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No, an immature drama would have people slinging feces. This is a highly mature drama where the arguments are dry, generic and adhere to a strict code of values

by tinco 5y ago

No, an immature drama would have people slinging feces. This is a highly mature drama where the arguments are dry, generic and adhere to a strict code of values. No fingers were pointed, and the offended party is taking the high road by resigning. It's not often that people behave in a mature fashion, so I fully understand you did not recognise it for what it is.

znpy 5y ago
You call it mature but an outsider would have no idea about what's happening. I have no way of forming an idea whether it's utter bs or if there is something actually going wrong.
- deltaonesix 5y ago
  This is true. Often people form opinions with limited information. We aren't sure what's true or what isn't true so without this information we should not logically even form an opinion. The decision is "mature" if and only if what the moderation team claims to have occurred actually occurred, and we don't know the full details behind this.
- couchand 5y ago
  Perhaps this message was not written for you?
  - gdy 5y ago
    It's written publicly, so by definition it is written for everyone.
    - couchand 5y ago
      It is possible for a message to have an intended audience and still be viewable by others...
      - gdy 5y ago
        "viewable by others" And I'm sure that the authors of the message are aware of that but made the decision to write what they have written anyway.
        danShumway 5y ago
        Yes? This is posted to the Rust Org's issue tracker: that is an appropriate place to post a resignation notice for an open org with heavy community interactions, and it's an appropriate place to inform the Rust community in general about their decision. That it happens to be public outside of those groups is beside the point. Do you often show up on Open Source projects complaining that their public scrum boards or pull requests don't document their entire decision-making process? Do you show up in people's IRC logs demanding that they provide context for everything they say? The mod team isn't asking for public debate, they're informing the org about their resignation and briefly listing out why. They don't need to convince you of anything, they're just telling you what their decision already is. This isn't a persuasive essay, this is a notification. I swear, this kind of "if anything is public, you're now suddenly accountable to me, and I should have full access to everything" attitude is exactly why so few organizations are open about any of their internal processes or decisions. It shows up in a lot of places: Open Source and game development in particular. Sometimes people have public conversations in forums/groups that are still intended for specific recipients. Sometimes people share a small part of a process or decision, and not all of it. Sometimes people muse about decisions openly, and their musings aren't intended to be a formal essay to be picked apart or debated. It's fine.
        gdy 5y ago
        "just telling you what their decision already is" That's not the only thing that they did. As the Russian saying goes, 'if you said A, say B'. I'd have no problem with the message 'We are resigning because we had a conflict with a certain team and it didn't get resolved in our way', but they have said more, just enough to make a public accusation without any chance for the accused party to refute it.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      No, not every public information is written for everyone. Just because arxiv papers are publically available does not mean that a posted string theory paper should be written for you so that you can understand it (or I for that matter).
      - gdy 5y ago
        Are you suggesting that the substance of the accusation is as complex and cannot be explained without years of preparation?
        cycomanic 5y ago
        I'm simply refuting the statement that just because something is public it is aimed at everyone. That statement is clearly wrong.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        gdy 5y ago
        Well, in the context of this discussion I interpret 'written for everyone' as 'author was aware that everyone can read this and still wrote what he wrote'. An author of a paper on string theory published on arxive is aware that everyone can read it and almost no one will understand that except for a few from the intended audience. He or she is fine with that and so does everyone else. The authors of the resignation letter are similarly aware of the publicity, but decided to go ahead with their vague and unsubstantiated accusations and their appeal not to believe if the accused party says anything. They are aware of the effect and are fine with that. Some people are not.
      - znpy 5y ago
        Nice example, arxiv papers (and any decent paper in general) contains an abstract to provide context about the contents of the papers as well as references to other papers cited within. Arxiv papers might not be written for me now, but if I got interested in a paper (and had time to spare, of course) I would probably have most of the content I need to at least grasp the general content of the paper. Thanks for the example, it fits perfectly.
- sp332 5y ago
  This is a message from the moderation team to the Rust community that they've been moderating about the core devs. I would not expect it to be intelligible let alone accessible to "outsiders".
- pyrale 5y ago
  Moderating a community is not meant to entertain outsiders, but to prevent escalation within the community. No offense, but what do you expect to be able to contribute to this situation as an outsider? Would your contribution to the community be improved by additional information?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - abernard1 5y ago
    > No offense, but what do you expect to be able to contribute to this situation as an outsider? Who are the "insiders" here? A couple dozen people? Rust is supposed to cater to their user base, not the dramas of a few people who need attention and something to do with their life.
    - GolDDranks 5y ago
      They say in the post that they are open for Rust team members to discuss this. So the "insiders" would be Rust team members, I think there would be some hundreds of people. (There are multiple Rust teams, not just Core and Moderation.) Together, they also would have considerable power over the Core team, as the teams have some power in a do-o-cracy sense of the word.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    I expect our contributions to the community would be improved by less information. When you're resigning from a position but you don't want to say why, you're supposed to gesture vaguely at personal obligations or career opportunities and leave it at that. "You guys should be mad, but we won't tell you why" makes it impossible for the organization to function. How can the core team lead the project or even appoint new moderators without putting this controversy to rest?
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Exactly, this throws a giant spanner in the works and casts a shadow over whatever comes next. If they wanted to damage Rust in the eyes of the general public they couldn't have done a much more effective job. The lack of maturity on display must be particularly galling to those that give up a substantial chunk of their time to move Rust forward. Dirty laundry is best kept in-house, lest you damage the house.
gdy 5y ago
What exactly is 'mature' about making a vague accusation, refusing to substantiate it and claiming that if the other side says anything it would be a lie?
- tinco 5y ago
  The accusation is not vague and it was substantiated. Just not to you. Not to me either, and I think that's a good thing for now. No doubt whoever steps up to become the next mod team will be fully informed by both sides, and hopefully they can make an objective decision about what should and what should not be public. It is probably none of our business anyway. And it's not a claim that everything they would say would be a lie, it's just a warning. Given the severity of their actions, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that the warning is probably warranted or at least it feels warranted to them.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    An accusation substantiated in secret is not an accusation substantiated. This is a fundamental principle of justice, dating back centuries.
    - tinco 5y ago
      Justice requires due process. This announcement was made two hours ago. Everyone just wants to instant gratification and to know which party is right or wrong so they can feel good about their minds being made up. We are not the jury here, we're just a tool in their power struggle. They're explicitly not asking us to pass judgement, they're just asking for a new jury.
      - gdy 5y ago
        "they're just asking for a new jury" That's not what they did, obviously.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
cxr 5y ago
(Aside: if the moderation team themselves treat pull request messages like a message board fit for announcements and general discussion, how good can they be at moderating? Making sure people stay on topic and post in the appropriate venue is something like a base-level expectation for even mediocre moderators.) > This is a highly mature drama where the arguments are dry, generic and adhere to a strict code of values. No fingers were pointed, and the offended party is taking the high road by resigning. As an outsider, I see Twitter-esque levels of grandstanding in the linked "post"—hardly mature. Based on observing the Rust community from afar over the last few years, this unfortunately is not something that is surprising. (FWIW, I agree with all the comments pointing out that zero-context outsiders should not expect to be brought up to speed from a pull request message alone—anyone arguing the opposite is guilty of the same sort of mindset that I'm chiding here. If this announcement(!) weren't deliberately crafted to give the effect it does, supporters of the resigners might actually have a point. The fact that something that should be as boring as a pull request—no matter how controversial the subject—is being discussed in terms of "high roads" taken by any side, however, really throws that argument into the mud.) Go hole up in a cabin in the woods and decompress by hacking on personal stuff or something and stay away from social media. For some, it has poisoned everything to the point that it has given rise to a new breed of vague status updates that pervade even project infrastructure.
zionic 5y ago
Absolutely nothing about this team’s behavior is mature, or reasoned. This appears to be a big win for the rust community.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Absolutely nothing about this team’s behavior is mature, or reasoned. Absolutely everything about this team’s behavior is mature and reasoned. > This appears to be a big win for the rust community. This appears to show that you have absolutely no idea what this is about.

by tinco 5y ago

znpy 5y ago

You call it mature but an outsider would have no idea about what's happening. I have no way of forming an idea whether it's utter bs or if there is something actually going wrong.

deltaonesix 5y ago
This is true. Often people form opinions with limited information. We aren't sure what's true or what isn't true so without this information we should not logically even form an opinion. The decision is "mature" if and only if what the moderation team claims to have occurred actually occurred, and we don't know the full details behind this.
couchand 5y ago
Perhaps this message was not written for you?
- gdy 5y ago
  It's written publicly, so by definition it is written for everyone.
  - couchand 5y ago
    It is possible for a message to have an intended audience and still be viewable by others...
    - gdy 5y ago
      "viewable by others" And I'm sure that the authors of the message are aware of that but made the decision to write what they have written anyway.
      - danShumway 5y ago
        Yes? This is posted to the Rust Org's issue tracker: that is an appropriate place to post a resignation notice for an open org with heavy community interactions, and it's an appropriate place to inform the Rust community in general about their decision. That it happens to be public outside of those groups is beside the point. Do you often show up on Open Source projects complaining that their public scrum boards or pull requests don't document their entire decision-making process? Do you show up in people's IRC logs demanding that they provide context for everything they say? The mod team isn't asking for public debate, they're informing the org about their resignation and briefly listing out why. They don't need to convince you of anything, they're just telling you what their decision already is. This isn't a persuasive essay, this is a notification. I swear, this kind of "if anything is public, you're now suddenly accountable to me, and I should have full access to everything" attitude is exactly why so few organizations are open about any of their internal processes or decisions. It shows up in a lot of places: Open Source and game development in particular. Sometimes people have public conversations in forums/groups that are still intended for specific recipients. Sometimes people share a small part of a process or decision, and not all of it. Sometimes people muse about decisions openly, and their musings aren't intended to be a formal essay to be picked apart or debated. It's fine.
        gdy 5y ago
        "just telling you what their decision already is" That's not the only thing that they did. As the Russian saying goes, 'if you said A, say B'. I'd have no problem with the message 'We are resigning because we had a conflict with a certain team and it didn't get resolved in our way', but they have said more, just enough to make a public accusation without any chance for the accused party to refute it.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    No, not every public information is written for everyone. Just because arxiv papers are publically available does not mean that a posted string theory paper should be written for you so that you can understand it (or I for that matter).
    - gdy 5y ago
      Are you suggesting that the substance of the accusation is as complex and cannot be explained without years of preparation?
      - cycomanic 5y ago
        I'm simply refuting the statement that just because something is public it is aimed at everyone. That statement is clearly wrong.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        gdy 5y ago
        Well, in the context of this discussion I interpret 'written for everyone' as 'author was aware that everyone can read this and still wrote what he wrote'. An author of a paper on string theory published on arxive is aware that everyone can read it and almost no one will understand that except for a few from the intended audience. He or she is fine with that and so does everyone else. The authors of the resignation letter are similarly aware of the publicity, but decided to go ahead with their vague and unsubstantiated accusations and their appeal not to believe if the accused party says anything. They are aware of the effect and are fine with that. Some people are not.
    - znpy 5y ago
      Nice example, arxiv papers (and any decent paper in general) contains an abstract to provide context about the contents of the papers as well as references to other papers cited within. Arxiv papers might not be written for me now, but if I got interested in a paper (and had time to spare, of course) I would probably have most of the content I need to at least grasp the general content of the paper. Thanks for the example, it fits perfectly.
sp332 5y ago
This is a message from the moderation team to the Rust community that they've been moderating about the core devs. I would not expect it to be intelligible let alone accessible to "outsiders".
pyrale 5y ago
Moderating a community is not meant to entertain outsiders, but to prevent escalation within the community. No offense, but what do you expect to be able to contribute to this situation as an outsider? Would your contribution to the community be improved by additional information?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- abernard1 5y ago
  > No offense, but what do you expect to be able to contribute to this situation as an outsider? Who are the "insiders" here? A couple dozen people? Rust is supposed to cater to their user base, not the dramas of a few people who need attention and something to do with their life.
  - GolDDranks 5y ago
    They say in the post that they are open for Rust team members to discuss this. So the "insiders" would be Rust team members, I think there would be some hundreds of people. (There are multiple Rust teams, not just Core and Moderation.) Together, they also would have considerable power over the Core team, as the teams have some power in a do-o-cracy sense of the word.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  I expect our contributions to the community would be improved by less information. When you're resigning from a position but you don't want to say why, you're supposed to gesture vaguely at personal obligations or career opportunities and leave it at that. "You guys should be mad, but we won't tell you why" makes it impossible for the organization to function. How can the core team lead the project or even appoint new moderators without putting this controversy to rest?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Exactly, this throws a giant spanner in the works and casts a shadow over whatever comes next. If they wanted to damage Rust in the eyes of the general public they couldn't have done a much more effective job. The lack of maturity on display must be particularly galling to those that give up a substantial chunk of their time to move Rust forward. Dirty laundry is best kept in-house, lest you damage the house.

gdy 5y ago

What exactly is 'mature' about making a vague accusation, refusing to substantiate it and claiming that if the other side says anything it would be a lie?

tinco 5y ago
The accusation is not vague and it was substantiated. Just not to you. Not to me either, and I think that's a good thing for now. No doubt whoever steps up to become the next mod team will be fully informed by both sides, and hopefully they can make an objective decision about what should and what should not be public. It is probably none of our business anyway. And it's not a claim that everything they would say would be a lie, it's just a warning. Given the severity of their actions, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that the warning is probably warranted or at least it feels warranted to them.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  An accusation substantiated in secret is not an accusation substantiated. This is a fundamental principle of justice, dating back centuries.
  - tinco 5y ago
    Justice requires due process. This announcement was made two hours ago. Everyone just wants to instant gratification and to know which party is right or wrong so they can feel good about their minds being made up. We are not the jury here, we're just a tool in their power struggle. They're explicitly not asking us to pass judgement, they're just asking for a new jury.
    - gdy 5y ago
      "they're just asking for a new jury" That's not what they did, obviously.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

cxr 5y ago

(Aside: if the moderation team themselves treat pull request messages like a message board fit for announcements and general discussion, how good can they be at moderating? Making sure people stay on topic and post in the appropriate venue is something like a base-level expectation for even mediocre moderators.) > This is a highly mature drama where the arguments are dry, generic and adhere to a strict code of values. No fingers were pointed, and the offended party is taking the high road by resigning. As an outsider, I see Twitter-esque levels of grandstanding in the linked "post"—hardly mature. Based on observing the Rust community from afar over the last few years, this unfortunately is not something that is surprising. (FWIW, I agree with all the comments pointing out that zero-context outsiders should not expect to be brought up to speed from a pull request message alone—anyone arguing the opposite is guilty of the same sort of mindset that I'm chiding here. If this announcement(!) weren't deliberately crafted to give the effect it does, supporters of the resigners might actually have a point. The fact that something that should be as boring as a pull request—no matter how controversial the subject—is being discussed in terms of "high roads" taken by any side, however, really throws that argument into the mud.) Go hole up in a cabin in the woods and decompress by hacking on personal stuff or something and stay away from social media. For some, it has poisoned everything to the point that it has given rise to a new breed of vague status updates that pervade even project infrastructure.

zionic 5y ago

Absolutely nothing about this team’s behavior is mature, or reasoned. This appears to be a big win for the rust community.

CRConrad 5y ago
> Absolutely nothing about this team’s behavior is mature, or reasoned. Absolutely everything about this team’s behavior is mature and reasoned. > This appears to be a big win for the rust community. This appears to show that you have absolutely no idea what this is about.