[LA-Policies] Suggestions additions to the policy

[Tennessee Leeuwenburg]

Hi Scott,

Good email.

I'm going to deal with your points out of order. By "deal with" I mean only
"provide another opinion" :) .

(2) I would hope that those banned would be contacted.

(3) A simple statement of a ban having occurred, and who was banned, posted
to the list, appears to be a useful form of transparency and accountability
to members.

(1) I can think of many examples where on-list moderation (depending how
you define this) would not be appropriate, due to the potentially
inflammatory nature of the discussions, and the potential need to respect
the privacy of those involved. Further, such a system could be abused by
trolls who know that all the sordid arguments would be duked out for all to
see. The goal is to deny air-time to such attention-seeking and provocative
behaviour. Additionally, in rare circumstances, the LA council would (in my
view) have a duty to the law and its own integrity which is more important
than its responsibility to the mailing list members. I think it needs to
retain flexibility in this regard. I would also be interested to hear more
about other viewpoints on what I've just written, as I am not sure I have
considered all the perspectives on the matter.

(4) It does make sense to be able to cut off excessive appeal processing.
However, by that stage it seems to be an issue which is elevated beyond
simple mailing list policy?

Extending the thought process from (4)... does it make sense to require
people to agree to moderation policy when they join the list. Does LA need
a diversity or good behaviour policy covering the membership of LA (as
distinct from subscribing to the mailing list)?

Regards,
-Tennessee



On 8 December 2014 at 09:48, Scott Ferguson <
scott.ferguson.it.consulting at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks to those that developed the policy.
>
> Firstly - would it be possible to say that moderation should be done
> on-list? For the purpose of transparency and to instruct not just the
> person being moderated, but also the list readers; and to reduce
> distrust of the moderating process (which has happened on other lists
> where moderation is kept secret from the list readers). [*1]
> When that has *not* been the policy I've seen lists slide into bad
> places where an "offense" is considered what someone has "taken
> offense" from, promoting misuse of the complaints system - and people
> have ultimately been banned as a result of reaching a set number of
> moderations stemming from complaints that were "offensive",
> "argumentative", and/or "flame-baiting" (attracted forum flooding by
> organised special interest groups who then shower the list with
> complaints); and as a result of "personal differences" between the
> person being moderated and the moderator (subjects that had nothing to
> do with the list e.g. work, politics etc)
>
> Secondly - would it be possible to say that those banned will be contacted.
>
> Thirdly - would it be possible to say that bans will be published? For
> the same reasons as my first suggestion.[*1].
> In this instance I've seen /that/ agreed to when the CoC was being
> developed - but left out of the ratified CoC resulting in bans secret
> from the list readers - banned posters not being notified, and
> resulting in a situation where a community already weary of politics
> and voting, has lost key members sick of the eternal lobbying, and
> *changing the CoC would require a(nother) GR* - which would likely
> mostly receive interest in voting on from those that are happy with a
> moderation/banning process that has limited peer review.
>
> Fourthly - would it be worthwhile adding a "vexatious" clause to the
> appeals process so that the Council can limit the amount, or length of
> appeals? Perhaps by setting some sort of minimum, and requiring a
> majority vote by the Council.
>
> [*1] Thanks for having the forethought to include a right to appeal to
> the Council - one of the failings of other policies (CoC) I've seen is
> that appeals can only be made to the person who made the
> moderation/ban in the first place (which requires the sort of optimism
> that triumphs over experience).
>
> Kind regards
>
> _______________________________________________
> Policies mailing list
> Policies at lists.linux.org.au
> http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/policies
>



-- 
--------------------------------------------------
Tennessee Leeuwenburg
http://myownhat.blogspot.com/
"Don't believe everything you think"
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