It’s been a busy few weeks for the moderators here:
Many of those flags were on Karl’s recent posts where he was directly attacking the @moderators and the PSF as a whole. The moderators needed to respond but wanted to ensure this case will be decided by a wider consensus. Therefore, we reached out to the Code of Conduct Working Group for a recommendation.
The COC WG currently consists of 12 members with 50% identifying as women. The members represent various ethnic, cultural, economical, and religious backgrounds. This provides the working group with excellent representation of differing viewpoints.
The COC WG responded with the following recommendation that we implemented:
The COC WG recommends the indefinite suspension of Karl Knechtel on Discourse due to a pattern of disruptive behavior. In particular, Karl claims moderation actions taken against him were unfair and unwarranted, and says they were an example of reverse racism, a concept with little to no empirical evidence.
The user showed repeated violations of the following behaviors expected by the Code of Conduct:
- Acknowledging time and effort, in particular violated by attacks on the forum staff, the COC WG, and the PSF in general;
- Gracefully accepting constructive criticism, in particular violated through explicit voicing of lack of trust against moderator actions like his posts getting hidden;
- Showing empathy towards other community members, violating which has been a pattern with this user.
(For full disclosure, Brett Cannon and I are both moderators here and members of the COC WG, but we don’t personally know Karl and haven’t worked with him.)
If you have any questions, please reach out directly to @moderators.