[python-committers] I have blocked Wes Turner from the Python org on GitHub

[Brett Cannon]

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 at 09:27 M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:

> On 01.04.2017 05:44, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> >
> >> On Mar 31, 2017, at 2:40 PM, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> In the (long) discussion of
> https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/6, Wes Turner began to do
> his usual posting of lists. People pointed out he was stepping out of line
> by being somewhat off-topic and seemingly lecturing folks. He posted some
> of his lists again and then I warned him that if he did it again I would
> block him for a CoC violation since he did not want to respect anyone's
> time by taking the time to edit what amount to dumping his personal notes
> on GitHub. (This is a long-standing issue, BTW, with Wes where he has been
> warned in other settings like distutils-sig about his posting behaviour.)
> >
> > ...
> > So, if Wes is to be blocked for a while, it should be on the basis of
> "adding too much noise to an important communication channel" rather than
> CoC which should be sparingly used for only egregious issues.  Also, if a
> real CoC issue does arise, I think any actions taken need to have multiple
> assents from a group of decision makers rather than having one person
> become a de-facto CoC czar with the power to banish people.
>
> It's definitely a requirement of any CoC management to have at
> least two people decide on this, since CoCs in general are
> always open to interpretation and need to take multiple views
> into account.


OK, but who is the second person supposed to be? Since this was the
core-workflow issue tracker for the core-workflow mailing list I figured it
fell on to my shoulders to deal with (I actually had to check the mailing
list this morning to see if I even had co-owners on it since I actually
didn't remember explicitly having any). Am I to ask just any core dev for a
gut check to make sure this is a reasonable action to take?

I guess my point is that we don't have any form of policy or practices in
place for this sort of thing. An action of this level has (fortunately)
only occurred with Anatoly and we took so long to deal with it that no one
questioned my actions when I first used the CoC on python-ideas.


> Wes's comments are nowhere near a CoC violation,
> IMO.
>

There's also extensive history spanning multiple mailing lists for Wes'
behaviour. This isn't isolated to just what I linked to, it just happens to
be what finally pushed me to take action. If I could block him at my
personal account level and have his posts not show up for me I would, or if
I could just block him for the core-workflow issue tracker I would, but we
just  don't have that level of blocking on GitHub and the finest grain
available is organization level.


>
> I agree with Raymond that CoCs are not meant as a tool to
> silence people with different ideas or communication styles
> out of convenience.
>

Now we're getting into a philosophical discussion as to whether the CoC
covers people who choose to continually communicate in an unproductive  way
even after it has been pointed out to them that they are not contributing
constructively to the conversation (as Paul more eloquently stated). To me
the CoC covers that as part of requiring people to be respectful of others.
Time is one of those things that I can't get back and which we all have a
limited supply of to spend on this project, so having someone suck it away
in small doses regularly even after they have been told by multiple people
that they are not contributing seems like a CoC violation to me.


>
> It's the ultimate tool, not the first to consider.


It wasn't my first anything. As I have said, this isn't some isolated
incident in the Python community with Wes. And I didn't do this on a whim.
I literally felt like crap for about an hour after hitting the red "Block"
button because I realize the ramifications of what I did, so please don't
think I just had a bad day and decided to take it out on someone or did
this just because I didn't like someone's four messages on GitHub.


> If Wes were
> continuously offensive that would be a reason to start discussing
> CoC related actions.
>

As I said, this spans at least distutils-sig and python-ideas for years (to
the point that I have had his emails being marked as read for a few months
and I know multiple other people who have done the same).

>From what people have said in opposition to what I did, I think we need to
have a discussion about two things:

1. Is it a CoC violation if someone chooses to ignore repeated warnings
that their communication style is unproductive and thus a waste of people's
time? And if people don't view it as an explicit CoC violation, do we still
view it as enough reason to block someone but under a different name? (I
obviously view it as a CoC violation.)

2. What is the exact procedure someone has to follow to instigate a ban
(and this policy should probably cover GitHub, mailing lists, and anywhere
else someone can be banned)? Is it having two core devs agree to the ban
and it being publicly stated here (as MAL suggested)? Whatever approach we
choose we should write it down in the devguide somewhere.

As for Wes himself, I'm fine with the ban lasting only a couple months (say
the end of May?). Based on the positive feedback I received on the ban I
don't want to just drop it without at least some time passing to get the
point across that something needs to change, but I also don't expect the
ban to be permanent since there wasn't any malicious intent.
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