The Missing Stair
I’d like to return to the topic’s original post to address this thing in particular. Working around another person’s problematic behavior and having to teach newcomers to the group to do the same is a known psychological antipattern.
Often the reason cited for excusing such behavior is that said person’s work is world-class. Or that “I had no problems personally therefore this is no problem”. Or that the bad behavior isn’t so bad. I personally don’t find those excuses hold water but my personal feelings on the matter aren’t important.
What is important though is that in our small tribe of release managers Stefan is a known missing stair. I was warned about his behavior by other release managers and personally experienced his disregard towards our self-imposed limitations of what is allowed when in the release process. While I never had any issue with Stefan as a person, and I do agree his contributions were stellar, I did take issue with some of his actions and language used as they were simply demoralizing to the rest of us. They made me feel like rules apply to us regular folk but not to World-class Contributors.
Enforcement vs. shaming
The Steering Committee tried hard not to make the temporary suspension of Stefan’s commit rights about shaming him. They made their work harder for themselves by trying to conceal his identity and focusing on the fact that there was some enforcement that took place.
I personally feel better about knowing that we do enforce our CoC rules, otherwise they’re pointless. Again, this enforcement is not about rejecting a person, they are about rejecting inappropriate behavior.
What now?
The amount of discussion here as well as under Carol’s and Raymond’s nomination posts demonstrates that some members of our community would like the CoC enforcement to go away, maybe even the entire concept of CoC to go away. Pardon the banned, tell the offended to toughen up, return to the old ways.
I would personally hate to see that happen.