Hi Steve, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> (2013-10-26): > Was discussing with one of the listmasters (Alexander Wirt) on IRC today > about mailing list bans, because it turns out that someone I was just about > to ask the listmasters to ban from debian-devel had just been blocked in > response to a request from someone else. > > This led to a philosophical debate about whether bans should be made public. > Alexander expressed concern that having them published could be harmful to a > person's reputation, since employers will google your name and see that > you've been banned from a large project such as Debian. > > I think we should publish them, for several reasons: > > - Debian is not responsible for the reputation of someone who has gotten > themselves banned for their behavior; their reputation is already in the > mud if employers read their actual posts to the Debian lists. > - It brings closure to the rest of our community to know that action has > been taken against an abuser, showing that we've stood up for the > principle of civil discourse and that the problem hasn't just gone away > on its own because a troll got bored. > - It gives Debian contributors confidence that bad behavior doesn't have to > be silently endured as a cost of participating in Debian lists. > - It improves *Debian's* reputation to the rest of the world, by showing > that our mailing lists are not "anything goes". > - It provides a reference point for newcomers to the Debian community to > judge their actions by, to understand what kinds of things will get them > banned from participation (although I expect few of the people who need > such guidance will actually take advantage of it...) > - It casts sunlight on the kinds of decisions that the listmasters are > making WRT bans, so that we collectively have oversight of these > decisions and can ensure our principles are being applied fairly and > consistently. > > So I don't think bans need to be posted anywhere prominent like > debian-devel-announce, but I do think basic facts like who is banned, for > how long, and the rationale (with links to specific mailing list posts as > reference) should be made public. > > What do the rest of you think? looks very reasonable to me, thanks for writing that down. Mraw, KiBi.
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