I’ve put this topic on the SC's agenda for our Monday meeting. I can appreciate that core developers would like more detail on the behavior that initiated the ban. I’ve also added an item to consider whether and how to create a private space for further discussion among core developers (and PSF staff) only.
As a general plea, please accept that this ban was not undertaken lightly, capriciously, or gladly. There are lots of checks and balances, and more internal discussion that any of us (all volunteers) would ever have liked. I can’t speak for the Conduct WG, but every reported violation was thoroughly investigated, and a report was issued to the Board and the SC, along with recommendations. So there were a lot of people involved and consensus was reached. By constitution, the SC has ultimate authority to issue bans, and ultimately both the PSF Board and Steering Council are elected positions. As with any democracy, we serve you all, and elections are the way to signal your agreement or displeasure with the results.
On a personal note, I want to express my deep respect and gratitude to the members of the WG, the Board, and my fellow SC members for the compassion, diligence, and sense of responsibility in dealing with these matters. Every single one of them only wants what’s best for the Python community, and we are all trying to figure out how to do this the right way, despite the personal toll it takes. None of us wants to do this - we’d all rather be coding. We’ve never had to issue a ban before, so this is uncharted territory. Any missteps are unintentional. Please, help us navigate this with your understanding, constructive, and compassionate assistance. Let’s use these incidents to illustrate the best in the Python community, and why we love being part of it.
Cheers, -Barry
On Jul 23, 2020, at 01:17, Christian Heimes <christian@python.org> wrote:
On 23/07/2020 09.52, Matthias Klose wrote:
Apparently there was agreement to hide this kind of information, and that's worse than the original behavior that was acted on. Who will be next? For what reason? I am not questioning the decision, at least we voted for our delegates, so I have to respect that decision even if I would disagree. If you don't want to communicate in public, then email committers separately, or create a private ML for committers.
python-committers has a public mail archive. Anybody is able to follow python-committers discussions via the public mailing list interface. I understand why the SC is avoiding name calling in public.
Barry, multiple core devs have raised a concern now. There is at least one more CoC violation under investigation, which is going to cause even more concern. Would it make sense to disclose more details on the matter in the private area on discuss.python.org? We have an internal forum that is only accessible by core devs and PSF staff. That way the SC can disclose more information in a private post without public name calling and public shaming.
Christian