Filing under comrel as this is certainly a community issue albeit not quite a ComRel issue. Please reassign however is seen fit. I'd like #gentoo-chat to be made into an official Gentoo channel as part of Gentoo's presence on libera.chat. It effectively already is in some ways - it's generally the recommended place for offtopic chat in #gentoo. I think it would also be useful for CoC to be officially enforced there. Yesterday, a user was banned after disagreeing with an operator: 2022-10-15 22:25:17 +MetaNova extratail: EST changes from -5 to -4 on 2022.11.06 2022-10-15 22:25:39 extratail MetaNova, EDT is currently not UTC-05, it's UTC-04. 2022-10-15 22:25:40 +MetaNova are you _trying_ to be an idiot? 2022-10-15 22:26:07 xxc3nsoredxx no, that's ET that changes. EDT is always UTC -4, EST is UTC -5 2022-10-15 22:26:39 +MetaNova extratail: seriously, are you drunk? 2022-10-15 22:26:43 hololeap let's get angry over: timezones 2022-10-15 22:27:08 +MetaNova extratail: are you trolling? or are you actually this stupid 2022-10-15 22:27:52 +MetaNova actually, I don't care about the answer 2022-10-15 22:28:22 -- Mode #gentoo-chat [+o MetaNova] by ChanServ 2022-10-15 22:28:22 -- Mode #gentoo-chat [+b-o *!*@[redacted] MetaNova] by MetaNova 2022-10-15 22:28:24 <-- gen42 has kicked extratail (Please read the #gentoo-chat channel policy at https://memleek.org/gentoo-chat.txt) [...] 2022-10-15 22:29:58 +MetaNova when you become confrontational for an idiotic reason, intoxicated or otherwise, well 2022-10-15 22:30:10 +MetaNova you should expect the results that come 2022-10-15 22:30:23 hololeap MetaNova: I'm looking at the logs and you were the only confrontational one 2022-10-15 22:30:35 `] Risking my IRC life, I will note that... hololeap is right imo 2022-10-15 22:30:36 +MetaNova hololeap: you are incorrect 2022-10-15 22:30:38 rrogalski hmmmm yeahs I saw 0 reason to kick them 2022-10-15 22:31:08 +MetaNova you can take specific complaints to #gentoo-chat-ops if you wish Bans must be appealed in #gentoo-chat-ops, and even then chanops shouldn't undo others' bans according to the above link: 7. Ops don't unban other ops bans unless bans are past their expiry date/time. After considerable appeal from me and other users, eventually the user was unbanned and the operator apologized. However, I don't think a feature of an effective appeal process includes appealing *only* to the person who brought the ban in the first place. Thus, I think it would be useful to resort to the relatively normal conflict resolution process in Gentoo here - appealing to the parent project as a whole and eventually appealing to ComRel if necessary. There's no reason for #gentoo-chat to be unique among Gentoo IRC channels here. I'm not sure how best to handle this organizationally, but I see two obvious potential solutions - make #gentoo-chat managed by the Ops project, or create a new project to handle it. Either way, the problem of grandfathering in existing operators to the project is already solved by the Ops project, ops who are not also developers are just listed in a different place on the page.
I'm pretty sure all #gentoo* channels go under our namespace and is covered by our CoC. We don't govern the community channels, e.g. ##gentoo-chat-exile or whatever. But I imagine the point here is that #gentoo-chat "obeys" by https://memleek.org/gentoo-chat.txt this policy. Let's remember that #gentoo-chat was originally created in 2005 - I'm not personally aware how functional comrel was back then. I have no reason to believe this gentoo-chat.txt policy has been updated recently, other than the libera note being added. So yeah, it'd make sense to enforce CoC there. But realistically comrel can't "monitor" all of our irc channels so in that sense I really like gentoo-ops being around in IRC handling most of this stuff.
I'm not sure how making #gentoo-chat an "official" channel would have affected this incident. Even in #gentoo, it is standard practice for the operator who set a mode to be responsible for it, and users enquiring or appealing it will be directed to that operator. If other ops have an issue with an action taken, we will discuss it internally. That seems to be what happened here. It seems to me that the issue here is more to do with the #gentoo-chat channel policy[1], which notes explicitly: > 7. Ops don't unban other ops bans unless bans are past their expiry > date/time. This would need to be addressed within the #gentoo-chat Operators team to update the policy. That being said, the current policy also notes: > As this channel is under the Gentoo Chan mask its an 'Official Gentoo > Channel', we are required to follow not only their rules, but the specific > rules of #Gentoo-Chat. and > 5. Trolling in -chat is allowed, but you better have talent or your poor > attempt will be rewarded with channel removal. > We are a Gentoo related chan and follow the CoC - best read the Gentoo CoC > too. This would imply the appeal process described in the Code of Conduct would also apply to the channel. Similarly, as you noted, #gentoo-chat is within the #gentoo* channel namespace on Libera, and as such the Group Contacts project has final authority on the channel via network staff. I'm really not sure how making #gentoo-chat an official channel would change anything. It has an appeals process, even if it could be better explained in the policy, and it is already under the technical authority of an official Gentoo project (GCs). Making it an official channel may also alienate any users there who value the "unofficial" nature of it. [1] https://memleek.org/gentoo-chat.txt
It would've gone exactly the same, no matter the channel status. Perhaps we should make it explicit that you can appeal to any op, and if said op agrees, they will (help you) make your case. This is pretty much what happened here, MetaNova has gone a bit trigger-happy with the ban but was immediately checked by the other ops and users. (In reply to Sam Jorna (wraeth) from comment #2) > I'm not sure how making #gentoo-chat an "official" channel would have > affected this incident. > > Even in #gentoo, it is standard practice for the operator who set a mode to > be responsible for it, and users enquiring or appealing it will be directed > to that operator. If other ops have an issue with an action taken, we will > discuss it internally. > > That seems to be what happened here. Exactly. I think we should look into discussing cleaning up the rules a wee bit, remove superfluous language and make sure it doesn't contradict the Gentoo CoC. We should also think about writing up some sort of internal guidelines for the channel staff to follow. That would help in situations like this. But I don't see what problem exactly would be solved by turning #gentoo-chat into an 'official' channel. Its current community-run status is cherished by many users and ops alike and that helps its purpose as an off-topic channel for Gentoo users.
Well, in a way it already is an 'official' channel because it's in the gentoo name space. I'm not 100% sure that this summarizes correctly what Ajak wants to achieve. > I think we should look into discussing cleaning up the rules a wee bit, > remove superfluous language and make sure it doesn't contradict the Gentoo > CoC. That certainly makes sense. > We should also think about writing up some sort of internal guidelines for > the channel staff to follow. That would help in situations like this. That certainly makes sense too. > But I don't see what problem exactly would be solved by turning #gentoo-chat > into an 'official' channel. Its current community-run status is cherished by > many users and ops alike and that helps its purpose as an off-topic channel > for Gentoo users. Again, what would turning it into an 'official' channel even mean here? The only real hard requirement is CoC (which comes with the namespace).
The reason I originally asked about it being an official channel in bug 847658 is to get it included in the "Get involved" channel listing [1]. > Its current community-run status is cherished by many users and ops alike and > that helps its purpose as an off-topic channel for Gentoo users. Is there something that prevents it from being both community-run and official? Say, designating it as "officially community-run" or the like? [1]: https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/irc-channels/all-channels.html
For the record, we're making some progress in tidying up the rules. We've clarified that the global Gentoo CoC applies, softened the language rule, and made some slight fixes to copy. More to follow.
