Dear coreboot folks,
Am 19.02.24 um 22:24 schrieb mina--- via coreboot:
[…]
### [Nico] Revoking Gerrit privileges as punishment.
I would like to discuss two matters about this. Not sure about the order.
* My own case: I was removed from the core developers and reviewers groups
20 months ago. Without
any charge nor chance to defend myself. There was Stefan's sentence, a
discrediting rant about me
with accusations that fit me not more than many other people, and an offer to
reduce the sentence
to a month if I were willing to come to the table. Which didn't make sense
because I reached out to
people long before Stefan's mail and it took Stefan, not me, over three months
"to come to the
table". And then he still couldn't tell me what I did worse than others. I
asked again, Werner this
time, what my charge is in 2023, again without results. And now I'm asking
again. How can we make
things better when we can't even say what was wrong?
* [Martin] These issues are not discussed in a public forum where everyone
with a pitchfork can get
involved. That’s not useful. If you feel that the issues which led to this
action being taken have
changed, please email all the members of the leadership. Matt, Werner, and
David.
* Should we use Gerrit privileges as punishment at all? If so, shouldn't we
have rules about it?
* We will add this to the code of conduct page:
```
As a part of running the project, coreboot leadership has the right to revoke
privileges as they
see fit. This is not done lightly. Over the history of the coreboot project,
there have been only a
handful of times where an action needed to be taken.
Discussions about these actions are not done publicly, for obvious reasons. If
someone believes
that the circumstances that led to an action have changed, please send an email
to all the members
of the leadership team for discussion.
```
* I will note that this text is already there:
```
If a community member engages in unacceptable behavior, the community
organizers may take any
action they deem appropriate, up to and including a temporary ban or permanent
expulsion from the
community without warning (and without refund in the case of a paid event).
```
* https://doc.coreboot.org/community/code_of_conduct.html
In my opinion, some things are missing.
1. First, before “punishing” someone the person needs to be informed
and also have the chance to be heard.
2. If the person wants to discuss this publicly, that should be allowed.
3. The length of the “punishment” must be limited.
* Doesn't it hurt the project more when it loses a reviewer? (who can
still get their own patches merged anyway).
* [Martin] I’d say yes, and that’s something that the leadership group
has to weigh when they decide to take an action against an individual.
* [David] Yes, it does hurt the project when it loses a reviewer (or any
contributor, for that matter). That's why it's important to deal with "toxic
developers" effectively - to prevent others
from leaving the project. No one developer is worth several others who will
refuse to work with
them.
* Should we maybe do the opposite? don't merge their patches unless they
do review?
* [Martin] When the issue is something other than the quality of a
person’s code, it doesn’t make sense to punish them by refusing to allow their
patches to be merged. As many people in the community have jobs where they’re
required to push code to coreboot, that could be the equivalent to getting them
fired, which seems unfair.
* If we want to use such punishment, should we apply it to other privileges
as well? e.g.
administrators, leadership members (IMO very important for trust inside the
community)
* [Martin] If two members of the leadership voted to take action against a
third member, that’s completely allowed. The leadership team can take action as
needed. I’ll note that I myself had submit rights taken away for a year. Yes,
I’m one of the handful of cases mentioned.
I would keep the status quo. It’s my impression, that until know, these
means were enough.
[…]
Kind regards,
Paul
[1](https://coreboot.org/calendar.html).
[2](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NRXqXcLBp5pFkHiJbrLdv3Spqh1Hu086HYkKrgKjeDQ/edit?pli=1).
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