us.
>
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 3:57 AM MZMcBride  wrote:
>
>> Gergo Tisza wrote:
>> >- First of all, I'd like to thank the Code of Conduct committee for doing
>> >their job. It's a hard job where they need to make difficult judgement
>> >calls, and are criticized harshly when they make a bad judgement and
>> >ignored at best when they make a good one (although more likely they
>> still
>> >get criticized harshly). It's also a necessary job, so we should be glad
>> >that someone is willing to do it (even if imperfectly, as human beings
>> are
>> >bound to). It's not unlike the role of Wikipedia administrators in that
>> >regard.
>>
>> Most of Wikimedia's and most of MediaWiki's existence has progressed
>> without a group of sticklers patrolling for language (or apparently tone)
>> that they happen to disagree with, at that time, in that context. Here's
>> you (Gergo) using the abbreviation "WTF" in May 2018:
>> . It's completely
>> possible for someone to fake outrage at your Phabricator Maniphest
>> comment, just as it's completely possible, and perhaps probable, for
>> people to fake outrage at an expanded "What the fuck." comment.
>>
>> Isarra wrote:
>> > I would put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
>> >implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to
>> >step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
>> >forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement, but
>> >to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
>> >consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the
>> >committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is
>> >available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible even
>> >when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.
>>
>> Yes to all of this. The lack of transparency regarding how many
>> "incidents" this committee handles and what level of severity they are
>> means that any discussion about the necessity of having this committee is
>> incredibly difficult. Someone saying "What the fuck." on a Phabricator
>> task is not the same as someone threatening to kill another user. Any kind
>> of flat "this is how many complaints we received" statistic will be
>> incredibly misleading. (Consider a "number of crimes" statistic for any
>> city that conflates vandalism with rape.) Just how necessary is this group
>> that has only been around for about 15 months? Is its presence doing more
>> harm than good? Framing this group as a necessity is misguided without
>> substantiating the claim. Having watched similar arguments used to justify
>> expanded security theater at airports and public venues, I actually think
>> a sudden embrace of increased, questionable bureaucracy is pernicious.
>>

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[George Herbert]

This is not occurring on enwiki; however, if it was, given that this is a
longstanding user I would expect to see a pattern of warnings, a long set
of diffs for prior incidents, clear documentation of both the rule *and*
the social context for the problem before someone gets blocked for a week.
If someone was confused or objected that would all be on the record.

I know better than to suggest every project's internal enforcement and
policies work the same way, but ... three days into the discussion thread,
I am still confused, lacking prior incident information, lacking prior
warnings documentation, lacking explanation of the social context, lacking
explanation for why this "wtf" was enforced but not any of the apparently
500-ish other instances in history on this project.

The enwiki assumption is that it's the responsibility for acting
administrators or arbitrators to justify and explain if someone challenges
or asks for clarification.  That's there for a reason.  Not that every
single act (personally identifiable information leaks, sexual harassment,
issues involving minors, etc) can be fully publicly explained, but
excluding those classes of issue it all should be if someone asks.

I don't feel comfortable watching these exchanges and not getting real
context and explanation.  I went back and reread again tonight and it's
still not coming through.  I don't know this was an improper action, but
it's not explained properly yet.

Can someone on CoC give the rest of us the type of information we'd see if
this was enwiki?  If not, can you explain why not?  I know you may not (yet
or ever) always require that, but it's what is needed to stop these types
of threads and questions.

Thank you


On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 3:05 AM, Joaquin Oltra Hernandez <
jhernan...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Thanks Ori for sharing your perspective, you are alone.
>
> Thanks Amir and Lucie for sharing your perspectives. They are very much
> appreciated.
>
> We are people interacting with other people. We must never forget that and
> we should treat each other with respect, specially in the online spaces
> with written communication, as there is so much context lost.
>
> I think it is disingenuous to think this is about using offensive language
> once. Keep it in mind when discussing the actions of the CoC committee,
> because they are reasonable *people* doing their best to uphold our
> communities and spaces to great standards in their volunteer time. Please
> re-read https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct to put things in
> context. Some excerpts that I consider relevant:
>
>
> >
> > *In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we are
> > committed to making participation in Wikimedia technical projects a
> > respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone, [...][...]
> Prolific
> > contributions and technical expertise are not a justification for lower
> > standards of behavior.Unacceptable behavior
> > *
> >
> >- *Personal attacks, [...], or deliberate intimidation.*
> >
> >
> >- *Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments.*
> >
> >
> >- *[...]*
> >
> >
> >- *Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication,
> >following, or any form of stalking.*
> >
> >
> >- *[...]*
> >
> >
> >- *Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained
> >disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e.
> >trolling).*
> >
> >
> >- *[...]*
> >
> >
> >- *Attempting to circumvent a decision of the Committee or appeals
> >body, e.g. unblocking someone during a period the Committee banned
> them.*
> >
> >
> I am personally very thankful that we have it and of the work that the
> committee members have been doing for all of us.
>
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 3:57 AM MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> > Gergo Tisza wrote:
> > >- First of all, I'd like to thank the Code of Conduct committee for
> doing
> > >their job. It's a hard job where they need to make difficult judgement
> > >calls, and are criticized harshly when they make a bad judgement and
> > >ignored at best when they make a good one (although more likely they
> still
> > >get criticized harshly). It's also a necessary job, so we should be glad
> > >that someone is willing to do it (even if imperfectly, as human beings
> are
> > >bound to). It's not unlike the role of Wikipedia administrators in that
> > >regard.
> >
> > Most of Wikimedia's and most of MediaWiki's existence has progressed
> > without a group of sticklers patrolling for language (or apparently tone)
> > that they happen to disagree with, at that time, in that context. Here's
> > you (Gergo) using the abbreviation "WTF" in May 2018:
> > . It's completely
> > possible for someone to fake outrage at your Phabricator Maniphest
> > comment, just as it's completely possible, and perhaps probable, 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Joaquin Oltra Hernandez]

Thanks Ori for sharing your perspective, you are alone.

Thanks Amir and Lucie for sharing your perspectives. They are very much
appreciated.

We are people interacting with other people. We must never forget that and
we should treat each other with respect, specially in the online spaces
with written communication, as there is so much context lost.

I think it is disingenuous to think this is about using offensive language
once. Keep it in mind when discussing the actions of the CoC committee,
because they are reasonable *people* doing their best to uphold our
communities and spaces to great standards in their volunteer time. Please
re-read https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct to put things in
context. Some excerpts that I consider relevant:


>
> *In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we are
> committed to making participation in Wikimedia technical projects a
> respectful and harassment-free experience for everyone, [...][...] Prolific
> contributions and technical expertise are not a justification for lower
> standards of behavior.Unacceptable behavior
> *
>
>- *Personal attacks, [...], or deliberate intimidation.*
>
>
>- *Offensive, derogatory, or discriminatory comments.*
>
>
>- *[...]*
>
>
>- *Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication,
>following, or any form of stalking.*
>
>
>- *[...]*
>
>
>- *Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained
>disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e.
>trolling).*
>
>
>- *[...]*
>
>
>- *Attempting to circumvent a decision of the Committee or appeals
>body, e.g. unblocking someone during a period the Committee banned them.*
>
>
I am personally very thankful that we have it and of the work that the
committee members have been doing for all of us.

On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 3:57 AM MZMcBride  wrote:

> Gergo Tisza wrote:
> >- First of all, I'd like to thank the Code of Conduct committee for doing
> >their job. It's a hard job where they need to make difficult judgement
> >calls, and are criticized harshly when they make a bad judgement and
> >ignored at best when they make a good one (although more likely they still
> >get criticized harshly). It's also a necessary job, so we should be glad
> >that someone is willing to do it (even if imperfectly, as human beings are
> >bound to). It's not unlike the role of Wikipedia administrators in that
> >regard.
>
> Most of Wikimedia's and most of MediaWiki's existence has progressed
> without a group of sticklers patrolling for language (or apparently tone)
> that they happen to disagree with, at that time, in that context. Here's
> you (Gergo) using the abbreviation "WTF" in May 2018:
> . It's completely
> possible for someone to fake outrage at your Phabricator Maniphest
> comment, just as it's completely possible, and perhaps probable, for
> people to fake outrage at an expanded "What the fuck." comment.
>
> Isarra wrote:
> > I would put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
> >implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to
> >step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
> >forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement, but
> >to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
> >consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the
> >committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is
> >available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible even
> >when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.
>
> Yes to all of this. The lack of transparency regarding how many
> "incidents" this committee handles and what level of severity they are
> means that any discussion about the necessity of having this committee is
> incredibly difficult. Someone saying "What the fuck." on a Phabricator
> task is not the same as someone threatening to kill another user. Any kind
> of flat "this is how many complaints we received" statistic will be
> incredibly misleading. (Consider a "number of crimes" statistic for any
> city that conflates vandalism with rape.) Just how necessary is this group
> that has only been around for about 15 months? Is its presence doing more
> harm than good? Framing this group as a necessity is misguided without
> substantiating the claim. Having watched similar arguments used to justify
> expanded security theater at airports and public venues, I actually think
> a sudden embrace of increased, questionable bureaucracy is pernicious.
>
> Gergo Tisza wrote:
> >- Also, do consider that MZMcBride had the option to reach out to the CoC
> >committee and ask their help in understanding exactly which of his
> >comments were problematic and in what way, and how they could be reframed
> >in a 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[MZMcBride]

Gergo Tisza wrote:
>- First of all, I'd like to thank the Code of Conduct committee for doing
>their job. It's a hard job where they need to make difficult judgement
>calls, and are criticized harshly when they make a bad judgement and
>ignored at best when they make a good one (although more likely they still
>get criticized harshly). It's also a necessary job, so we should be glad
>that someone is willing to do it (even if imperfectly, as human beings are
>bound to). It's not unlike the role of Wikipedia administrators in that
>regard.

Most of Wikimedia's and most of MediaWiki's existence has progressed
without a group of sticklers patrolling for language (or apparently tone)
that they happen to disagree with, at that time, in that context. Here's
you (Gergo) using the abbreviation "WTF" in May 2018:
. It's completely
possible for someone to fake outrage at your Phabricator Maniphest
comment, just as it's completely possible, and perhaps probable, for
people to fake outrage at an expanded "What the fuck." comment.

Isarra wrote:
> I would put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
>implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to
>step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
>forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement, but
>to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
>consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the
>committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is
>available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible even
>when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.

Yes to all of this. The lack of transparency regarding how many
"incidents" this committee handles and what level of severity they are
means that any discussion about the necessity of having this committee is
incredibly difficult. Someone saying "What the fuck." on a Phabricator
task is not the same as someone threatening to kill another user. Any kind
of flat "this is how many complaints we received" statistic will be
incredibly misleading. (Consider a "number of crimes" statistic for any
city that conflates vandalism with rape.) Just how necessary is this group
that has only been around for about 15 months? Is its presence doing more
harm than good? Framing this group as a necessity is misguided without
substantiating the claim. Having watched similar arguments used to justify
expanded security theater at airports and public venues, I actually think
a sudden embrace of increased, questionable bureaucracy is pernicious.

Gergo Tisza wrote:
>- Also, do consider that MZMcBride had the option to reach out to the CoC
>committee and ask their help in understanding exactly which of his
>comments were problematic and in what way, and how they could be reframed
>in a constructive way. He had the same option the previous time when the
>committee merely warned him for a similar infraction. That he chose not
>to is hardly the committee's fault.

Most of the reason I didn't see the e-mail about my account being disabled
is that someone decided to use the wiki software at mediawiki.org to send
an e-mail instead of sending an e-mail directly. I don't understand this
practice or why it's appropriate or desirable.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

I'm not sure I completely understand the problem. What is being called a
"lack of transparency" is the opposite of "privacy by design." What is
being called a bug, is perhaps a feature. The irony of this, ought not be
missed.

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 6:33 PM Isarra Yos  wrote:

> An interesting comparison, democracy. Community consensus and
> transparency were what brought our shared project to the great heights
> we now see, and yet the CoC and especially its enforcement are rooted in
> none of this. If this trainwreck that we are currently experiencing on
> this list is truly our best shot at an open, welcoming, and supportive
> environment when it flies in the face of everything that brought us here
> in the first place, then all of that was a lie.
>
> I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, though. Keeping everything behind
> closed doors is the opposite of open. Community members having the CoC
> used against them as a club and being afraid of retribution for seeking
> help is the opposite of a welcoming and supportive environment. I would
> put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed
> implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to
> step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move
> forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement,
> but to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed
> consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the
> committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is
> available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible
> even when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.
>
> Because if we do not base this in open process, consensus, and
> transparency, then all platitudes aside, it's just not going to be
> very... good. It's not going to address our needs, and we're not going
> to be able to refine it as things come up. Not doing this /isn't
> working/, and we need it work.
>
> -I
>
> On 09/08/18 20:48, Victoria Coleman wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a remote
> mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw this
> today:
> >
> >
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/
>  >
> >
> > This is us. This is our shared project. What an incredible privilege it
> is to have the opportunity to be part of something utopian, yet real, that
> is seen by the world as the last bastion of shared reality. This is no
> accident, no fluke. It’s because of us. This incredible community of ours.
> We are all different and yet we all, staff and volunteers alike, strive to
> bring the best of ourselves to this monumental project of ours. Sometimes
> we get it wrong. We get emotional, we say the wrong thing, we get
> frustrated with each other.  But we are all in this together. And we hold
> ourselves to a higher standard. I hope we can also forgive each other when
> we fall down and offer a helping hand instead of a harsh, hurtful word. The
> CoC , like democracy, is not perfect but it’s our best shot at an open,
> welcoming and supportive environment in our technical spaces. Let’s
> continue refining it and let’s get back to work.
> >
> > Warmly,
> >
> > Victoria
> >
> >
> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion>
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Aug 9, 2018, at 7:24 PM, Stas Malyshev 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi!
> >>
> >>> to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If
> the
> >>> block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might
> be
> >>> hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public
> of
> >>> everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people
> reporting,
> >>> but also the reported.
> >> You have a good point here. Maybe it should not be permanent, but should
> >> expire after the ban is lifted. I can see how that could be better
> >> (though nothing that was ever public is completely forgotten, but still
> >> not carrying it around in our spaces might be good). So I'd say public
> >> record while the ban is active is a must, but after that expunging the
> >> record is fine.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Stas Malyshev
> >> smalys...@wikimedia.org
> >>
> >> ___
> >> Wikitech-l mailing list
> >> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > ___
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

>
> If we really feel people trying to interact with a banned users should find
> out the user is banned, it could be displayed in their Phabricator profile
> or in the Phabricator calendar (that results in a little notice icon
> everywhere the username is used), although I'd hope the banned person can
> opt out of that happening as it feels somewhat stigmatizing.
>

It appears that this is already (somewhat) the case:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/p/MZMcBride/

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 5:19 PM Gergo Tisza  wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 7:41 AM Stas Malyshev 
> wrote:
>
> > 1. The account was disabled without any indication (except the email to
> > the person owning it, which is also rather easy to miss - not the
> > admin's fault, but read on) of what and why happened, as far as I could
> > see. Note that Phabricator is a collaborative space, and disabling an
> > account may influence everybody who may have been working with the
> > person, and even everybody that working on a ticket that this person
> > commented once. If they submitted a bug and I want to verify with them
> > and the account is disabled - what do I do?
> > People are left guessing - did something happen? Did his user leave the
> > project? Was it something they said? Something I said? Some bug? Admin
> > action? What is going on? There's no explanation, there's no permanent
> > public record, and no way to figure out what it is.
> >
> > What I would propose to improve this is on each such action, to have
> > permanent public record, in a known place, that specifies:
> > a. What action it was (ban, temporary ban - with duration, etc.)
> > b. Who decided on that action and who implemented it, the latter - to be
> > sure if somebody thinks it's a bug or mistake, they can ask "did you
> > really mean to ban X" instead of being in unpleasant and potentially
> > embarrassing position of trying to guess what happened with no
> information.
> > c. Why this action was taken - if sensitive details involved, omitting
> > them, but providing enough context to understand what happened, e.g.
> > "Banned X for repeated comments in conflict with CoC, which we had to
> > delete, e.g. [link], [link] and [link]" or "Permanently banned Y for
> > conduct unwelcome in Wikimedia spaces", if revealing any more details
> > would hurt people.
> >
>
> That proposed solution does not solve the problem you are proposing it for.
> If a person I'm interacting with on Phabricator or Gerrit disappears, I'm
> not going to look through CoC ban records, even if I know such a thing
> exists (which most people wouldn't, even if it's well-publicized). I'll
> just assume they are busy or sick or something.
>
> If we really feel people trying to interact with a banned users should find
> out the user is banned, it could be displayed in their Phabricator profile
> or in the Phabricator calendar (that results in a little notice icon
> everywhere the username is used), although I'd hope the banned person can
> opt out of that happening as it feels somewhat stigmatizing.
>
>
> > 2. There seems to be no clearly defined venue to discuss and form
> > consensus about such actions. As it must be clear now, such venue is
> > required, and if it is not provided, the first venue that looks suitable
> > for it will be roped in. To much annoyance of the people that wanted to
> > use that venue for other things.
> >
>
> I doubt that would have much effect - the person who is objecting about a
> CoC action benefits from using the forum that grabs the most attention,
> even if there's a more appropriate one. People who are considerate enough
> not to do that are typically not the ones who end up getting banned.
> ___
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

An interesting comparison, democracy. Community consensus and 
transparency were what brought our shared project to the great heights 
we now see, and yet the CoC and especially its enforcement are rooted in 
none of this. If this trainwreck that we are currently experiencing on 
this list is truly our best shot at an open, welcoming, and supportive 
environment when it flies in the face of everything that brought us here 
in the first place, then all of that was a lie.


I'm pretty sure that's just wrong, though. Keeping everything behind 
closed doors is the opposite of open. Community members having the CoC 
used against them as a club and being afraid of retribution for seeking 
help is the opposite of a welcoming and supportive environment. I would 
put forth that the CoC, or more accurately, this heavy-handed 
implementation of it, has been an abject failure that requires us all to 
step back and try to look at all of this more objectively. To move 
forward, we must address the issues with the CoC and its enforcement, 
but to do so as a community, to come to any meaningful and informed 
consensuses as such, will not be possible so long as nobody outside the 
committee has any access to the stats, as no logging of actions taken is 
available publicly, as the cases themselves remain largely invisible 
even when they do not pertain to sensitive situations or materials.


Because if we do not base this in open process, consensus, and 
transparency, then all platitudes aside, it's just not going to be 
very... good. It's not going to address our needs, and we're not going 
to be able to refine it as things come up. Not doing this /isn't 
working/, and we need it work.


-I

On 09/08/18 20:48, Victoria Coleman wrote:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a remote 
mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw this 
today:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/ 


This is us. This is our shared project. What an incredible privilege it is to 
have the opportunity to be part of something utopian, yet real, that is seen by 
the world as the last bastion of shared reality. This is no accident, no fluke. 
It’s because of us. This incredible community of ours. We are all different and 
yet we all, staff and volunteers alike, strive to bring the best of ourselves 
to this monumental project of ours. Sometimes we get it wrong. We get 
emotional, we say the wrong thing, we get frustrated with each other.  But we 
are all in this together. And we hold ourselves to a higher standard. I hope we 
can also forgive each other when we fall down and offer a helping hand instead 
of a harsh, hurtful word. The CoC , like democracy, is not perfect but it’s our 
best shot at an open, welcoming and supportive environment in our technical 
spaces. Let’s continue refining it and let’s get back to work.

Warmly,

Victoria


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion 




On Aug 9, 2018, at 7:24 PM, Stas Malyshev  wrote:

Hi!


to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If the
block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might be
hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public of
everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people reporting,
but also the reported.

You have a good point here. Maybe it should not be permanent, but should
expire after the ban is lifted. I can see how that could be better
(though nothing that was ever public is completely forgotten, but still
not carrying it around in our spaces might be good). So I'd say public
record while the ban is active is a must, but after that expunging the
record is fine.

--
Stas Malyshev
smalys...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Gergo Tisza]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 7:41 AM Stas Malyshev 
wrote:

> 1. The account was disabled without any indication (except the email to
> the person owning it, which is also rather easy to miss - not the
> admin's fault, but read on) of what and why happened, as far as I could
> see. Note that Phabricator is a collaborative space, and disabling an
> account may influence everybody who may have been working with the
> person, and even everybody that working on a ticket that this person
> commented once. If they submitted a bug and I want to verify with them
> and the account is disabled - what do I do?
> People are left guessing - did something happen? Did his user leave the
> project? Was it something they said? Something I said? Some bug? Admin
> action? What is going on? There's no explanation, there's no permanent
> public record, and no way to figure out what it is.
>
> What I would propose to improve this is on each such action, to have
> permanent public record, in a known place, that specifies:
> a. What action it was (ban, temporary ban - with duration, etc.)
> b. Who decided on that action and who implemented it, the latter - to be
> sure if somebody thinks it's a bug or mistake, they can ask "did you
> really mean to ban X" instead of being in unpleasant and potentially
> embarrassing position of trying to guess what happened with no information.
> c. Why this action was taken - if sensitive details involved, omitting
> them, but providing enough context to understand what happened, e.g.
> "Banned X for repeated comments in conflict with CoC, which we had to
> delete, e.g. [link], [link] and [link]" or "Permanently banned Y for
> conduct unwelcome in Wikimedia spaces", if revealing any more details
> would hurt people.
>

That proposed solution does not solve the problem you are proposing it for.
If a person I'm interacting with on Phabricator or Gerrit disappears, I'm
not going to look through CoC ban records, even if I know such a thing
exists (which most people wouldn't, even if it's well-publicized). I'll
just assume they are busy or sick or something.

If we really feel people trying to interact with a banned users should find
out the user is banned, it could be displayed in their Phabricator profile
or in the Phabricator calendar (that results in a little notice icon
everywhere the username is used), although I'd hope the banned person can
opt out of that happening as it feels somewhat stigmatizing.


> 2. There seems to be no clearly defined venue to discuss and form
> consensus about such actions. As it must be clear now, such venue is
> required, and if it is not provided, the first venue that looks suitable
> for it will be roped in. To much annoyance of the people that wanted to
> use that venue for other things.
>

I doubt that would have much effect - the person who is objecting about a
CoC action benefits from using the forum that grabs the most attention,
even if there's a more appropriate one. People who are considerate enough
not to do that are typically not the ones who end up getting banned.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Gergo Tisza]

Some thoughts:

- First of all, I'd like to thank the Code of Conduct committee for doing
their job. It's a hard job where they need to make difficult judgement
calls, and are criticized harshly when they make a bad judgement and
ignored at best when they make a good one (although more likely they still
get criticized harshly). It's also a necessary job, so we should be glad
that someone is willing to do it (even if imperfectly, as human beings are
bound to). It's not unlike the role of Wikipedia administrators in that
regard.

- I imagine the CoC committee sees the public announcing of bans as a kind
of public shaming that the banned people might not want and do not deserve.
I appreciate the intent but I think 99% of the time the banned person will
just use the opportunity to make the announcement themselves, frame the
issue to their benefit and maximize drama. (The kind of person who would be
unwilling to do that typically does not give cause for being banned in the
first place.) So it would be better if the committee made the announcement
themselves (maybe not as a rule, but as a default).

- Some people can tell when the use of the word "fuck" is hostile to a
fellow contributor, some people can't (and some can tell very precisely and
pretend not to, but let's not go there). If you are the second type of
person, just don't use it, it's that easy. It's not like you are somehow
handicapped by not being able to swear in public.

- I find all the "why did he get banned over a single WTF comment?"
questions a bit disingenuous. MZMcBride has a long history of hostility and
of trying to apply meanness as a social lever to influence prioritization
decisions. Those who have been around long in Wikimedia technical spaces
are well aware of that, and most people asking these faux-naive questions
*have* been around for long. Please don't set strawmans. If you want to
argue that a pattern of lots and lots of "wtf comments" spanning multiple
years is not something that should ever result in a ban, argue for that. If
you really think the notification about a ban should contain the person's
entire history of abuse, say that. But let's treat this discussion as a
serious thing.

- Also, do consider that MZMcBride had the option to reach out to the CoC
committee and ask their help in understanding exactly which of his comments
were problematic and in what way, and how they could be reframed in a
constructive way. He had the same option the previous time when the
committee merely warned him for a similar infraction. That he chose not to
is hardly the committee's fault.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Victoria Coleman]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been following this discussion from afar (literally from a remote 
mountainous part of Greece [1]) so please excuse the reflection. I saw this 
today: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/jeongpedia/566897/ 


This is us. This is our shared project. What an incredible privilege it is to 
have the opportunity to be part of something utopian, yet real, that is seen by 
the world as the last bastion of shared reality. This is no accident, no fluke. 
It’s because of us. This incredible community of ours. We are all different and 
yet we all, staff and volunteers alike, strive to bring the best of ourselves 
to this monumental project of ours. Sometimes we get it wrong. We get 
emotional, we say the wrong thing, we get frustrated with each other.  But we 
are all in this together. And we hold ourselves to a higher standard. I hope we 
can also forgive each other when we fall down and offer a helping hand instead 
of a harsh, hurtful word. The CoC , like democracy, is not perfect but it’s our 
best shot at an open, welcoming and supportive environment in our technical 
spaces. Let’s continue refining it and let’s get back to work. 

Warmly,

Victoria


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion 



> On Aug 9, 2018, at 7:24 PM, Stas Malyshev  wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
>> to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If the
>> block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might be
>> hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public of
>> everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people reporting,
>> but also the reported.
> 
> You have a good point here. Maybe it should not be permanent, but should
> expire after the ban is lifted. I can see how that could be better
> (though nothing that was ever public is completely forgotten, but still
> not carrying it around in our spaces might be good). So I'd say public
> record while the ban is active is a must, but after that expunging the
> record is fine.
> 
> -- 
> Stas Malyshev
> smalys...@wikimedia.org
> 
> ___
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Stas Malyshev]

Hi!

> to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If the
> block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might be
> hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public of
> everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people reporting,
> but also the reported.

You have a good point here. Maybe it should not be permanent, but should
expire after the ban is lifted. I can see how that could be better
(though nothing that was ever public is completely forgotten, but still
not carrying it around in our spaces might be good). So I'd say public
record while the ban is active is a must, but after that expunging the
record is fine.

-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalys...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Lucas Werkmeister]

Am Do., 9. Aug. 2018 um 13:50 Uhr schrieb Aryeh Gregor :

> To begin with, punishment of any infraction that occurred in a
> publicly-accessible forum such as Phabricator can be public.  If the
> infraction itself can remain public, the punishment for it can also.
> That seems like a good starting point.


This argument doesn’t work at all, IMHO. Suppose I revealed the real name
of an anonymous contributor in a Phabricator comment (accidentally or as
deliberate doxxing) – just because I thought that this comment could be
public surely doesn’t mean that it should stay public, or that the
subsequent interaction with the CoCC should be public.

Of course, I’m not saying that what happened here was equivalent to doxxing
– I just don’t think it at all follows that the punishment should be public
just because the infraction was.

Cheers,
Lucas

-- 
Lucas Werkmeister
Software Developer (working student)

Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de

Imagine a world, in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That‘s our commitment.

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

I don't yet. :)

But please follow our work on
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_health_initiative
and
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/2660/
your participation and feedback would be awesome!

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 11:47 AM David Cuenca Tudela 
wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 5:19 PM David Barratt 
> wrote:
>
> > However, there will have to be a significant number of major changes
> before
> > that can be a reality.
> >
>
> Which kind of changes?
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Cuenca Tudela]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 5:19 PM David Barratt  wrote:

> However, there will have to be a significant number of major changes before
> that can be a reality.
>

Which kind of changes?
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[David Barratt]

>
> So basically your're saying that the wiki way of doing things, were
> blocks and bans are public and often contain the offending diff, is
> bad and should not be followed. Is the CoC committee really the venue
> where such a decision should be made? Shouldn't the wiki way be the
> default *unless* the community decided otherwise?
>

I don't think the "wiki way" is the gold standard of dealing with
harassment and toxic behavior by any stretch of the imagination.

Although, I do hope that one day, it is.

However, there will have to be a significant number of major changes before
that can be a reality.

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 8:56 AM Strainu  wrote:

> 2018-08-09 15:12 GMT+03:00 Lucie Kaffee :
> > I understand the wish for a more transparent process. (What a good thing
> > there is the possibility to suggest amendments to the CoC!)
> > But I would like you to consider the following: Someone, who was warned,
> or
> > even blocked, might change their behavior. Should we still keep a public
> > list of all people that ever had contact with the CoC committee? It seems
> > to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If
> the
> > block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might be
> > hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public of
> > everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people
> reporting,
> > but also the reported.
>
> So basically your're saying that the wiki way of doing things, were
> blocks and bans are public and often contain the offending diff, is
> bad and should not be followed. Is the CoC committee really the venue
> where such a decision should be made? Shouldn't the wiki way be the
> default *unless* the community decided otherwise?
>
> Strainu
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

On 09/08/18 07:40, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:

No, it was not thoughtful. What actually happened is that the other users
are now submerged with dozens of emails analyzing that interjection. Sure,
it's pretty easy to ignore this thread or even mute it in one's email
reader, but one could just as well ignore that bug report. So no, it's not
thoughtful. It's provocative, unnecessary, and nonconstructive.

Using the f-word shouldn't be fully banned, but it should be obvious that
it is not always OK. Every case of using such language is supposed to
trigger a consideration: "Is it OK to use it now?". This should be common
sense, but apparently it isn't, so it's good to have a CoC to encourage
people to be considerate. And it's good to enforce the CoC when necessary.


I don't really see how it's fair to hold someone responsible for the 
complete and utter overreaction of others as a result of a single, 
fairly ordinary statement on their part. No, MZMcBride's wtf wasn't 
exactly ideal, but by itself should have at worst been an easily ignored 
irritation. Only because of the compounding reactions to it does it 
appear to hold any weight at all; no other 'wtf's, 'fuck php's, 'oh fuck 
shit shit fucking fuck fuck did this do's, or even the sometimes cited 
James Wales statement that I would argue truly was completely 
inappropriate, have had any such impact, simply because everyone else 
refrained from losing their heads over it.


Perhaps we should all step back a bit and realise that /we're/ the ones 
making this a major issue - that the problem is not the statement that 
was made on phabricator, but everything that has occurred after.


What was it that really caused all this?

-I


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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Strainu]

2018-08-09 15:12 GMT+03:00 Lucie Kaffee :
> I understand the wish for a more transparent process. (What a good thing
> there is the possibility to suggest amendments to the CoC!)
> But I would like you to consider the following: Someone, who was warned, or
> even blocked, might change their behavior. Should we still keep a public
> list of all people that ever had contact with the CoC committee? It seems
> to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If the
> block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might be
> hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public of
> everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people reporting,
> but also the reported.

So basically your're saying that the wiki way of doing things, were
blocks and bans are public and often contain the offending diff, is
bad and should not be followed. Is the CoC committee really the venue
where such a decision should be made? Shouldn't the wiki way be the
default *unless* the community decided otherwise?

Strainu

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Lucie Kaffee]

Hello everyone,

I am also putting off my hat as someone in the CoC committee and not
speaking for the committee but for myself.
There are a few points I would like you to consider.
First of all, we are volunteers in the committee as well. I do this in my
free time as much as most of the people enraged in this thread. And I would
appreciate some consideration for this.
I care for our community having a welcoming atmosphere for newcomers and
long-time volunteers. That's the main reason I spend evenings reading and
evaluating reports.
Therefore, I do not appreciate the picking of people out of the committee.
If Ladsgroup enacts the common decisions of the committee, there might be
criticism on this decision, but not on the person.

I understand the wish for a more transparent process. (What a good thing
there is the possibility to suggest amendments to the CoC!)
But I would like you to consider the following: Someone, who was warned, or
even blocked, might change their behavior. Should we still keep a public
list of all people that ever had contact with the CoC committee? It seems
to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If the
block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might be
hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public of
everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people reporting,
but also the reported.

To the incident discussed in the thread, I would like to give to consider,
that we should aim for a atmosphere where people speak freely- without
being afraid of insult. Especially for the newcomer in the community. I
think Ladsgroup summarized it quite well earlier.

On 9 August 2018 at 12:55, Aryeh Gregor  wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 2:13 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> > Are you sure about that? I think the Code of Conduct Committee _is_
> > arguing that it's the use of the word "fuck" that was problematic here.
> If
> > I had written "Why did you do that?!" instead of "What the fuck.", do you
> > think I would have had my Phabricator account disabled for a week?
> >
> > As Alex asks on this mailing list: is using the abbreviated "wtf" form
> now
> > considered a formal offense in tasks and commits? I genuinely do not
> know.
>
> The main problem here that needs to be solved is communicating what
> the problem was in a manner that is clear to the parties whom the CoC
> committee seeks to deter.  A one-week ban is not going to help
> anything if the object of the ban doesn't understand what about his
> behavior elicited the ban.
>
> From my experience in this type of thing, some people don't understand
> what is meant by non-constructive forms of communication, and don't
> know what types of statements will cause the person they're speaking
> to to be upset and angry, nor how to rephrase them in a constructive
> fashion.  This is something that takes quite a lot of practice, and
> that fact might not be apparent to those who are naturally more
> sensitive.  It's also something that comes naturally to someone who's
> in a good mood and favorably disposed to the one they're speaking to,
> and can be very difficult for the same person when he's angry.
>
> Perhaps a member of the CoC committee should go over the scenario with
> MZMcBride and discuss with him what alternative ways he should have
> taken to address the problem, and what exactly the problem was with
> how he did it.
>
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-- 
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Aryeh Gregor]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 2:13 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> Are you sure about that? I think the Code of Conduct Committee _is_
> arguing that it's the use of the word "fuck" that was problematic here. If
> I had written "Why did you do that?!" instead of "What the fuck.", do you
> think I would have had my Phabricator account disabled for a week?
>
> As Alex asks on this mailing list: is using the abbreviated "wtf" form now
> considered a formal offense in tasks and commits? I genuinely do not know.

The main problem here that needs to be solved is communicating what
the problem was in a manner that is clear to the parties whom the CoC
committee seeks to deter.  A one-week ban is not going to help
anything if the object of the ban doesn't understand what about his
behavior elicited the ban.

From my experience in this type of thing, some people don't understand
what is meant by non-constructive forms of communication, and don't
know what types of statements will cause the person they're speaking
to to be upset and angry, nor how to rephrase them in a constructive
fashion.  This is something that takes quite a lot of practice, and
that fact might not be apparent to those who are naturally more
sensitive.  It's also something that comes naturally to someone who's
in a good mood and favorably disposed to the one they're speaking to,
and can be very difficult for the same person when he's angry.

Perhaps a member of the CoC committee should go over the scenario with
MZMcBride and discuss with him what alternative ways he should have
taken to address the problem, and what exactly the problem was with
how he did it.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Aryeh Gregor]

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 11:29 PM, Amir Ladsgroup  wrote:
> 3) not being able to discuss cases clearly also bothers me too as I can't
> clarify points. But these secrecy is there for a reason. We have cases of
> sexual harassment in Wikimedia events, do you want us to communicate those
> too? And if not, where and who supposed to draw the line between public and
> non-public cases?

To begin with, punishment of any infraction that occurred in a
publicly-accessible forum such as Phabricator can be public.  If the
infraction itself can remain public, the punishment for it can also.
That seems like a good starting point.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2018-08-09 12:10 GMT+03:00 Fæ :

>
>
> No Amir, you cannot build a logical post-hoc rationale for this block
> for the debatably single inappropriate use of WTF, if it hangs on
> cherry picking an essay from the English Wikipedia as "positive
> evidence", while choosing to ignore "negative evidence" published at
> the same place, such as a WMF Trustee using "fucking bullshit", along
> with prior precedent of justifying far more vulgar language in on-wiki
> debate.
>
>
... And these are bad examples that shouldn't be followed, and Mr Wales was
widely criticized for that. Would it be appropriate to ban him? Maybe.

But giving an example of a powerful leader that did a bad thing as
justification for doing the bad thing again doesn't sound like the right
thing to do if we agree that the thing is, indeed, bad. And it is.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Bináris]

2018-08-08 12:08 GMT+02:00 Amir Ladsgroup :

> We sent the user an email using the "Email to user" functionality from
> mediawiki.org the moment I enforced the ban.
>

What happens if a user has this function disabled?
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Fæ]

The CoC does not exist in a vacuum and is itself ultimately only has
any authority through the largess of the WMF board and its
resolutions. The Code of Conduct Committee is dangerously arrogant if
its members believe they are independent of the WMF's policies or WMF
legal. For the Committee to make any claim of good governance, the
committee must be seen to demonstrate that:

1. The Code of Conduct Committee fully applies the Wikimedia values.[1]

2. The Committee commits to transparency and (credible external)
accountability, and is taking positive steps to assure the wider
community that it is itself /seen/ to be well governed.

3. The Committee is committed to ensuring natural justice in its
actions, i.e. its decisions are evidence based, unbiased and those
being acted on have a right to a fair hearing.


There is no such thing as "good governance" if it all happens behind
closed doors. The defensive reactions to the whistle-blowing of this
case against a long standing volunteer, rather than attempting to
improve or learn from the views of the wider community is especially
worrying.

No Amir, you cannot build a logical post-hoc rationale for this block
for the debatably single inappropriate use of WTF, if it hangs on
cherry picking an essay from the English Wikipedia as "positive
evidence", while choosing to ignore "negative evidence" published at
the same place, such as a WMF Trustee using "fucking bullshit", along
with prior precedent of justifying far more vulgar language in on-wiki
debate. Wales is not a haphazard rogue in this, our previous CEO Sue
Gardner has regularly justified the use of "fuck" as a way of making a
strong point in multiple channels.[3] It is not natural justice to
hang our most productive volunteers out to dry by arbitrarily holding
them to a higher standard of super-duper nice behaviour and polite
genteel language than those at the apex of authority, where their
identical choice of words is spread over the international press, not
just Phabricator threads literally read by a handful of people.

To be seen to be wise in using its massive ban hammer, the Committee
members need to use it sparingly. Treat long term committed
volunteers, even those you may see as disruptive, as respectfully you
would any teenager or Jimmy Wales, by exhausting conventional adult to
adult talking options, before slamming them down in what now appears
to be easily avoidable escalation of a very minor infraction of
civility.

Links
1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values/2008
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_justice
3. https://twitter.com/SuePGardner/status/907625338963886080

Fae

On Thu, 9 Aug 2018 at 08:41, Amir E. Aharoni
 wrote:
>
> 2018-08-08 21:42 GMT+03:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) :
>
> > The message which was sanctioned was even of an especially thoughtful
> > kind, in my opinion, because it didn't attempt to submerge the other users
> > with walls of text, politically correct tirades or otherwise charged
> > statements. It was merely a heartfelt interjection to help people stop,
> > reconsider their actions and self-improve without the need of lectures. Was
> > this peculiar effort at constructive facilitation considered? If not, what
> > alternatives or constructive suggestions were provided?
>
>
> No, it was not thoughtful. What actually happened is that the other users
> are now submerged with dozens of emails analyzing that interjection. Sure,
> it's pretty easy to ignore this thread or even mute it in one's email
> reader, but one could just as well ignore that bug report. So no, it's not
> thoughtful. It's provocative, unnecessary, and nonconstructive.
>
> Using the f-word shouldn't be fully banned, but it should be obvious that
> it is not always OK. Every case of using such language is supposed to
> trigger a consideration: "Is it OK to use it now?". This should be common
> sense, but apparently it isn't, so it's good to have a CoC to encourage
> people to be considerate. And it's good to enforce the CoC when necessary.
>
> The fact that the f-word was used elsewhere in the code and on Phabricator
> is not an excuse. This is also what the well-known English Wikipedia essay
> "Other stuff exists"[1] is about: by itself, precedent is not
> justification. In this case it was not OK. It often happens that a bug that
> shouldn't have been closed is closed. When one thinks that this happened,
> one can reopen it with a constructive explanation. It doesn't have to be a
> wall of text, but it really shouldn't be an f-word.
>
> Can the process around the CoC be better? Probably. Could the process
> around deploying the new WMF website be better? Definitely.
>
> Is it OK to use f-words to complain about it? Absolutely not. It's not
> friendly, it's not thoughtful, it's not funny, it's not constructive.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Other_stuff_exists
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
-- 
fae...@gmail.com 

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Strainu]

2018-08-08 23:29 GMT+03:00 Amir Ladsgroup :
> Taking my coc hat off, I'm not representing the committee at all.
> Several things have been misunderstood imo. I want to address them.
> 1) The use of profanity is not prohibited by the COC, using them against
> others or for unconstructive reasons is. If you see the whole discussion,
> you could clearly see the comment is not made to move discussion forward.
> These are clear case of disruptive actions.
> 1.1) the response to these violations depends on the user, very similar to
> what Wikipedia does. If it was the first case reported about Mz, they
> wouldn't get this ban.
> 2) the duration of block which is for one week was determined and
> communicated in the email. You can check the email as it's public now.

Unless you're talking about another mail than the one published by
MZMcBride, you did not mention the duration. I'm assuming this was an
omission from your part (AGF) but you should consider having email
templates or some other mean of avoiding such mistakes in the future.

> 3) not being able to discuss cases clearly also bothers me too as I can't
> clarify points. But these secrecy is there for a reason. We have cases of
> sexual harassment in Wikimedia events, do you want us to communicate those
> too? And if not, where and who supposed to draw the line between public and
> non-public cases? I'm very much for more transparency but if we don't iron
> things out before implementing them, it will end up as a disaster.

There is a clear line that can be established: public comment
(wiki/phabricator/etc) => public case. Also, you don't have to go into
details, just mentioning that someone was banned from the Wikimedia
events for sexual harassments seems enough to me.

Reversely, if you don't publish this data, how are other event
organizers going to enforce the ban? When Austria organized the
Wikimedia hackathon, we had several pre-hackathons organized in
several CEE countries. If these would happen today, they would be
bound by the CoC, but the organizers would have no way to determine if
a user should be banned or not.

Strainu

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2018-08-08 21:42 GMT+03:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) :

> The message which was sanctioned was even of an especially thoughtful
> kind, in my opinion, because it didn't attempt to submerge the other users
> with walls of text, politically correct tirades or otherwise charged
> statements. It was merely a heartfelt interjection to help people stop,
> reconsider their actions and self-improve without the need of lectures. Was
> this peculiar effort at constructive facilitation considered? If not, what
> alternatives or constructive suggestions were provided?


No, it was not thoughtful. What actually happened is that the other users
are now submerged with dozens of emails analyzing that interjection. Sure,
it's pretty easy to ignore this thread or even mute it in one's email
reader, but one could just as well ignore that bug report. So no, it's not
thoughtful. It's provocative, unnecessary, and nonconstructive.

Using the f-word shouldn't be fully banned, but it should be obvious that
it is not always OK. Every case of using such language is supposed to
trigger a consideration: "Is it OK to use it now?". This should be common
sense, but apparently it isn't, so it's good to have a CoC to encourage
people to be considerate. And it's good to enforce the CoC when necessary.

The fact that the f-word was used elsewhere in the code and on Phabricator
is not an excuse. This is also what the well-known English Wikipedia essay
"Other stuff exists"[1] is about: by itself, precedent is not
justification. In this case it was not OK. It often happens that a bug that
shouldn't have been closed is closed. When one thinks that this happened,
one can reopen it with a constructive explanation. It doesn't have to be a
wall of text, but it really shouldn't be an f-word.

Can the process around the CoC be better? Probably. Could the process
around deploying the new WMF website be better? Definitely.

Is it OK to use f-words to complain about it? Absolutely not. It's not
friendly, it's not thoughtful, it's not funny, it's not constructive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Other_stuff_exists

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Bináris]

2018-08-08 23:32 GMT+02:00 Ori Livneh :

> The responses to that included on-wiki comments telling me to go
> fuck myself
>
>
> You said it! You said it! :-)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwqkh
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Stas Malyshev]

Hi!

> 3) not being able to discuss cases clearly also bothers me too as I can't
> clarify points. But these secrecy is there for a reason. We have cases of
> sexual harassment in Wikimedia events, do you want us to communicate those
> too? And if not, where and who supposed to draw the line between public and
> non-public cases? I'm very much for more transparency but if we don't iron
> things out before implementing them, it will end up as a disaster.

True enough, and I agree we should be careful, and I think we can trust
our CoCC to be careful in such matters, we trust them with the cases
themselves after all. But with all due care, I think we can find the way
to reveal the admin action was taken and why, without going into
sensitive details. Even some detail would be better than what we have
now, and in a case of a bad comment saying "This user has been temp.
banned from date A till date B because of comments incompatible with
CoC" doesn't seem to hurt anyone.

-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalys...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Stas Malyshev]

Hi!

> This mailing list is not an appropriate forum for airing your grievances
> with the way the Code of Conduct Committee has handled this matter.

Very well may be so, but I think this case has something that is, IMHO,
very on-topic for this mailing list, as a venue to discuss running this
technical project. I think regardless of the merits of the particular
CoCC decision, there's something wrong in how it happened. Namely:

1. The account was disabled without any indication (except the email to
the person owning it, which is also rather easy to miss - not the
admin's fault, but read on) of what and why happened, as far as I could
see. Note that Phabricator is a collaborative space, and disabling an
account may influence everybody who may have been working with the
person, and even everybody that working on a ticket that this person
commented once. If they submitted a bug and I want to verify with them
and the account is disabled - what do I do?
People are left guessing - did something happen? Did his user leave the
project? Was it something they said? Something I said? Some bug? Admin
action? What is going on? There's no explanation, there's no permanent
public record, and no way to figure out what it is.

What I would propose to improve this is on each such action, to have
permanent public record, in a known place, that specifies:
a. What action it was (ban, temporary ban - with duration, etc.)
b. Who decided on that action and who implemented it, the latter - to be
sure if somebody thinks it's a bug or mistake, they can ask "did you
really mean to ban X" instead of being in unpleasant and potentially
embarrassing position of trying to guess what happened with no information.
c. Why this action was taken - if sensitive details involved, omitting
them, but providing enough context to understand what happened, e.g.
"Banned X for repeated comments in conflict with CoC, which we had to
delete, e.g. [link], [link] and [link]" or "Permanently banned Y for
conduct unwelcome in Wikimedia spaces", if revealing any more details
would hurt people.
It doesn't have to be 100% detail, but it has to be something more that
people quietly disappearing.

Establishing such a place and maintaining this record should be one of
the things that CoCC does.

2. There seems to be no clearly defined venue to discuss and form
consensus about such actions. As it must be clear now, such venue is
required, and if it is not provided, the first venue that looks suitable
for it will be roped in. To much annoyance of the people that wanted to
use that venue for other things.

I would propose to fix it by providing such venue, and clearly
specifying it in the same place where the action is described, as per
above. Again, establishing and advertising such place should be
something that CoCC does.

It is clear to me - and I think to anybody seeing the volume of
discussion this generated - that we need improvement here. We can do
better and we should.
-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalys...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Brian Wolff]

Wikimedia-l is not a technical mailing list.

That said I personally think that any sort of effective CoC would have take
actions on other spaces into account when it is about a matter that is in
coc juridsiction (otherwise harrasment would just move off wiki). The more
concerning part to me is that the rationale email mcbride did not mention
this. If this was indeed part of the reason then the user should be told
that.

More concerningly it seems there have been multiple contradictory opinions
on what mcbride's offense was in this thread. How can he
fix his faults if nobody seems to agree what they are. How can other users
avoid falling into the same trap if appearently our norms of behaviour are
so underspecified that even when provided with the email statement from the
CoC comittee about why he was blocked people seem to have differing
opinions on what he actually did wrong?

--
brian
On Wednesday, August 8, 2018, Max Semenik  wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 5:08 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>>
>> The wikimedia-l mailing list is very specifically not within the purview
>> of the mediawiki.org "Code of Conduct" or its associated committee.
>
>
> CoC very explicitly states that it applies to "technical mailing lists
> <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Overview#MediaWiki_and_technical
>
> ".
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Max Semenik]

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 5:08 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
>
> The wikimedia-l mailing list is very specifically not within the purview
> of the mediawiki.org "Code of Conduct" or its associated committee.


CoC very explicitly states that it applies to "technical mailing lists

".
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[MZMcBride]

Adam Wight wrote:
>Silencing anyone is rarely appropriate, but your behavior in this earlier
>thread was gross enough that I decided against participating.  In fact, I
>had my own concerns about the new WMF site but you had already created a
>toxic dynamic, effectively losing me (and undoubtedly others) as an ally
>in that discussion.
>
>That seems like exactly the sort of thing the Code of Conduct exists to
>prevent, so I agree with their actions in silencing you in order to make
>space for other voices.

The wikimedia-l mailing list is very specifically not within the purview
of the mediawiki.org "Code of Conduct" or its associated committee. Your
suggestion that I'm being punished for actions outside its remit is pretty
dark and disturbing. This, of course, sets aside the obvious fact that
disabling a Phabricator account has no effect on mailing list access.

>Thank you for your energy and insights, and I hope we can work together to
>root out the bad decisions and corruption, without this nonsense of having
>to bail you out of Phabricator jail every few months.

A simple solution would be not jailing people. :-)  There's no shortage of
bad decisions and corruption around Wikimedia Foundation Inc., so I
imagine we'll be on the same side once more in short order.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Adam Wight]

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 4:13 PM MZMcBride  wrote:

> I think the Code of Conduct Committee _is_ arguing that it's the use of
> the word "fuck" that was problematic here.
>

This is disingenuous, MZMcBride.  In the "New Wikimedia Foundation has soft
launched!" thread, you also wrote:
> I think this type of behavior by the communications department is really
inappropriate, unbecoming, and inconsistent with Wikimedia's values. []
> Ah, I see now. This is just some cruel waste of staff and volunteer time [
]
> You ask for people to point out issues, even providing a link to
Phabricator Maniphest, and then gaslight them by closing the tasks and
telling them that the very obvious bug is intentional.

Apparently, that went on and was even escalated in the bug tracker, in
response to what looks like otherwise normal and harmless back-and-forth.

MZ, hopefully you recognize this is an abusive way to treat other people.
Silencing anyone is rarely appropriate, but your behavior in this earlier
thread was gross enough that I decided against participating.  In fact, I
had my own concerns about the new WMF site but you had already created a
toxic dynamic, effectively losing me (and undoubtedly others) as an ally in
that discussion.

That seems like exactly the sort of thing the Code of Conduct exists to
prevent, so I agree with their actions in silencing you in order to make
space for other voices.

Thank you for your energy and insights, and I hope we can work together to
root out the bad decisions and corruption, without this nonsense of having
to bail you out of Phabricator jail every few months.

-Adam Wight
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Ori Livneh]

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 7:13 PM MZMcBride  wrote:

> If I had written "Why did you do that?!" instead of "What the fuck.", do
> you
> think I would have had my Phabricator account disabled for a week?
>

No, but asking "are you for real?" would have been similarly problematic in
my view. The distinction hinges on whether you are expressing bafflement or
scandal.

I don't think it's bad to be critical, but in my opinion the way you go
about it is acutely and unnecessarily painful sometimes, and leads to
burnout rather than understanding.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Ryan Kaldari]

And as was already pointed out, the word "fuck" has appeared over 500 times
in Phabricator discussions without issue. If you use the word "fuck" to be
hostile, that's still being hostile. The fact that it's an expletive is
what makes it effective at conveying hostility. Arguing that that's a ban
against the word "fuck" is a straw man.

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 4:13 PM MZMcBride  wrote:

> Ryan Kaldari wrote:
> >It's possible to highlight abuses while still being respectful and
> >collegial. No one is seriously arguing that criticism should be banned (or
> >the word "fuck").
>
> Are you sure about that? I think the Code of Conduct Committee _is_
> arguing that it's the use of the word "fuck" that was problematic here. If
> I had written "Why did you do that?!" instead of "What the fuck.", do you
> think I would have had my Phabricator account disabled for a week?
>
> As Alex asks on this mailing list: is using the abbreviated "wtf" form now
> considered a formal offense in tasks and commits? I genuinely do not know.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[MZMcBride]

Ryan Kaldari wrote:
>It's possible to highlight abuses while still being respectful and
>collegial. No one is seriously arguing that criticism should be banned (or
>the word "fuck").

Are you sure about that? I think the Code of Conduct Committee _is_
arguing that it's the use of the word "fuck" that was problematic here. If
I had written "Why did you do that?!" instead of "What the fuck.", do you
think I would have had my Phabricator account disabled for a week?

As Alex asks on this mailing list: is using the abbreviated "wtf" form now
considered a formal offense in tasks and commits? I genuinely do not know.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Brian Wolff]

While what are we arguing then? I think i have lost track.

--
brian

On Wednesday, August 8, 2018, Ryan Kaldari  wrote:
> It's possible to highlight abuses while still being respectful and
> collegial. No one is seriously arguing that criticism should be banned (or
> the word "fuck").
>
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 3:50 PM MZMcBride  wrote:
>
>> Ori Livneh wrote:
>> >MZMcBride has a very good ear for grievances, and he knows how to use
his
>> >considerable social clout to draw attention to them, and then use words
>> >as a kind of lightning-rod for stoking outrage and focusing it on
>> >particular targets.
>>
>> I'm going to paraphrase what you're writing here: I spend some of my
>> accumulated social capital calling out or highlighting abuses by and
>> corruption within Wikimedia Foundation Inc. And you think that's _bad_?
>>
>> MZMcBride
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Ryan Kaldari]

It's possible to highlight abuses while still being respectful and
collegial. No one is seriously arguing that criticism should be banned (or
the word "fuck").

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 3:50 PM MZMcBride  wrote:

> Ori Livneh wrote:
> >MZMcBride has a very good ear for grievances, and he knows how to use his
> >considerable social clout to draw attention to them, and then use words
> >as a kind of lightning-rod for stoking outrage and focusing it on
> >particular targets.
>
> I'm going to paraphrase what you're writing here: I spend some of my
> accumulated social capital calling out or highlighting abuses by and
> corruption within Wikimedia Foundation Inc. And you think that's _bad_?
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[MZMcBride]

Ori Livneh wrote:
>MZMcBride has a very good ear for grievances, and he knows how to use his
>considerable social clout to draw attention to them, and then use words
>as a kind of lightning-rod for stoking outrage and focusing it on
>particular targets.

I'm going to paraphrase what you're writing here: I spend some of my
accumulated social capital calling out or highlighting abuses by and
corruption within Wikimedia Foundation Inc. And you think that's _bad_?

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[bawolff]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2018, Ori Livneh  wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 2:48 PM bawolff  wrote:
>>
>> MZMcbride (and any other individual contributor) is at a power
>> disadvantage here relative to how the foundation is an organized
>> group
>
> Have you been on the receiving end of an MZMcBride diatribe? I was, when
barely two months into my role as a software engineer at the Wikimedia
Foundation (and newly transplanted in the Bay Area), MZMcBride wrote a
Signpost op-ed centered around an inconsiderate remark I made on a bug that
I closed as WONTFIX. The responses to that included on-wiki comments
telling me to go fuck myself, calls for my immediate resignation, and
unbelievably vicious anonymous hate-mail. My mental state after that was
bordering on suicidal.
> I hope that you are struck by the parallels between that affair back in
2012 and the one we are presently discussing. The germ-cell of both cases
was a legitimate grievance about Foundation engineers being dismissive
toward a bug report. MZMcBride has a very good ear for grievances, and he
knows how to use his considerable social clout to draw attention to them,
and then use words as a kind of lightning-rod for stoking outrage and
focusing it on particular targets. I don't know why he does it and I won't
speculate, but I am convinced he knows exactly what he is doing. How could
he not? This has been going on for nearly a decade.
> When I saw MZMcBride's "what the fuck" I instantly knew what was coming.
After it happens to you, you never forget the sensation of instant regret
and absolute panic as the Eye of Sauron fixates on you. It is a
miserable experience and I understand completely why the CoC might feel
compelled to intervene.
>

Im sorry you were on the recieving end of a wikipedian "mob". It is not a
fun experiance.

But i dont see how Mcbride should be held accountable for this. All he did
was write an essay critical of several things the foundation was doing.
Much of it was unrelated to you and about issues that were many years in
the making. Some of his criticism still rings true today. The quote he used
was perhaps mildly removed from context, but it was not wholly pulled out
of context. The op-ed is on the whole much more fair to its subject than
theop-eds I read in my real newspaper about real politics.

If other people did inappropriate things, than they should have been
punished (back in 2012). But i hardly think we should start banning people
because they wrote something sort of seditious. On the contrary I think
internal self criticism of the movement is very important. It is
unfortunate when that criticism falls harshly on a specific contributor,
especially a new one, and it can be annoying to have to consider your
secondary audiance when writing on a task...which are problems i dont have
solutions to.

--
brian
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Cyken Zeraux]

Bringing back a dispute from 2012 over a ban in 2018 is very reaching.
Punishment should have been applied for that case at that time, not
retroactively applied later on. If 'unbelievable anonymous hate mail' is
true, then I don't see why they shouldn't have been banned at that time.
However the circumstances in this case I haven't seen this behavior proved
recently as the cause for the CoC ban.

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 4:32 PM Ori Livneh  wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 2:48 PM bawolff  wrote:
>
> > MZMcbride (and any other individual contributor) is at a power
> > disadvantage here relative to how the foundation is an organized
> > group
>
>
> Have you *been* on the receiving end of an MZMcBride diatribe? I was, when
> barely two months into my role as a software engineer at the Wikimedia
> Foundation (and newly transplanted in the Bay Area), MZMcBride wrote a
> Signpost
> op-ed
> <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-08-20/Op-ed
> >
> centered around an inconsiderate remark I made on a bug that I closed as
> WONTFIX. The responses to that included on-wiki comments telling me to go
> fuck myself
> <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-08-20/Op-ed=revision=508453894=508453261=source
> >,
> calls for my immediate resignation, and unbelievably vicious anonymous
> hate-mail. My mental state after that was bordering on suicidal.
>
> I hope that you are struck by the parallels between that affair back in
> 2012 and the one we are presently discussing. The germ-cell of both cases
> was a legitimate grievance about Foundation engineers being dismissive
> toward a bug report. MZMcBride has a very good ear for grievances, and he
> knows how to use his considerable social clout to draw attention to them,
> and then use words as a kind of lightning-rod for stoking outrage and
> focusing it on particular targets. I don't know why he does it and I won't
> speculate, but I am convinced he knows exactly what he is doing. How could
> he not? This has been going on for nearly a decade.
>
> When I saw MZMcBride's "what the fuck" I *instantly* knew what was coming.
> After it happens to you, you never forget the sensation of instant regret
> and absolute panic as the Eye of Sauron fixates on you. It is a
> *miserable* experience
> and I understand completely why the CoC might feel compelled to intervene.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Ori Livneh]

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 2:48 PM bawolff  wrote:

> MZMcbride (and any other individual contributor) is at a power
> disadvantage here relative to how the foundation is an organized
> group


Have you *been* on the receiving end of an MZMcBride diatribe? I was, when
barely two months into my role as a software engineer at the Wikimedia
Foundation (and newly transplanted in the Bay Area), MZMcBride wrote a Signpost
op-ed

centered around an inconsiderate remark I made on a bug that I closed as
WONTFIX. The responses to that included on-wiki comments telling me to go
fuck myself
,
calls for my immediate resignation, and unbelievably vicious anonymous
hate-mail. My mental state after that was bordering on suicidal.

I hope that you are struck by the parallels between that affair back in
2012 and the one we are presently discussing. The germ-cell of both cases
was a legitimate grievance about Foundation engineers being dismissive
toward a bug report. MZMcBride has a very good ear for grievances, and he
knows how to use his considerable social clout to draw attention to them,
and then use words as a kind of lightning-rod for stoking outrage and
focusing it on particular targets. I don't know why he does it and I won't
speculate, but I am convinced he knows exactly what he is doing. How could
he not? This has been going on for nearly a decade.

When I saw MZMcBride's "what the fuck" I *instantly* knew what was coming.
After it happens to you, you never forget the sensation of instant regret
and absolute panic as the Eye of Sauron fixates on you. It is a
*miserable* experience
and I understand completely why the CoC might feel compelled to intervene.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

Er, apologies for my previous email, I may have gone a bit overboard 
with it. Is it generally improper to blame the cold medicine, in such 
cases, bow out, and generally just go straight to bed? Because I blame 
the cold medicine.


Again, sorry about that.

-I

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

Having personally been subject of a case of sexual harassment at an 
unrelated event a few years back where I was supposedly the victim, I 
have to wonder even about those. Seriously, what the hell /is/ sexual 
harassment? Because in my case, apparently me butting into a 
conversation just to be an arse constituted me being sexually harassed, 
which... just... what? (I only found out about this at all because it 
was in the godsdamn news.)


Meanwhile we probably actually have real cases of folks being harassed 
or even assaulted and they don't even realise that's what's going on 
either because everything's all hushy hush and they've no sensible 
examples of what's worth going to help for themselves, or anything to 
show what is or isn't apt to just blow up in their face in practice so 
they actually feel /safe/ doing so. Seriously, if we don't talk about 
this stuff, how is anyone supposed to learn from it? How the hell is the 
current code of conduct supposed to be refined? How are we as a 
community supposed to address any existing issues?


Obviously we need something to protect the folks involved, but this is 
just a mess as is. I haven't even felt at all safe going to the CoC 
folks about other things that have happened in venues subject to the 
CoC, for much the same reason, and while that was just incidents of 
frayed nerves overflowing and someone yelling at me for what turned out 
to be a total miscommunication anyway, I wound up having to remove 
myself from a D game I was a part of as a result because I just 
couldn't focus properly on anything for awhile afterwards AND YOU KNOW 
IT WOULD SURE HELP IF WE HAD REASONABLE PEOPLE TO GO TO TO JUST... HELP 
SMOOTH THINGS OVER AND TELL US IT'S OKAY OR STUFF. WITHOUT HAVING TO 
WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING BEING MADE WORSE FOR ANYONE INVOLVED OR GETTING 
BANNED OURSELVES OR CRAP.


Feckin'...

-I

On 08/08/18 20:29, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:

Taking my coc hat off, I'm not representing the committee at all.
Several things have been misunderstood imo. I want to address them.
1) The use of profanity is not prohibited by the COC, using them against
others or for unconstructive reasons is. If you see the whole discussion,
you could clearly see the comment is not made to move discussion forward.
These are clear case of disruptive actions.
1.1) the response to these violations depends on the user, very similar to
what Wikipedia does. If it was the first case reported about Mz, they
wouldn't get this ban.
2) the duration of block which is for one week was determined and
communicated in the email. You can check the email as it's public now.
3) not being able to discuss cases clearly also bothers me too as I can't
clarify points. But these secrecy is there for a reason. We have cases of
sexual harassment in Wikimedia events, do you want us to communicate those
too? And if not, where and who supposed to draw the line between public and
non-public cases? I'm very much for more transparency but if we don't iron
things out before implementing them, it will end up as a disaster.

Sent on my phone, on a vacation.
Best
On Wed, Aug 8, 2018, 21:49 Chad  wrote:


On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 11:48 AM bawolff  wrote:


So MZMcBride is temporarily banned for an unspecified amount of time.
I have some concerns:
a) The fact all these are secret is a recipe for FUD and
misunderstandings. From accusations of partiality of the committee to
people being unblocked because people think its an accident, are all
natural consequences of things being secret. I think this is bound to
create a negative environment in the long term.


This.



b) What is the point of blocking him temporarily and not telling him
how long he's banned for. That's just silly.


I'm going to quote someone out of context here, but I think it establishes
the point I'd like to make:

"temporary solutions have a terrible habit of becoming permanent, around
here"

-Chad
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Strainu]

2018-08-08 17:44 GMT+03:00 Dan Garry :
> On 8 August 2018 at 14:29, Alex Monk  wrote:
>
>> Are you trying to ban people discussing CoC committee decisions publicly?
>> Not that it even looks like he wrote grievances.
>
>
> Hardly. I have absolutely nothing to do with the administration of this
> list, nor the authority to set what is discussed on this list, nor any
> involvement in the Code of Conduct, all of which you are well aware.
>

Then what was the purpose of your original email then, if you don't
mind me asking? How was that a positive contribution to the
discussion?

Thanks,
   Strainu

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Strainu]

2018-08-08 18:53 GMT+03:00 Bináris :
> This happens when American culture and behavioral standard is extended to
> an international community.

FWIW, the CoC itself is quite neutral and contains (at least in my
view) no American specificities, only general principles that most
developers can identify with. Also, I would note that the majority of
the current committee members are *not* US-based (from what I can
tell) and that there is a good gender balance, so it's hard to argue
it could get more diverse than that. That, together with the history
of MZMcBride should make us give credit to the committee (and question
some of our own stereotypes ;))

Nevertheless, this case has shown a few issues with the way the CoC is
implemented. I strongly believe secrecy and open source don't go well
together and that the committee's decisions should be opened to
scrutiny by the community. That implies that (at the very least) bans
should be publicly logged, together with the duration of the ban, the
intervention in question (if still public) and the part of the CoC
that was breached. Ideally, the justification should also be public,
but I realize that might not always be possible or desirable.

Another question is how will such discussions be included in the CoC
or the committee's process?  I don't think a blacklist of forbidden
words would be a constructive or realistic solution, but such email
threads should not remain without follow-up, or we risk repeating the
same mistakes in the future.

Strainu

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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Bináris]

Errata:
make cases possible --> make cases public whenever possible
Gmail has tricked on me.

2018-08-08 22:46 GMT+02:00 Bináris :

>
>
> 2018-08-08 22:29 GMT+02:00 Amir Ladsgroup :
>
>> 3) not being able to discuss cases clearly also bothers me too as I can't
>> clarify points. But these secrecy is there for a reason. We have cases of
>> sexual harassment in Wikimedia events, do you want us to communicate those
>> too?
>
> Nope.
>
>> And if not, where and who supposed to draw the line between public and
>> non-public cases?
>>
>> If a committe is able to judge cases, it is also able to draw this line
> and make cases possible.
> As time goes by and they have more experience, there will be a standard by
> practice, perhaps a written standard.
>
>


-- 
Bináris
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Bináris]

2018-08-08 22:29 GMT+02:00 Amir Ladsgroup :

> 3) not being able to discuss cases clearly also bothers me too as I can't
> clarify points. But these secrecy is there for a reason. We have cases of
> sexual harassment in Wikimedia events, do you want us to communicate those
> too?

Nope.

> And if not, where and who supposed to draw the line between public and
> non-public cases?
>
> If a committe is able to judge cases, it is also able to draw this line
and make cases possible.
As time goes by and they have more experience, there will be a standard by
practice, perhaps a written standard.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Amir Ladsgroup]

Taking my coc hat off, I'm not representing the committee at all.
Several things have been misunderstood imo. I want to address them.
1) The use of profanity is not prohibited by the COC, using them against
others or for unconstructive reasons is. If you see the whole discussion,
you could clearly see the comment is not made to move discussion forward.
These are clear case of disruptive actions.
1.1) the response to these violations depends on the user, very similar to
what Wikipedia does. If it was the first case reported about Mz, they
wouldn't get this ban.
2) the duration of block which is for one week was determined and
communicated in the email. You can check the email as it's public now.
3) not being able to discuss cases clearly also bothers me too as I can't
clarify points. But these secrecy is there for a reason. We have cases of
sexual harassment in Wikimedia events, do you want us to communicate those
too? And if not, where and who supposed to draw the line between public and
non-public cases? I'm very much for more transparency but if we don't iron
things out before implementing them, it will end up as a disaster.

Sent on my phone, on a vacation.
Best
On Wed, Aug 8, 2018, 21:49 Chad  wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 11:48 AM bawolff  wrote:
>
> > So MZMcBride is temporarily banned for an unspecified amount of time.
> > I have some concerns:
> > a) The fact all these are secret is a recipe for FUD and
> > misunderstandings. From accusations of partiality of the committee to
> > people being unblocked because people think its an accident, are all
> > natural consequences of things being secret. I think this is bound to
> > create a negative environment in the long term.
> >
>
> This.
>
>
> > b) What is the point of blocking him temporarily and not telling him
> > how long he's banned for. That's just silly.
> >
>
> I'm going to quote someone out of context here, but I think it establishes
> the point I'd like to make:
>
> "temporary solutions have a terrible habit of becoming permanent, around
> here"
>
> -Chad
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Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[Isarra Yos]

Okay, in all seriousness, ArbCom does work. It does a good /enough/ job, 
when you weigh it against the alternatives. I'm not really sure how, at 
the sorts of scales we're looking at, anything would do much better.


While our technical communities operate on a much smaller scale, this 
still shows us a model we can learn from. Because while ArbCom isn't 
great - most users would not say they actually trust it and a lot of 
arbs probably would in particular say how bad it is - the thing is, it 
does do quite a bit right. In light of the incidents we've had thus far 
in technical spaces, we should really be learning from that.


-I

On 08/08/18 20:15, Isarra Yos wrote:

Nope! But this just seems /worse/ in practice.

-I

On 08/08/18 20:12, Ryan Kaldari wrote:

Are you suggesting that ArbCom does a good job of maintaining a collegial, 
harassment-free environment on English Wikipedia? Just wanted to double-check ;)


On Aug 8, 2018, at 1:02 PM, Isarra Yos  wrote:

On other projects, we have community-elected groups among whom we see oversight 
in the form of new members upon subsequent elections who can audit the 
backlogs, and who conduct their primary functions in the open and issue clear 
statements when a matter does indeed merit not discussing openly, using their 
discretion as to when to apply privacy and similar concerns specifically. 
Generally speaking, most users actually trust their discretion in those matters.

Nothing about /this/ particular issue appears to merit any such concern, and 
because none of the above holds here, either, I can't say I necessarily trust 
this committee to make that call to begin with.

-I


On 08/08/18 19:35, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
With all the clamoring for transparency, has anyone considered the privacy
implications for publicly documenting every complaint against a Phabricator
user? That seems like it could have just as much of a chilling effect on
participation, if not more, than the idea that you can be blocked for being
rude.



On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 12:05 PM Yair Rand  wrote:

I very much agree that profanity should not be used around Wikimedia, but
there's a large gap between "things we ideally wouldn't have", "things an
employee of a Wikimedia institution should be fired for", and "things a
volunteer contributor should be blocked for" (in that order). (The acronym
"wtf" has been used 532 times on Phabricator according to search results
(including some by the relevant CoCC members), and 10 times fully spelled
out.)

Just to remind everyone of some background, the CoC came into existence
after having a policy tag edit-warred onto it after a non-consensus-backed
discussion regarding a particular section was self-closed as consensus
reached for the entire document, attempting to establish an unaccountable
and secretive Committee that may ban users for any of a number of extremely
vaguely worded violations including "attempting to circumvent a decision of
the Committee", appoints its own members (none of which were
community-selected), can veto any changes to the CoC, and recently claimed
absolute authority over all development-oriented spaces on all Wikimedia
projects (including VPT, gadget/script/module talk pages) on a "consensus"
of a single user. It's quite clearly a completely illegitimate institution.

But leaving all that aside, this was a terrible decision. I recommend an
immediate unblock.

-- Yair Rand



2018-08-08 13:02 GMT-04:00 David Cuenca Tudela:


In general I would prefer to keep vulgar language out of the projects, as
it doesn't bring anything positive.
Research shows that swearing causes stress [1], and there are many ways

of

showing dissatisfaction without using coarse language.

For instance, I would appreciate if there would be more interest in using
Nonviolent Communication, as it is more effective in getting the message
across than with negativity.
Introduction:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-129JLTjkQ

Regards,
Micru


[1]http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/
journal.pone.0022341


On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 5:53 PM Bináris  wrote:

That's what I called a very first world problem.
This happens when American culture and behavioral standard is extended

to

an international community.
It is not rally polite to write that F-thing (how many times has it

been

written directly or abbreviated or indirectly in this very

discussion?).

But to ban a member of the technical community from the working

environment

is really harmful.
Although we do block people from editing Wikipedia, too, but we do it
publicly, clearly, comparably, and by the rules of the local community,

not

by hidden rules of admin board. And not for one ugly word.
This secret banning undermines the community, and therefore it is
destructive.

Additionally, as code of conduxt itself was discussed here, the coc

file

case was discussed here a few weeks ago, and this is the place where

most

Phabricatos users communicate,  this is a good place to discuss this

Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled

[bawolff]

If maximizing effectiveness was the only concern, we could just block
all the users.

--
Brian

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 8:12 PM, Ryan Kaldari  wrote:
> Are you suggesting that ArbCom does a good job of maintaining a collegial, 
> harassment-free environment on English Wikipedia? Just wanted to double-check 
> ;)
>
>> On Aug 8, 2018, at 1:02 PM, Isarra Yos  wrote:
>>
>> On other projects, we have community-elected groups among whom we see 
>> oversight in the form of new members upon subsequent elections who can audit 
>> the backlogs, and who conduct their primary functions in the open and issue 
>> clear statements when a matter does indeed merit not discussing openly, 
>> using their discretion as to when to apply privacy and similar concerns 
>> specifically. Generally speaking, most users actually trust their discretion 
>> in those matters.
>>
>> Nothing about /this/ particular issue appears to merit any such concern, and 
>> because none of the above holds here, either, I can't say I necessarily 
>> trust this committee to make that call to begin with.
>>
>> -I
>>
>>> On 08/08/18 19:35, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
>>> With all the clamoring for transparency, has anyone considered the privacy
>>> implications for publicly documenting every complaint against a Phabricator
>>> user? That seems like it could have just as much of a chilling effect on
>>> participation, if not more, than the idea that you can be blocked for being
>>> rude.
>>>
>>>
 On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 12:05 PM Yair Rand  wrote:

 I very much agree that profanity should not be used around Wikimedia, but
 there's a large gap between "things we ideally wouldn't have", "things an
 employee of a Wikimedia institution should be fired for", and "things a
 volunteer contributor should be blocked for" (in that order). (The acronym
 "wtf" has been used 532 times on Phabricator according to search results
 (including some by the relevant CoCC members), and 10 times fully spelled
 out.)

 Just to remind everyone of some background, the CoC came into existence
 after having a policy tag edit-warred onto it after a non-consensus-backed
 discussion regarding a particular section was self-closed as consensus
 reached for the entire document, attempting to establish an unaccountable
 and secretive Committee that may ban users for any of a number of extremely
 vaguely worded violations including "attempting to circumvent a decision of
 the Committee", appoints its own members (none of which were
 community-selected), can veto any changes to the CoC, and recently claimed
 absolute authority over all development-oriented spaces on all Wikimedia
 projects (including VPT, gadget/script/module talk pages) on a "consensus"
 of a single user. It's quite clearly a completely illegitimate institution.

 But leaving all that aside, this was a terrible decision. I recommend an
 immediate unblock.

 -- Yair Rand



 2018-08-08 13:02 GMT-04:00 David Cuenca Tudela :

> In general I would prefer to keep vulgar language out of the projects, as
> it doesn't bring anything positive.
> Research shows that swearing causes stress [1], and there are many ways
 of
> showing dissatisfaction without using coarse language.
>
> For instance, I would appreciate if there would be more interest in using
> Nonviolent Communication, as it is more effective in getting the message
> across than with negativity.
> Introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-129JLTjkQ
>
> Regards,
> Micru
>
>
> [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/
> journal.pone.0022341
>
>> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 5:53 PM Bináris  wrote:
>>
>> That's what I called a very first world problem.
>> This happens when American culture and behavioral standard is extended
 to
>> an international community.
>> It is not rally polite to write that F-thing (how many times has it
 been
>> written directly or abbreviated or indirectly in this very
 discussion?).
>> But to ban a member of the technical community from the working
> environment
>> is really harmful.
>> Although we do block people from editing Wikipedia, too, but we do it
>> publicly, clearly, comparably, and by the rules of the local community,
> not
>> by hidden rules of admin board. And not for one ugly word.
>> This secret banning undermines the community, and therefore it is
>> destructive.
>>
>> Additionally, as code of conduxt itself was discussed here, the coc
 file
>> case was discussed here a few weeks ago, and this is the place where
 most
>> Phabricatos users communicate,  this is a good place to discuss this
> case,
>> too. Publicity is good.
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