[clug] Member Moderation - Bryan Kilgallin

Sat Jul 6 05:26:57 UTC 2019

Elena,

I definitely consider you a part of our community. Having helped run an LCA
you should have no doubt of that either.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the CoC.

I think that I, with a lot of the community, have been quite conflicted
about Bryan's behaviour for a long time now.

I want to be as inclusive as possible, but I had been staying away from
CLUG talks partly to avoid him.

What the most recent situation has shown though is that Bryan is beyond our
ability to cope with. If there was any sign that he was willing and able to
change his behaviour it might be different, but absent that he needs
support that we can't give him. Not because we don't want to, but because
we are not equipped to.

I hope that we will find that support through another avenue, but at this
point I think moderation of his emails is well justified, and if he proves
unable to comply with the CoC (assuming it is accepted) further action
would be justified.

Having a code of conduct in place will hopefully make any future conflicts
easier to resolve and less painful. With luck it may make it easier for
people who are not comfortable coming to CLUG meetings to feel more welcome.

Finally, if you're going to try and poach our speakers, I think you should
reciprocate :-p I'm sure that a lot of the python talks at your events
would be of interest to CLUG as well.

I certainly learnt some things at the DASK talk. Some cross pollination
would be good.

Cheers,
Neill

On Sat., 6 Jul. 2019, 14:20 Elena Williams via linux, <linux at lists.samba.org>
wrote:

> Believe it or not I actually actively lurk on this list and have been
> keenly following this situation but have been conscientiously holding off
> weighing in as I'm not an active member of CLUG community (partially
> because of some if its quirks), but I had a nice chat with Neill about the
> situation at CPUG and after Alastair's discussion here want to wade in.
>
> I want to add my experience from a stint on the CoC committe at the
> international level in the python community (from back a few years ago,
> before I had a family): we had a phase at that time where it was the
> first/second sort of wave of needing to evict embedded people from our
> community who were known to be problematic. I can only imagine how some of
> the (well known) people I was on the committees with would have responded
> if some of the Bryan's behaviour descibed/displayed were in front of them
> -- I think they would have been very motivated to act. All of what I saw
> was less clearly problematic than the behaviour described in this
> situation.
>
> These are all volunteer communities -- the social economics are
> straightforward: if high quality possible participants/members of the
> community are turning away/leaving/avoiding because of *one person's
> behaviour*, then that person is given 3 warnings to change their behaviour
> to community standard and if there are continued complaints then they're
> banned (what this means is another story).
>
> At least 2 high-contributing, high-profile members of that community were
> necessarily evicted after a lengthy process as they refused to acknowledge
> their behaviour was outside of expectations and refused to change (there
> was invariably kicking-and-screaming-and-very-very-long-ranty-emails/posts
> also).
>
> What is occurring for CLUG here seems completely in line with modern CoC
> enforcement, though a difference is that we had some (albeit imperfect)
> mechanisms defined.
>
> Further: if some outspoken members of the community are saying-out-loud
> that they're deterred that means many multiples more are just quietly
> evaporating from the community (and people like me are canaries for this).
>
> It's the same reason why most top tier employers no longer hire people with
> destructive social attitudes, despite any special (usually technical)
> talents they might have: the damage outweighs the contribution. Even more
> so for tenuously-held-together volunteer communities. Boundaries need to be
> set for the greater good. The vast majority of people are deeply reassured
> by having social boundaries defined.
>
> For disclosure: personally I'd love to attend CLUG but, a) I'm merely a
> 'low" power user, while I've been pretty exclusive to linux for
> boxes-I-do-work on for more decades than most people would think, I don't
> give anything back and b) I'm chicken. As I was telling Neill the
> "sore-thumb" factor for me still an ongoing matter that I wish I were a big
> enough person to be entirely past, but even at this age/stage I'm not.
>
> FWIW CPUG which I believe technically *is* a spin-off from CLUG is ticking
> along, we've just got a good organising team together in the last couple of
> months and figured out space at ANU (thanks again to Alastair for the last
> talk in the old space, and I'm confident I owe you pizza).
>
> We had 30 people come along to CPUG last week and a nice meaty talk and
> demo on NCI of the cool distributed computing tool Dask. IT WAS (much
> acronyms) VERY TECHNICAL. hint hint. Lovely vibe overall.
>
> Also Michael, I heard python, you could discuss with our people over at
> CPUG also? I'm an Aussie Broadband customer and have had curiosities about
> their network (definitely had a low-key poke myself, nothing in your league
> though). Suffice to say sounds like interesting matter. If you could be in
> some way tempted to come and discuss this over at CPUG we could make
> arrangements ...
>
> Sorry for interjecting, but I do (at a distance) deep down care about CLUG,
> and wanted to add a small vote of confidence from an outlying wing of what
> I guess is still considered the community.
> ---
> Elena Williams
> Github: elena <http://github.com/elena/>
>
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2019 at 14:45, Alastair D'Silva via linux <
> linux at lists.samba.org> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 2019-07-04 at 02:34 +0000, James A Sparks via linux wrote:
> > > All,
> > >
> > >   I have lurked on the CLUG list for many years and have contributed
> > > only a few times.  I live in the USA and I have never attended a CLUG
> > > meeting. I feel the need to contribute here.
> > >   I do not know Bryan and I have tried to read some offending posts,
> > > but I have missed the worst of the current problem.
> > >
> >
> > Let's make it clear, the latest incident is that de posted defamatory
> > statements about one of our volunteer speakers on his personal site,
> > and then posted a link to that to this list.
> >
> > He has since altered that content.
> >
> > He has outright refused to apologise, even after prompting from people
> > who help run the community.
> >
> > On an ongoing basis, he responds poorly to mailing lists, with the urge
> > to respond to pretty much every mail as if it was a personal message to
> > himelf, primarily with random, offtopic statements that don't make
> > sense in the context of the thread.
> >
> > >  I have worked in the Developmentally Disabled community, including
> > > with people on the Autism Spectrum, as an IT worker but I am not
> > > formally trained in DD. I have some hands on experiense working with
> > > some difficult residents of this community.  It takes much patience
> > > and understanding. The most disruptive residents were not always
> > > disruptive and they made great contributions. Sometimes they needed
> > > time-out or moderation. I struggle to express myself with respectfull
> > > language, but some people live in another world where rules that we
> > > comonly understand do not make sense to people in the DD community.
> > >
> >
> > Bryan needs specialist care, and as an informal community, we are not
> > trained, equipped, or desire to cater to his demands.
> >
> > He has previously stated that he joins these communities on
> > recommendation from his therapist for social contact, but he has not
> > been coached (or is unwilling to take on board) how to participate in
> > these communities.
> >
> > I used to help run the local hackerspace (which was a spin-off from
> > CLUG), where he first appeared and spent a couple of years terrorising
> > the community. We saw the same problem, people were unwilling to
> > participate in the community due to his abrasive personality and
> > expectation that everyone must bend to his will. The committee of this
> > group (who were all volunteers) spent hundreds of hours dealing with
> > him, to the point of seeing mediators. We tried to reach out and
> > accommodate, but his unwillingness to treat others which the same
> > respect (to the point of personally attacking my wife, who up until
> > that point was his biggest champion and tried to accommodate as much as
> > possible) won him no allies.
> >
> > It came to head when he decided it was a good idea to bring a gun into
> > the space. Now, I'm sure that in the US, you would think "so what?",
> > but here in Australia, bringing a gun out into the open is a really,
> > really big thing.
> >
> > He was then banned from the hackerspace and any further efforts to help
> > him integrate stopped.
> >
> > >  I have found the CLUG community to be compassionate and
> > > understanding, and putting up with a disrupter needs increased
> > > compassion and understanding. E-mail moderation is not a bad thing in
> > > extreme cases of abuse. I have seen nothing that suggests a total ban
> > > of any distrupter. That would be my fear.
> > >
> >
> > Given that he:
> > a. will not accept responsibility for his actions
> > b. will not apologise for his actions
> > c. contintually disrupts presentations & email threads
> > d. has not learnt from the many, many similar incidents in the past,
> > even when things have been spelt out very explicitly for him
> >
> > Can you explain why we should continue to subject the community to his
> > abuse?
> >
> > >  I hope I am not misunderstanding this discussion and that I am able
> > > to contribute to other people's understanding.
> > >
> >
> > I think you are, you need a lot more context than what you have
> > gleaned.
> >
> > --
> > Alastair D'Silva           mob: 0423 762 819
> > skype: alastair_dsilva
> > Twitter: @EvilDeece
> > blog: http://alastair.d-silva.org
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > linux mailing list
> > linux at lists.samba.org
> > https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux
> >
> --
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