RFC: #ubuntu op misuse or not?

Sat May 17 01:24:41 UTC 2014

Others have given more in depth answers, I would like to give some very
short ones:

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 7:14 PM, Rohan Dhruva <rohandhruva at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you everyone for your responses.
>
> Someone on the channel said that there is no way I can come out
> looking good in this whole discussion. Another person suggested that
> while I had a point earlier, it has now been diluted by the ensuing
> discussion.
> I agree with both of those verdicts. If the whole conversation is
> going to be coloured by that, I fear it will devolve into the same
> points that were hashed on IRC.
>
> To pare down my email, the things I felt distasteful were:
> * ops killing organic, non-insulting, non-inflammatory discussions by
> silencing people
>

#ubuntu is for tech support.

> * ops basing ban decisions based on personal prejudice (e.g. towards
> words like blitzkrieg and dictator, drawing conclusions of World War
> II and Hitler)
>

ops have to make judgment calls.  judgment comes from thinking, which will
be influenced by feelings.

> * ops banning people in the main channel for discussions happening in
> a completely separate channel (and to be banned by the same op who I
> had the issue with is an obvious conflict of interest)
>

judgment also comes from observing behavior in other channels.

> * general lack of responsibility towards IRC ops -- shown by an
> attitude of "puppies don't die" if there are mistakes in judgement
>

There are many policies and procedures in place to contend with mistakes.
You seem to think they are not appropriate because they allow for an op to
make a mistake in the first place.

> * overall hostility in #ubuntu-ops, mainly with people's insistence to
> leave the channel -- why is it so important to push people out of a
> channel?
>

When someone is speaking in #ubuntu-ops, ops notice it and stop what they
are doing to see what is going on.  If it isn't going to be productive, it
would be nice if it stopped.

>
> Happy to hear thoughts about this.
>
> Cheers,
> Rohan
>
> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 11:45 PM, Rohan Dhruva <rohandhruva at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi ubuntu-irc,
> >
> > I hang on out #ubuntu as "rohan", generally a lurker -- once in a while I
> > ask questions and answer things I know.
> >
> > Today, I encountered something I found disturbing. There was a
> > misunderstanding between two users, and an op decided to silence one of
> > them. The discussion was civil (no swearing or flooding), but also
> > off-topic. I feel silencing a user in this case is overreaching and rude
> --
> > especially a user who might have been new to the IRC community (and maybe
> > new to Ubuntu itself).
> >
> > On complaining about this in the channel, I was directed to to talk in
> > #ubuntu-ops, which I joined and then stopped talking on #ubuntu. On the
> -ops
> > channel (which is logged), I had a few heated words exchanged with the op
> > who originally took the wrong action (in my opinion). Eventually, it
> boils
> > down to whether words like "blitzkrieg" and "dictator" are offensive or
> not.
> >
> > Since the logs are public[1][2], I'll cut a long story short: the op
> chose
> > to ban me from #ubuntu for a week. This was without me talking in
> #ubuntu or
> > provoking drama in the main channel at all. The reason given was that I
> was
> > likely to misbehave in #ubuntu, without there having been any evidence of
> > having done so. As the logs will show, I tried to make my point in
> various
> > ways, sometimes being drawn out. In interest of list readers' time, I can
> > summarise the ensuing discussion as unfruitful and borderline hostile --
> in
> > (large) part due to my own insistence of remaining in the channel. I was
> > unequivocally told to leave the channel at multiple times, with various
> > people suggesting I get a life, or my insistent complaining as pathetic.
> >
> > I apologise for an already long email (but as people in the channel will
> > tell you, it's much shorter than reading the whole scrollback!).. but
> here
> > are the things I wanted to request members' views and comments on:
> >
> > * Is it ok to stifle discussion by silencing one person when an argument
> > seems to be happening in the channel, under the pretext of avoiding
> drama?
> > ** This is also against the guidelines of when to ban/kick a person --
> there
> > was no flooding, nor were there any swear words or unappealing language.
> >
> > * Is it ok for an op to ban someone in the main #ubuntu channel for
> > discussion happening in a completely separate channel?
> > ** Especially when the discussion was exactly about the op overreaching:
> > this seems like an obvious conflict of interest. Also, should an op's
> > personal bias towards words like blitzkrieg and dictator be allowed to
> > affect a user's ability to enter a channel?
> >
> > * What can be done to make #ubuntu-ops a more friendly place? The
> discussion
> > was very obviously hostile, and I was penalised for speaking up against
> the
> > very two ops I had a problem with, and in general the channel's attitude
> was
> > "write an email and gtfo, you're just repeating the same things over and
> > over". I don't understand the insistence to leave the channel, nor the
> very
> > obvious ganging up of the "ops vs. users" -- at least I felt that way
> from
> > the get-go. After I left the channel, the logs show people suggesting
> each
> > other to skip reading the scrollback and offer sympathies for people who
> > actually wanted to read it. If that can be written off as humour, I would
> > like to ask why the same kind of humour leads to a ban in #ubuntu.
> > ** This is especially important, because #ubuntu-ops is the first forum
> in
> > the appeals flow, and the experience there was extremely elitist and
> > hostile.
> >
> > * Why is it so bad to suggest an op be penalised? Why does doing that
> > instantly evoke allegations of being childish and immature (as opposed to
> > people claiming they themselves are intelligent adults)? If an op can ban
> > someone for a week in a completely unrelated channel for discussion in
> > another channel, why is it sacrilege that there should be at least some
> kind
> > of disciplinary action?
> >
> > * Continuing from the previous question, the general feeling I got is
> that
> > the accountability of ops in general is not up to the usual Ubuntu
> > standards. Whereas packages in the repo are vetted in several different
> > ways, there seems to be no similar vetting for the whole ops flow. People
> > claiming that "puppies don't die" if an op makes mistakes shows that the
> > general feeling of responsibility seems low. Another way of thinking
> about
> > this is if that puppies are not going to die anyway, why go out of your
> way
> > to ban someone for a joke here and there?
> >
> > * Turning the tables onto myself, was I annoying? In short, yes. Could I
> > have done things differently? Yes. Feedback on my behaviour is as much
> > appreciated as the discussion on the above bullet points.
> >
> > If you actually made it this far -- thank you! I am looking forward to
> > hearing other points of view, and as someone on IRC suggested, I will
> try my
> > best to ensure that this goes better than the discussion on IRC was :)
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Rohan
> >
> > [1]: http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/05/15/%23ubuntu-ops.html
> > [2]: http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/05/16/%23ubuntu-ops.html
> >
> > --
> > Rohan Dhruva
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Rohan Dhruva
>
> --
> Ubuntu-irc mailing list
> Ubuntu-irc at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-irc
>

-- 
Carl K
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