Shedding light on a three-month suspension

[tim.one (Tim Peters)]

@grodola

If changes won’t happen it would actually be better for him that the accusations were not redacted, as they would clearly testify that changes are indeed necessary.

From the hundreds of emails I’ve gotten (far more than the total verbiage about this than on Discourse), ya, contrasting the ban announcement with what the 3 (that I know of) blogs commenting on it say, my reputation in reality, among those who look into things for themselves, has only been enhanced.

But I’m not the only one here, and I have concerns about several kinds of damage. I didn’t ask Łukasz for retraction, let alone an apology, just to scrub the list (which he reasonably read as “redaction”). That part isn’t for me. It’s for a different kind of damage, not trying to improve the processes, but to move closer back to the status quo ante. I’m sure I’ve said almost all of this before, but probably never in this precise combination, so forgive the repetition. All of it needs to be said so you know what Łukasz saw:

@TIm to Łukasz 2024-11-04

…
In my case, the CoC WG shot itself in the heart with the list of “violations” the SC echoed. Even ban supporters studiously avoid mentioning them. They don’t recall seeing such odious posts, and can’t find them no matter how hard they look. “Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” is how people think, and that applies not just to my list, but will apply to future CoC actions too. For many more now, the presumption changes from “they’re probably right” to “why should I believe anything they say?”.

Blind trust is at the heart of how the community accepted that group’s actions before, but that just took a huge hit. Parts of my blog demolished some of those claims, but they’re frankly so obviously off target (to anyone who looks into them, on or off Discourse) that they’re not worth more of my time disputing.

So, if I were you, I’d push to scrub that list. It will continue to damage credibility so long as it stays up, necessarily damaging all the good work the group does too.
…

Notes:

• Łukasz didn’t reply, so I just shrugged “OK, ghosted again”. I’m overjoyed to learn that he read it!

• I’m not claiming that Łukas agreed with any of it. I wouldn’t know.

• At the time, I was fed up with “refuting” stuff. I went on to finish the job, over time, largely as writing up entries for my “Ban Q&A” page.

• I don’t hate the CoC, or the CoC WG. They absolutely have important work to do, and I have every reason to believe they do a good job in non-public cases.

  Leaving that list up is bound to keep on damaging trust in them so long as it stays up. I have the personal testimony of so many people, in email, to that effect. Most have little to no presence on Discourse. But they’re part of the Python community too.

• And that’s the basis on which I pitched the idea: not for me, and not for Łukasz, but for the good of the group.

All the same, @grodola is right that scrubbing the list would do nothing to improve the processes, which is my true goal. But that’s not what I was aiming at with that particular message.

Improving the processes is the possibly quixotic quest of @malemburg’s topic.

Or, rather, a successful conclusion to that topic would be a start. @malemburg has a lot of ideas .