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

[Alex Gaynor]

I'll be another voice saying that the CoC isn't the right mechanism -- the
CoC is for harassment and abuse (at least, most community's CoCs are, the
Python one is pretty vague).

That said, I have no problem with the action taken, banning people who are
extremely unproductive is a necessary step for open source communities, and
one I think we are all extremely reticent to take, so much so that it got
it's own chapter in the excellent book, Producing Open Source Software:
http://producingoss.com/en/difficult-people.html

Back to lurking'ly yours,
Alex

On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:

>
>
> 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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