An open letter to the Ubuntu IRC community and wider Ubuntu community

[Jono Bacon]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 5:26 AM, Terence Simpson <tsimpson at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hey Jono and everyone else,
>
> I just wanted to briefly explain why I didn't go directly to the IRCC
> with this. I've already pretty much covered it in #ubuntu-ops, but the
> log is huge to wade through so I thought I'd explain directly.
>
> I served a term in the IRCC myself (December 2009-2011), and speaking
> from experience it's very hard to effect a change in culture purely
> from within the council, or even from purely within the IRC team. In
> my term we wrote policies to try and set out how we govern ourselves,
> but we overcompensated and it seems unwittingly encouraged operators
> to enforce the letter of the "law", rather than the intent of it.
> Several IRC team members have tried before to makes changes to the IRC
> team via internal discussions but they haven't had the desired effect.
> The letter is an attempt to provoke an open, honest and public debate
> about how IRC operators currently deal with people personally, and to
> push the team towards a more "Ubuntu" way of interacting with people.
> As this effects users of our IRC channels, as well as operators of
> them, I'd like to involve as many sections of the wider community as I
> can, so we can all share our opinions and experiences with IRC.
>
> So far, this seems to be working, at least within the IRC team.
> There's always some resistance with any change, but we're starting to
> come to a consensus on how to start moving forward within the team.
> Still, I'd like to keep the debate ongoing while we figure out exactly
> where we want to get to and how to get there, and I want to encourage
> input from users and other organizational bodies within the Ubuntu
> community.

Thanks for the clarification, Terence. So it sounds like this is less
of a governance issue and more of a general education issue. I think
we are all in agreement that IRC operators should be enforcing our
channels within the spirit and conduct of the project, and I think we
would welcome everyone to contribute into furthering this work.

It does concern me though that you feel the IRCC are not the most
effective way of doing this. Has the IRCC tried to counter the problem
of IRC operators being too literal in enforcing our rules and trying
to understand the culture of why we have those rules better?

Thanks,

-- 
Jono Bacon
Ubuntu Community Manager
www.ubuntu.com / www.jonobacon.org
www.identi.ca/jonobacon www.twitter.com/jonobacon