[sudo-discuss] Giovanni has been banned from the list
GtwoG PublicOhOne
g2g-public01 at att.net
Thu Oct 31 10:11:00 PDT 2013
Pete makes a number of good points, as do Eddan et. al.
But as for a temporary ban on Giovanni, no, not after the way this thing
played out so far, unless someone wants to make it a self-spiting irony
by banning him until 14 November (the FCC filing deadline).
This is about power and about consistency with principles, and this is
also about justice for individual members. The dysfunctional "come one,
come all" problem at NoiseBridge is a different issue for a different
discussion.
We've just had days of discussion about restraining Board members even
to the point where someone proposed not allowing them to post on other
public sites that they were on the Board, lest that be "mis-interpreted"
to mean that they have some kind of "authority."
Then _this_ happens.
Yes, running a listserv is a lot of work. Having legal responsibility
for a 501 nonprofit is a lot of work too, so what kinds of unilateral
powers shall Board members have?
List admins should be able to exercise unilateral power in emergencies,
such as overt spammers, threats and other overt criminal behavior, bot
attacks, etc. Beyond that, they should be expected to bring non-urgent
cases to some kind of collective process, same as anyone else.
And for all positions that have effective power, "authority" ought to be
defined to mean "delegated authority" including "not to exceed the
limits of the authority that is specifically delegated."
Unless there's more to the story than a handful of "annoying" posts to
the list, Giovanni deserves to be un-banned ASAP, also deserves an
apology from the group as a whole at the next meeting (collective power
= collective responsibility), and then anyone who has an issue with him
is welcome to use whatever collective processes exist to solve it.
-G
======
On 13-10-31-Thu 8:23 AM, Pete Forsyth wrote:
> I don't know this situation too well, but I do have a few questions
> and observations.
>
> * Was this person warned and offered an opportunity to correct his
> behavior before being banned?
> * Is there a clear and clearly communicated path for him for becoming
> unbanned in the future?
> * Even if the ban is the right thing to do, an email subject line to a
> public list stating that he has been banned could be taken as a very
> hostile and damaging act. Could this have been done more quietly and
> respectfully?
>
> My experience with online community management and dynamics comes
> mostly from Wikipedia. One thing I think Wikipedia really gets right,
> and which has been inspiring to me, is to adhere as much as possible
> to the following:
> * A ban is fundamentally considered protective, not punitive;
> therefore it is typically time-limited, and will start off for a short
> duration and only escalate if the undesirable behavior continutes.
>
> I agree that this will probably not be the last time something like
> this comes up. We should remember that the passion of Sudo Room
> members is one of the community's strengths, and may not always be
> expressed in a neat and tidy way.
>
> Pete
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 8:09 AM, Eddan Katz <eddan at clear.net
> <mailto:eddan at clear.net>> wrote:
>
> I'll 4th & 5th that.
> I was trying to direct Giovanni's enthusiasm to be most useful on
> the Sudo-radio list. I still think that would be the most
> appropriate move.
>
> It is in fact true that this is a huge and awesome open window in
> spectrum allocation and it would be a shame to miss it. How
> Giovanni has tried to go about convincing everyone of that has
> clearly been counter-productive. His promise to put together a
> brief note about how to register before Nov. 14 and what it takes
> to do that - would be very useful information.
>
> I dare say though that if annoying is a criteria for being banned
> on this list - as a subjective matter many would be on thin ice.
> (No offense. Myself included.)
>
> I think that ad hoc unilateral banning is an overextension of the
> individual power any Sudo-er should have. Something that was
> mentioned could justify removal from the Board. I would suggest we
> have more than one person with the power to ban people from our
> mailing list. And that those people be charged with doing do
> according to some predictable and ascertainable policy.
>
>
> sent from eddan.com <http://eddan.com>
>
> On Oct 31, 2013, at 7:47 AM, "Danny Spitzberg"
> <stationaery at gmail.com <mailto:stationaery at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> I wholeheartedly 2nd, 3rd the sentiment and suggestion to have a
>> conversation (via email if not IRL) with Giovanni to tame his
>> exuberance and use the list more judiciously.
>>
>> "Banning" without first taking initiative to educate and include
>> in understanding expecte practices is straight-up draconian --
>> eliminating not solving the problem.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Sonja Trauss
>> <sonja.trauss at gmail.com <mailto:sonja.trauss at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Banning someone for being annoying is something you guys will
>> probably have to do often and you should definitely not do it.
>>
>>
>> As far as I can tell, what makes NB dis functional is their
>> commitment to come one come all. "All" is not a great group,
>> necessarily. If you are trying to build a club that is
>> self-governing, it has to have people in it whose judgment
>> you trust. There's nothing wrong with that I think.
>>
>> On Thursday, October 31, 2013, GtwoG PublicOhOne wrote:
>>
>>
>> IMHO that seems excessively harsh. Banning someone from
>> the list is similar enough to banning them from the
>> space, that it seems to me such things entail a
>> collective action by the community rather than an
>> administrative action or unilateral action by e.g. a list
>> admin or someone with keys to the door. Spambots and
>> overt criminals are one thing, but people who are merely
>> annoying in some way are another.
>>
>> Really: With all the talk about anarcho-this and
>> collectivist-that and consensus-the-other-thing, seems to
>> me that unilaterally banning someone for being merely
>> annoying is a pretty major contradiction to core principles.
>>
>> If you or someone else wants to ban someone from the list
>> or the space, aside from emergencies such as bots and
>> criminals, there are dispute-resolution processes in
>> place for that.
>>
>> So I'm going to stick my neck out and ask that you
>> reinstate him on the list, and initiate the use of
>> whatever collective processes exist for resolving the
>> issues you have with him.
>>
>> -G
>>
>>
>> =====
>>
>>
>> On 13-10-31-Thu 2:54 AM, Marc Juul wrote:
>>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:24 AM, GtwoG PublicOhOne
>>> <g2g-public01 at att.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> What happened? I thought the "john re" address had
>>> been captured or spoofed by a spammer, but
>>> "giovanni_re" was a legit user, most recently
>>> discussing the FCC application. Did the
>>> _giovanni_re" identity turn out to be some kind of
>>> wolf in sheep's clothing? -G
>>>
>>>
>>> He was banned for spamming the list about the FCC thing.
>>> Nine emails in nine different threads over the course of
>>> a few hours about a project that he has stated that he
>>> himself is not willing to work on. That is not
>>> reasonable. He also showed up for the sudo room and
>>> counter culture labs meetings and took an unreasonable
>>> amount of the community's time trying to push this
>>> project onto others. It appears that he has been doing
>>> similar things at noisebridge and other tech groups in
>>> the bay area.
>>>
>>> In addition: Starting and running an LPFM station is no
>>> minor undertaking, and Giovanni has continued his
>>> attempts to push this on people even in the face of
>>> little interest. This might have all been fine if he was
>>> actually spearheading the project, but he is not.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Marc
>>
>>
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