Fw: RFC: #ubuntu op misuse or not?

[C de-Avillez]

It seems my email did not actually get sent. Sigh. I officially am
blaming claws-mail for that.


Begin forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 16 May 2014 10:43:30 -0500
From: C de-Avillez <hggdh2 at ubuntu.com>
To: Rohan Dhruva <rohandhruva at gmail.com>
Cc: ubuntu-irc at lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Re: RFC: #ubuntu op misuse or not?


On Thu, 15 May 2014 23:45:44 -0700
Rohan Dhruva <rohandhruva at gmail.com> wrote:


DISCLAIMER: what I say below is my personal view, and does not
necessarily reflect the IRC Council's position (if any).

> 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.

It is not these words, by themselves, that are offensive, or agressive.
The context is important. This is obvious from the discussion about
'sabdfl' -- it is clear, at least for those that know the story, that
the 'dictator' in sabdfl is not offensive (which you tried to point
out).

> 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

Yes. You were frustrated, and -- for me -- it is obvious that your
frustration was driving the conversation. It did not help much when you
were answered in the same tone.

> -- in (large) part
> due to my own insistence of remaining in the channel. I was
> unequivocally told to leave the channel at multiple times,

You were told to leave multiple times (and, I think, the last time by
me) because at least for some of us in the channel it was clear the
discussion was not leading anywhere. I am *not* stating it was *only*
your fault. 

You were also told, again and again, to write an email to
the IRC Council.

Instead you addressed the email to the general IRC ML. All in all, I
think you did right: this is a discussion on behaviour that should be
public. Please note that I am not saying "user behaviour", or "op
behaviour".

> with
> various people suggesting I get a life, or my insistent complaining
> as pathetic.

Extremely unfortunate. The ideal is the ops will talk with an user with
civility. We strive to get our point across, but not with hammers. Of
course, we can also be wrong.

> 
> 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.

Depends on the context. But usually -- as this event clearly shows --
arguments tend to escalate fast. An experienced moderator should try to
inhibit this (perhaps potential) escalation. If one really wants to
keep on discussing, one can always go private. Or move to a different
channel, where the argument is within its guidelines.

> 
> * Is it ok for an op to ban someone in the main #ubuntu channel for
> discussion happening in a completely separate channel?

No, not in my view. Generically, it is not OK to ban (or mute, or
kick) an user on ANY other channel but the one where the issue is
going on. 

> ** Especially when the discussion was exactly about the op
> overreaching: this seems like an obvious conflict of interest.

Agreed. It would be better if the parts involved would limit themselves
to providing context; this could help, since there has to be at least
two people willing to contend.

> 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?

We are all biased. There is no way out of it. One should expect,
nevertheless, that moderators are particularly sensitive to their own
bias. 

But this is really not easy to do -- I myself gave you an answer that,
in hindsight, could have been written less blunt. I do apologise for
this.

> 
> * 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,

What you are doing, right now, is the perfect way of going: write an
email, expose your argument, do not fall in the emotion trap. This
publicly shows what you perceive as a problem to all that, in any form,
have interest in IRC as a medium of *communication*.

> and in
> general the channel's attitude was "write an email and gtfo, you're
> just repeating the same things over and over".

Well, you *were* repeating yourself over and over. And, obviously, the
answers you were receiving were not helping much in getting out of the
loop.

> I don't understand the
> insistence to leave the channel,

The #ubuntu-ops channel is primarily for ops control *and* discussion
between ops and users affected by (most probably, but not necessarily
so) an op action. It is not a channel for lurking by non-ops. Logs are
publicly available, if one wants to find out how the channel goes.

> nor the very obvious ganging up of
> the "ops vs. users" -- at least I felt that way from the get-go.

Sort of correct. After all, it is usually one *user* talking to
operators, given that only core channel ops are allowed to lurk in
#ubuntu-ops.

But it should never be "user vs. ops". The idea is other ops, perhaps
not active in the particular event, can read what the user is trying to
pass, and take thoughtful action if needed.

More and more I think that the ops that participating in a particular
event should refuse themselves from the discussion, and limit themselves
to answering direct questions.

> 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.

You are reading more than actually was written. I was offered sympathy
because it was a long read (at least this is how I understood 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.

No comment here. Separating only so that the next sentence can be
addressed without risk of confusion.

> ** This is especially important, because #ubuntu-ops is the
> first forum in the appeals flow, and the experience there was
> extremely elitist and hostile.

I agree. It should be pointed out that moderators will tend to agree on
actions because this is *usually* how they themselves would act.

On the other hand, the whole conversation quickly derailed, and I, for
one, can see hostility on both sides.

This should not happen. I expect an hostile user -- it is difficult
to be courteous when we think our rights have been abused --, but
operators should refrain from being rude.

This, I think, goes back to the "know your bias" thingy above.

> 
> * 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)?

No, it is not bad to ask. I would not go as far as "asking an user/op
to be penalised". But you have to do so in a coherent way. Expose what
happened. Expose why you think this is wrong. Do it all in a clear,
coherent, sensible, way.

Unfortunately, none of the above happened (and *both* sides, as far as
I can see, participated in muddying the situation).

> 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?

An op should *not* ban an user on a different channel than the one the
event is taking place on.

> 
> * 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. 

We will look into it. Actually, your email is, I hope, starting the
discussion :-)

>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?

This was not actually meant as a joke. It just means that nothing
unrecoverable would happen if an op makes a mistake. OTOH, the same
applies if an *user* makes a mistake.

> 
> * 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.

Thank you for exposing your views in a nice way. Really.


> 
> 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,

Again, thank you for getting this started, and cheers,

..C..

-- 
ab alio expectes alteri quod feceris
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