Stepping down from the IRC team

Thu Sep 10 08:59:38 UTC 2009

Greetings,

I'm currently flat-chat trying to re-establish a linux retail store from
scraps, so I don't have time to scribe individual emails. This email
will not necessarily be in ideal order, either.

Ok, so one thing that I'm pretty sure is missing from this discussion is
the actual incident that seem to have sparked this whole thread. It may
seem like a really really small incident, but knowing that it is what
sparked this may tie the whole thing together for some people.

Now explaining this incident is really hard, since even without naming
names, this is going to be screamed down as personal attacks. Before you
do this, ask if you're wanting to understand what is happening. If you
say yes, then ask yourself if you are able to make a complete picture if
you throw out some of the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle before you sit down
to put it together.

But anyway, the incident is as follows: Someone had added "foo is Foo"
factoid to Ubottu's database and when it was discovered, that person was
asked to in future make more useful factoids that have actual
information such as a description and/or url, not just an expanded
acronym. The advice was greeted with childish mock obedience by way of
defiance.

Now, to say this sort of behaviour is out of character for the
individual would be a stretch as there have been various incidents of
varying nature over the years. This person has been in the ops team for
quite a while now, and despite private conversations, has not improved.
In the opinion of many on the team, this person should have been removed
long ago.

Why was this person not removed from the ops team? Because it would have
been bemoaned as a personal attack. Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers
Are Evil.

Another point raised in this thread has been the no-idling policy in
#ubuntu-ops. Someone brought up that it was implemented almost
overnight, and to a degree that is true, but it has been in place for
quite a substantial period of time now.

Why, you ask, was this policy started? Once upon a time, long before the
IRCC was even thought of, there was a spate of really bad trolls who
were planting lookouts/bots in #ubuntu-ops. It was ever so much fun.
We'd stop discussing things so hence possibly AFK, this lull would give
the go-ahead for the spamming/flooding/trolling. We realised all this
was happening when it got to the point that the trolls were reading our
minds and flooding our conversations from -ops about our attempts to
cease the trolling in #ubuntu practically as they happened, and
certainly before the cron for the channel logs sent things live.

We discovered over time that it is easier to set a no-idle policy for
-ops in the /topic and remove with "no idling policy as per /topic" or
whatever than recount this to each person who joins the channel and
forgets.

The policy has multiple benefits, however. It provides us with a way to
maintain a channel where ops can be approached and where the audience is
not an intimidating number -- people were refusing to talk to us there
because of stagefright! This effect has worn off in recent times
however, and hence we've recently moved to the ultra-strict
implementation of no-idling -- transparency in the channel is, after
all, available through the public logs anyway. 

This brings us to the non-op idlers of #ubuntu-ops. Some lurkers have
been troublesome in mediation situations. The users themselves are
usually perfectly well-meaning, but their contributions are regularly
lacking clue and sometimes consequentially horrifying. At some point,
the #defocus voice-the-regulars policy was brought across to the channel
to help identify the regulars vs the people waiting to talk to ops about
an issue. We have had issues in the past with some regulars who had been
given this privilege; they turned out to be part of the aforementioned
problematic lurkers. How can we un-auto-voice these people without
seeming like assholes? We can't. Remember Geek Social Fallacy #1?
Ostracizers Are Evil.  

These are just the major situations that have been left to stew in the
channel because this fallacy means we don't know what we can do without
breaking the Code of Conduct. Putting any blame on individuals is
screamed off as personal attack. This is the tension that has been felt
and the fear of having a confrontation because someone's feelings or
pride got a bit hurt. If you do not believe me that this is a concern,
then consider that this whole thread is sparked by someone's ubottu
factoid being rejected.

Geek Social Fallacy #1 is in my opinion, almost entirely to blame.
People say that the ops team never disagrees, but just this once, I'll
let you in on a secret. We argue. We debate. However, we do this
non-confrontationally, in private. Aiming for the complete opposite of
secrecy isn't going to solve things. It is not fair on someone in -ops
for a minor slip-up to be thrust into a position where they feel like
they've just sparked WW3. It's also not fair on an op to have a peer rip
them to pieces in front of someone partaking in the dispute resolution
process whose attitude is awful and will thrive if they see any excuse,
no matter how unwarranted, to disregard everything that op says in the
future. 

We need to be able to say when people are doing things wrong. However,
we need to be able to say this when it is not going to hijack a
situation such as mediation. If you feel like screaming, scream in a PM
first -- it is *more respectful* to do it this way, and it will thrill
fewer trolls. If you want to make it known that you're discussing it,
then say "$name, see PM please" in the channel. Hijacking mediations
helps nobody, and of course a troll will be nicer to you and stroke your
ego if you waltz in on a mediation in process and let them off with a
slap on the wrist without knowing the whole situation, such as that they
did $blah.

What is happening now is that the dynamic has changed. Not because we
set out to change it to get rid of people, but because we needed to
adapt to the growing community that requires much more formality and
structure than we've ever had to provide before. The tensions that are
being expressed out in this thread are the things we feared would happen
if we did not abide by Geek Social Fallacy #1 way back when the seeds
for these above situations were planted.

Will we continue to be plagued by this? You bet. Is there a way to fix
this? Whilever we feel prohibited from excluding people who are
counterproductive just because they're well-meaning, I doubt it. The
closest thing I can suggest for now is that we try to understand it and
only then will we learn how to work through it.

On Sun, 2009-09-06 at 10:33 +0100, Matt Darcy wrote:
> Michael Lustfield wrote:
> > This may come across as out-of-topic but I'd like to make a few points..
> > 
> > I have used a large variety of distributions. If you see my laptop,
> > it's a very trimmed down version of Ubuntu with a Command Line
> > installation and the bare minimum I need. Often mistaken for Gentoo or
> > Debian. The point being, I could achieve an even more powerful system
> > if I were to use Gentoo. I've had Gentoo, LFS, Debian, Linux Mint,
> > College Linux, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE, openSUSE, and around 40 others.
> > 
> > The number one reason I left all but 5 of those was usability. I left
> > Gentoo and two others for fully different reasons than anything listed.
> > When it comes down to it, I've stopped trying different distributions
> > because I settled on Ubuntu.
> > 
> > I settled on Ubuntu because of the community behind it. I enjoy the
> > usability behind it, the bleeding edge releases (I'm using Karmic), and
> > Launchpad. However, it is solely the community that keeps me around.
> > I've even voiced this point directly to sabdfl a while back.
> > 
> > If I were to be given the op privilege, upholding this point would feel
> > that upholding that point would be an obligation. I do my best to help
> > others when they bring a question to me. If I can't find the answer, I
> > do my best to find it. In some way or another, I want to make sure the
> > user is satisfied in the end.
> > 
> > One thing I see happening is a misunderstanding of new users. Not
> > everyone has been around IRC and some issues come up because of this.
> > I don't want to draw any specifics, but when I meet a new user like
> > that, I do my best to educate them.
> > 
> > We all need to remember why we became an operator at all. I doubt you
> > did it for the power. If I were to take a guess, it would be because
> > you thought you could help the community further with the position. I'm
> > not an op in any core #ubuntu channel, so perhaps my perception is
> > wrong. Maybe you did do it just because you want to be the 'boss man'.
> > 
> > I think the key right now is to recognize that good ops have been lost
> > due to conflicts. Then we can recognize that there are issues in the
> > midst. Perhaps then we can schlep these issues out. Any other order is
> > just going to bring us back to further issues.
> > 
> > I want to toss out an example. My glass is empty. I fill it up again to
> > resolve the issue. Unfortunately it becomes empty again. I keep
> > trying to fix the empty glass, but I can't get it. I see a hole and
> > cover it. I fill it but it still goes empty. I finally realize the
> > issue is many many holes. The holes are too many and I can fix each
> > hole but it will be too hard. Instead I grab a new glass and my drink
> > does not empty. If you really read what I said - that should make sense
> > (no bashing required).
> > 
> > Remember, being an op is a privilege and a responsibility. To uphold
> > the spirit of Ubuntu. To help when needed. To... (I'm only using common
> > sense, I don't really know exactly what you guys say about it.)
> > 
> 
> 
> Can I please request that more pointless lectures and and "uphold the
> prime directive" type speeches are put on the back burner and discuss
> the issue/questions at hands.
> 
> I find this post quite offensive to the people who give up their time
> and put the effort into the channels to have someone say "maybe you did
> it to become the boss man"
> 
> I'm sorry if this is harsh, but I I want to put and end to more well
> wishing lecturers quoting "the right answer" rather than contributing to
> the discussion.
> 
> I again call for this to be discussed in a more professional and private
> manner so that more well intended emails to not get included to cloud
> the issue and so that people can feel comfortable talking freely and
> actually put closure on the issues being discussed.
> 
> Matt
> 
-- 
Melissa Draper

w: http://meldraweb.com & http://geekosophical.net
p: +61 4 0472 2736