#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Keywords: ---------------------+------------------- Following up from discussion on the council-discuss mailing list ( https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/council- discuss@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/HZT6COEWSOYKPSUTPIUPGV2W4PO5JNDU/ ), it seems the consensus from the Fedora community is that the IRC SIG needs reform and an influx of new people to improve the hostile culture in Fedora's IRC channels. The current members of the IRC SIG have taken no initiative to make this happen themselves. Others have expressed interest in making change, but cannot do so within the existing structure, so it seems to be up to the Council to implement changes.
Proposed changes from the council-discuss thread: 1. Making channel OP privileges a temporary position 2. Logging administrative actions in a private log for all IRC SIG members to reference 3. Soliciting other parts of Fedora for new IRC contributors, including Ask.FPO, CommOps, devel and test lists, and the Diversity SIG. However, it is not likely many new contributors will come unless there is actually reason to believe meaningful change will take place on the Fedora IRC channels.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by strikerttd):
"The current members of the IRC SIG have taken no initiative to make this happen themselves." - I'd like to state that some of us do stick up for the users when things get out of hand: - https://fedorahosted.org/irc-support-sig/ticket/174 - https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2015-03-26/irc- support-sig.2015-03-26-17.00.log.html
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by pingou):
Before something is done, could we make sure that *all* current OPs are being contacted about this ticket and presented, maybe a summary, of previous discussions?
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by be0):
I apologize if that came off as dismissive of your efforts Striker. Thank you for standing up for the users and common decency. What I meant is that, as a group, the IRC SIG has not responded to the council-discuss thread by proposing to implement changes themselves and instead deflected to outside authority.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by kevin):
Replying to [ticket:71 be0]: ...snip first part that paints lots of people with one brush...
Proposed changes from the council-discuss thread:
- Making channel OP privileges a temporary position
some questions:
1. I assume this means clearing the current list. 2. How long would someone have this position? 3. What process changes the list?
- Logging administrative actions in a private log for all IRC SIG
members to reference
As noted, we do already have this as part of a bot plugin. Although we could use someone coding a better search or reporting function (upstream first): https://github.com/ncoevoet/ChanTracker
- Soliciting other parts of Fedora for new IRC contributors, including
Ask.FPO, CommOps, devel and test lists, and the Diversity SIG. However, it is not likely many new contributors will come unless there is actually reason to believe meaningful change will take place on the Fedora IRC channels.
I think pretty much everyone agrees having more polite and helpful folks is a great goal. At least I personally do. I don't personally think they should all be made ops, but I guess thats back to the first item.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by jbwillia):
ok as the senior person with ops ( i was made a channel op by warren back in fc3)
I really want to see everyone on this council to spend time in the #fedora channel helping for at least one week (walk in our shoes as they say) yes irc is a bad place, we try to be polite and with all text mediums that sometimes comes across the wrong way.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by mattdm):
I'll try to make some time to hang out in the channel next week. I do appreciate the effort that this takes.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by bex):
A few ideas came out of the council meeting. Your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated:
* What if we split moderation and ops duties. Under this model, ops does technical work and enacts moderator decisions that require privileges as needed. Moderators would be drawn from ambassadors, diversity and commops. The groups are already charged with helping with friendliness and accessibility. Those groups would need to decide how to determine who is a moderator and for how long.
* Assuming a moderator/ops split, ops could serve as an in the moment reality check for moderator decisions.
* Consider guidelines for how to log problems and Code of Conduct violations. Consider anonymized external reporting.
* Hold annual elections (or release cycle elections) for ops.
I'd like to suggest that while anonymized external reporting is good, it is in the best interests of the community to be using a system that also:
1) needs to be logged into to view relevant content, with open public registration 2) Has a community-determined age limit for expiration of that content.
Without that, those types of systems can become:
re: Anonymized External Reporting, Closed Viewing, Open Public Registration -) A vehicle for public humiliation (chronicling arguments from IRC on the web forever, sharing links during groupthink breakdowns et al) -) or blacklisting ("ban this person, I found this fedora log")
re: content expiration: -) Prevention of users from being able to outlive their mistakes. It is too easy for a dislocated entity to eventually become trigger happy with exiling problematic users, and I think this can detract from the purpose and nobility of the role these groups would serve.
I like the direction you guys are headed with this and support it fully, I'd just like to recommend these 2 aspects to avoid mistakes I've seen made in other places (and have even made myself at times).
We should bear in mind that while this has been a problem in Fedora for some time, not only is there all too often crossover between channels when the wrong people get into positions of authority, there can often be continued efforts towards an argument and it's not always the user. These will improve the welcoming environment Fedora is trying to foster.
IRC arguments can become quite heated and long lasting, and this will protect the users as well as the operators during diffusion.
Good luck, and good job if you can bring this split concept to Fedora IRC governship,
--two cents
On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 8:25 PM, council trac@fedorahosted.org wrote:
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by bex):
A few ideas came out of the council meeting. Your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated:
- What if we split moderation and ops duties. Under this model, ops does
technical work and enacts moderator decisions that require privileges as needed. Moderators would be drawn from ambassadors, diversity and commops. The groups are already charged with helping with friendliness and accessibility. Those groups would need to decide how to determine who is a moderator and for how long.
- Assuming a moderator/ops split, ops could serve as an in the moment
reality check for moderator decisions.
- Consider guidelines for how to log problems and Code of Conduct
violations. Consider anonymized external reporting.
- Hold annual elections (or release cycle elections) for ops.
-- Ticket URL: https://fedorahosted.org/council/ticket/71#comment:7 council https://fedorahosted.org/council Fedora Council Public Tickets _______________________________________________ council-discuss mailing list -- council-discuss@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to council-discuss-leave@lists. fedoraproject.org
What you are suggesting would be bringing in essentially an entirely new set of "moderators" which would need to monitor the channel 24/7, understand the systems in place and the processes, but then also expect that the "ops" be available to handle chan-op duties if it comes to needing an action done. And on top of that, it would require coordination between these two groups and some sort of system in place to determine who has what responsibility as well as a mechanism in place to allow a "mod" to 'authorize' an "op" to take action.
This is all overly complicated and is unnecessary. Adding more process to this is not the way to fix it.
I would hope the counsel takes your original issue and advice in mind but they are well capable of making their own decisions when it comes to how to maintain community interaction. I don't think there's any need to continue pushing your agenda.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by nb):
1. I think ops should follow https://freenode.net/catalysts 2. I think the current process for making ops is fine, except there should possibly be more ops added so people can "take a break" more often. 3. If there is a problem with an op, the ops, or the council can vote to suspend or remove them. 4. Yes, sometimes people are not that friendly. That should be addressed to that specific person, i.e. I don't think the ops process is broken, but maybe some of the ops are just not following the rules.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by kevin):
Replying to [comment:7 bex]:
A few ideas came out of the council meeting. Your feedback and comments
are greatly appreciated:
- What if we split moderation and ops duties. Under this model, ops
does technical work and enacts moderator decisions that require privileges as needed. Moderators would be drawn from ambassadors, diversity and commops. The groups are already charged with helping with friendliness and accessibility. Those groups would need to decide how to determine who is a moderator and for how long.
- Assuming a moderator/ops split, ops could serve as an in the moment
reality check for moderator decisions.
I fear this would be pretty complex and lead to situations where one or the other group is not around and no action is taken, or the process bypassed.
- Consider guidelines for how to log problems and Code of Conduct
violations. Consider anonymized external reporting.
Sure, but again, I think this could get too complex... we do have the logs in the bot currently. If we made sure annotations are in there would that be enough?
- Hold annual elections (or release cycle elections) for ops.
I don't think thats a good way to go about things. It could lead to people voting for whoever they think (or know) would let them get away with things, would cause more voter fatigue, and seems out of place for a technical position.
Now, I don't want to be all negative here, and I am personally not adverse to change. Some more ideas I'll toss out:
* Since the irc sig doesnt have too many active members these days and currently only meets when we have open tickets, perhaps we could pull them into the commops meetings/list. Just have a section to discuss issues there and increase visibility to perhaps bring in more active people.
* If we can get folks from ambassadors, diversity and commops interested in helping out in channel perhaps come up with some way to promote from them to ops after they have proven they will be around and are suited for/interested in doing that.
I really think the best way to improve friendlyness is not by increasing enforcement or punishment, but by simply having lots more friendly people around. So, I am personally also very much in favor of trying to increase the helpfull, friendly people in channel.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by nb):
I agree with Kevin.
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by phanes):
I'd like to suggest that while anonymized external reporting is good, it is in the best interests of the community to be using a system that also:
1) needs to be logged into to view relevant content, with open public registration 2) Has a community-determined age limit for expiration of that content.
Without that, those types of systems can become:
re: Anonymized External Reporting, Closed Viewing, Open Public Registration -) A vehicle for public humiliation (chronicling arguments from IRC on the web forever, sharing links during groupthink breakdowns et al) -) or blacklisting ("ban this person, I found this fedora log")
re: content expiration: -) Prevention of users from being able to outlive their mistakes. It is too easy for a dislocated entity to eventually become trigger happy with exiling problematic users, and I think this can detract from the purpose and nobility of the role these groups would serve.
I like the direction you guys are headed with this and support it fully, I'd just like to recommend these 2 aspects to avoid mistakes I've seen made in other places (and have even made myself at times).
We should bear in mind that while this has been a problem in Fedora for some time, not only is there all too often crossover between channels when the wrong people get into positions of authority, there can often be continued efforts towards an argument and it's not always the user. These will improve the welcoming environment Fedora is trying to foster.
IRC arguments can become quite heated and long lasting, and this will protect the users as well as the operators during diffusion.
Good luck, and good job if you can bring this split concept to Fedora IRC governship, I think it's well understood that the current ops list in most channels could use an occassional power cycle.
--two cents
#71: IRC SIG reform ---------------------+--------------------- Reporter: be0 | Owner: Status: new | Priority: normal Component: General | Resolution: Keywords: | ---------------------+---------------------
Comment (by langdon):
Just a comment as I was at least one of the people suggesting "reporting" in the council meeting. And, to clarify, what I meant was non-anonymized reporting of the person *doing* the banning not the banned. Basically to have visibility in to the enforcement of policy, with visibility attached, because there seems to be a breakdown in "over-enforcement" which is what lead to some of this discussion.
re: Kevin's comments I would say that the ops have perms/policy/whatnot to be the fall back moderator if there is no one in channel from the outreach orgs. Basically, what I really want here is, most of the time, is a two-phase commit on enforcement actions and people who have actively chosen to do outreach to do the first wave of discussion. However, the outreach people are not ops people and we don't have to make the rules draconian as long as it works most of the time.
i agree with you on elections
definite +1 on the "pull irc sig/tickets in to commops meetings"
+1 on "more friendly people might just solve this"
re: Phanes comments I agree with your two comments. And, I think that means you don't have to mention the part where you made the mistake anymore as a result ;)
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