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Re: Questions around Justice and Our Current CoC procedures



On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:03 PM Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> wrote:
>
> On Sunday, February 20, 2022 5:24:47 PM EST Sam Hartman wrote:
> > >>>>> "Felix" == Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> writes:
> > In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer have any affiliation
> > with DAM.
> >
> >     Felix> With regard to disciplinary proceedings, however, Debian has
> >     Felix> a long way to go in implementing basic precepts of
> >     Felix> justice. For example, it would be good to hold hearings in
> >     Felix> which the accused can make a statement before any action is
> >     Felix> taken.
> >
> > I think phrasing this in terms of justice and rights for keeping
> >  governments  accountable  is likely to get a knee-jerk reaction from a
> >  number of people who do not want to think of things that.
> > It's fairly clear to a number of us that maintaining standards of a
> > private community is a very different problem than maintaining justice
> > for people who have the power to deny life and liberty.
> >
> > I do think there are standards of fairness and desirable conduct in
> > managing a community, but I don't think going back to the Magna Carta or
> > other documents of human rights is very productive in moving the
> > discussion forward.
> >
> > However, I do find there are areas where I agree with you.
> > I'm going to focus on DAM in this message rather than listmaster or the
> > community team.
> > I think the calculus for each group works out differently.
> > As an example, because the community team cannot (for the most part)
> > take formal action, I think it is desirable to avoid too much process
> > for them.
> >
<snip>
>
> While it is true that Debian is not a government and has no power to deprive
> someone of life or liberty, it's also not just a social club from which
> expulsion has no real consequences.  For some people, their professional work
> is connected to Debian and being expelled from Debian effectively causes them
> to have to get a new job.  Many Debian Developers have a lot of personal
> identity wrapped up in Debian (myself included).  Being expelled from Debian
> would also be an emotional blow.
>
<snip>

I believe that the Debian community values fairness.  I also believe that
the community encourages idealism -- it was founded around free-software
ideals, after all.  I think this contributes to some of the arguments we
see: people here want the perfect solution.

I think one of the things we are arguing about here is fairness.  Humans
believe they are acting fairly most of the time; however, there is plenty of
historical and current evidence to the contrary.  I think this is the reason
for pointing to justice system procesess: It is the area where there has
been the most effort expended toward making the process fair (and it's still
far from perfect).  I submit that it is impossible for people to be
perfectly fair, and any process with serious implications should formally
recognize that.

I found a draft from 2019 that I never sent to this list that mostly boils
down to this: it is really easy to misunderstand someone and make a bad
judgement; especially with all of the cultural differences in our community.
As a hopefully innocuous example: there are cultures where commenting on
someone's weight is considered extremely rude and mean, while in other
cultures it is considered a fact and normal to talk about or even call a
person fat.  Would calling someone a fatzo immediately warrant a formal
warning?

I am not on -private, so I'm not entirely sure on the details of what we are
arguing about.  The same thing happened with Daniel Pocock -- I never really
understood exactly what happened to cause him to feel the way he did, just
vague insinuations of misconduct from leadership.  I feel like before
whatever wrong he perceived, he was a relatively normal DD (at least in
public), but I agree that his behavior was completely unacceptable.  I can
say from the interactions on the list that he did not feel heard, which seems
all too common.

I also would like to point out that the project has some non-obvious forces
that could be contributing to the list culture.  Having every interaction
with Debian lists permanently committed to the public record is extremely
intimidating, which may be a source of selection bias for new members (and
also a major hurdle to participation, beyond the strong personalities who
frequent these lists).  I think it also encourages posts only from people
who feel _very_ strongly about what they are posting about, which isn't the
most conducive to constructive discussion.

-- 
Eldon Koyle


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