[RFC 0111] Ensure Officially Hosted Communications are Public #111
Conversation
nrdxp
changed the title
|
I agree with this principle, however, I think read-only rooms are fine. |
|
FWIW, the Matrix rooms under |
That's the idea here yes. I would never dream to demand any such room be closed or destroyed. Just that they be opened or moved. |
Anecdotally, I know of a restaurant at the side of a church. Only beleivers can enter the church. After the mess, some of them come out of the church and and they are hungry. But they wouldn't go to the restaurant, because it's owned by non-beleivers. They wouldn't talk to other neighbours, because they are non-beleivers. This observation (based on reality here in my city) is an extreme result of in-group thinking. We aren't all equal humans any more. |
|
What is besaid room about? I can imagine cases where the room being private makes sense, for example for moderation purposes. Some security discussions should probably be private too. But to be fair, I'd prefer if there was a distinction between "hidden" and "invite-only". Having an invite-only but visible room is part of the "knock on rooms" Matrix feature and still in development. |
|
I'd suggest that this RFC needs to clarify around private group messaging as opposed to channels. For example, Discourse and Matrix both support creating ad-hoc direct messages among any number of participants. (I'm not too sure about the technical aspects of how this is hosted on Matrix, but on Discourse we are definitely hosting it.) It isn't clear to me whether this RFC aims to ban or allow these communications. Also, on Discourse, there is a private (default) "Staff" category, which we barely use, but it does exist. I mostly use it to test features of Discourse without bugging everyone. There is also a special (default) "Lounge" category, that is reserved for people who have achieved Trust Level 3. There have been no posts in this category to date. If this RFC is to be accepted, we need to research into whether the Staff and Lounge categories can be completely removed from Discourse. Edit: I forgot to mention that it isn't trivial to have the equivalent of a testing category on a separate Discourse host, because it would be somewhat laborious to keep the settings in sync between that host and our discourse.nixos.org, |
Excellent point, I'll throw some edits in to clarify this situation. Perhaps "hosted" is the wrong term here in that sense. Maybe public facing? It seems jarring and awkward to have an almost entirely open community, and then, oops here's some private group that I can see, but have no way of interacting with. The very concept of "invite only" doesn't seem to jive well with "open and transparent". I think this ties into @piegamesde's point about allowing potentially hidden rooms. Which is understandable in some contexts, and maybe even necessary, but also can incur an unseen social cost. For example, I really highly value open and transparent processes and projects. It's one of the major reasons I chose my current employer, and it is one of the major reasons I love the Nix community. If that ever changed in any serious way, I'd have to seriously reevaluate the amount of time and attention I give to it. I may not be the only one who feels this way, and so thought this would be easier to address now, as the idea of a private channel is really just emerging for the first time, rather than later once it becomes a well established precedent. If we decide in the end that we want private rooms, then fine, but to avoid any ambiguity and animosity that may arise on either side, I think it benefits all parties to have a clear and concise policy we can point to and say, "here is the reason, and this is what the community decided collectively". I think that is a much easier pill to swallow than, "this is what is because of a unilateral decision from some undisclosed party". In any case, I didn't think that having such a long record of transparency should be suddendly and abruptly broken without at least a fair minded discussion, which is the ultimate reason I decided to RFC rather than just comment elsewhere. |
|
I'd like to add, that protected spaces have value. Even for an open community. For example protected spaces can initially provide the trust foundations upon which a seedling can grow up into the open. DevOS is a good example where a private group had things kicked off and was then opened up while all private intercomm was completely abandoned after the refcount of interested parties surpassed ~5 people. Here the initial privat chat, started as a DM, with more parties being invited. But after a short while a public room was instantiated and officialized. |
|
👎
One of the aspects about hidden and private rooms is you don't always know about them. There have been private rooms on IRC for as long as I've been part of the project at least. The topic and focus has ranged from:
among other things. Some of these rooms could perhaps be public. A lot of topics discussed in these rooms are very sensitive and can't be made public. Many of these were registered in the I suspect this RFC has to do with a public room to ask for an invitation to a room for Gender Minorities, since I think the other private rooms aren't advertised. This invitation room was also advertised on the from back when we were on IRC: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Get_In_Touch. Overall I think private rooms without public logs can breed bad things. However, I also think it is useful, valuable, and good to offer underrepresented members of our community a space to govern as they see fit. I keep in contact with participants of it and have faith that they're maintaining a healthy and positive environment. It is my opinion that if the outcome here is to say "it can't be in I think the feeling of transparency is there because so much of the project is very transparent, even the warts and dysfunctionality. I don't think a few, choice private rooms changes that meaningfully. I also think if "no private rooms" is the rule of the land we push private discussions further into dark shadows and make it harder to collaborate positively when privacy is needed. |
|
@grahamc I appreciate your votum. However, it doesn't really acknowledge the mere conflict of values that this RFC is addressing with disposition to rule in favor of transparency. If the need for privacy can be clearly and abstractly argumented, and I personally beleive, it can, then a good outcome of the discussion would be to gauge an aproximate threshold as a guiding principle for those trade-off decisions. While this RFC might have been triggered by some specifics, its formulation tries to level in on the question of abstract norms on value trade-offs. We should keep it essentially fundamental and abstract. |
|
Sure. I'm not -1 on an RFC on the side of transparency. And, I'm -1 on this RFC as-written due to its current "motivation" and "detailed design" sections. |
|
@grahamc In your opinion, would you have a formulation that can in very rough terms re-ify said threshold into words? You have indeed a lot of experienece, and hence might find it a bit easier to come up with a tentative formulation. I think it's a good thing to have this discussion early/now, as the RFC arguments. EDIT: I'd have had a formula in mind like: "private is ok if less than 5 persons, else publication should be seriously considered" + "all advertised channels ought to be public". Let's think of the inacceptable message an advertised "exclusive" channel sends out. |
That's a very convenient framing, especially in the context of your proposed formula, the combined effect of which would be to kick a single channel out of the space. It would undoubtedly be much easier to win approval for a general statement about striving for transparency, than it would be to convince people that a commitment to transparency means that the a channel for members of gender minorities to privately discuss issues specific to (them|our)selves in relation to the Nix community isn't allowed to advertise in larger community spaces, so let's be specific about what this proposal would do.
Your "inacceptable" is my vital. There will always be groups of people who need spaces just for themselves, and that's okay, even when I'm not part of those groups and don't need to be in those spaces. It's important for the health of the project that people have spaces where they're comfortable participating, where they wouldn't be comfortable participating to the same extent in the channels that are open to everyone due to wider societal intolerances that we can't change as a project. |
|
Regardless of whether it's supposed to be about gender minorities, as far as I can tell hiding the gender minorities channel is the only effect this RFC would have. If I've missed some other concrete change the rules proposed in this RFC would make, I'm happy to be corrected. Either way, I'm glad to know you don't think it's about the gender minority channel, because then we can hopefully proceed with the RFC in a way that safeguards the gender minorities channel, which many members will be able to attest is a vital community resource that makes them able to be part of the Nix community. |
|
Of course it pertains to that. Abstract policies have concrete effects. It seems to me you are deciding that you would rather ignore them and only imagine the consequences in an ideal world you construct in your head. |
I think this is dishonest itself. I tried asking @nrdxp what channel they learned of but they would not tell me. They did say it is the only room they know of that is "invite only", and visible without being an admin. If it isn't about that channel, I wish they would have clarified. I've preserved some chat logs, here are their hashes: 48895173c384280abc19730fdebb94dcbb8c176f7bd704e93ad0969d9f7556b2 |
|
@grahamc Well, if the spoken (written) word in good faith is worth nothing anymore, I prefer to retire from the discussion. |
|
I don't know what that means, @blaggacao. |
|
@grahamc it seems that good faith is not a principle of this discussion. For me personally, good faith is a minimum safguard guarantee for discussion. Since that's perceivably no common ground, I prefer to retire. EDIT: For the record, I also feel I'm not the only human being in this community with this need for common grounds on good faith. |
|
Regardless of what specific room the author had in mind, I personally do not see an issue with an unimportant non-hidden invite-only room with an alias on nixos.org. Removing it from the space would change absolutely nothing in this case.
I think however, that it would be best if as much discussion, that is relevant to the community, is made public, even if participation isn't permitted. This includes rooms for shepherd discussions for RFCs, and any potential platforms for the community team. These discussions don't need to be confidential.
|
That sounds like a very sensible discussion to have — what do you think about suggesting a new RFC on that topic? It would be quite different from the current contents of this RFC, and starting anew would probably help us move on from the issues that were apparent in this RFC that presumably wouldn't be in your proposal. |
This may very well be true. It is only recently that I've attempted to take a more active stance in the community and so my perceptions of its past may not be strictly true, (though perception may be even more important in this case) since I never meaningfully participated on the IRC. My reasons for doing so may somewhat reveal my strong feelings, as I am much more inclined to use and contribute to a technology like Matrix than I was IRC, and it is no coincidence I am more active there. However, had I noticed any of these private IRCs earlier, I would likely have raised the same argument.
The particular room is in fact irrelevant to this discussion. But since you brought it up, it is not the topic of the room I take exception to, it's the "invite only". The topic could have easily be "Church of NixOS" and I would take exactly the same exception were it too, "invite only". Discuss whatever you want, but if you're going to have the backing of the entire NixOS community, it should be out in the open in my opinion. The specific topic in this case is incidental at best.
Who get's to decide what is to be considered underepresented? And why do only underrepresented individuals benefit from self governance? Neither questions have an obvious answer. With that said, I dislike the implication you are seemingly trying to draw here. I left out mentioning the specific room, because it is irrelevant to the point being discussed. There are wider implications to the specific room which obviously merit discussion but which I truthfully do not feel merit any weight to a decision one way or the other here. For all intents and purposes to this RFC, the room doesn't and shouldn't matter.
And what message would that be? Personally, I would perceive that message to be, "NixOS is a community which values openness and transparency in its communication." It's not as though we forcefully delete the room and all it's contents. There is quite literally no harm done. You also competely ignored the alternative that the users of said room may actually rather go public than move their domain. Why would you assume that they wouldn't do that?
In order to say that, you'd have to make a value judgement about the room and it's activities which I cannot do if the room and it's contents are private. Some discussions have more bearing and effect on community decisions than others, and it should be up to the community to decide what is relevant.
As a show of good faith @grahamc, I'd like to formally request the removal of the DevOS room from the NixOS Matrix. You are not taking my motivation at face value, you are implying an ulterior motive which I do not possess. I am quite radical in my opinions about openness. I am well aware not everyone shares this view, that is the very real and only reason for this RFC. I don't appreciate being assumed to be an actor in "bad faith" when I am bending over backwards here to address your concerns and assume they are coming from a place of "good faith", when I could very easily not do that and just stuff words in your mouth as you have mine. This is the problem with not having these discussions and attempting to silence by force or coercion those that attempt to, which is what I've seen in multiple places now ranging from GitHub issues to other RFCs. This type of behavior creates an attitude of superiority and dismissiveness, which really has no place in a technical community IMHO. Despite my personal feelings on this matter, I've assumed good faith in those instances as well, but that faith will eventually be stretched so thin as to disappear. I know for a fact I am not the only person who is experiencing this, and so if there is any other "motivation" here, it is an attempt to put a stop to this bullshit back and forth and address these concerns like the respectable adults I know we all are. That is going to require, however, that we don't assume bad intentions before the conversation has even really began. I have faith that if you try and consider my viewpoint, that you can either be pursuaded or at the very least we can reach and educated and well informed decision that all parties can walk away from feeling respected and heard, even if one of us doesn't get what we want. I would appreciate it if you would assume the same.
The emotional language here just isn't necessary. You can say a community is being "kicked", and if we were condemning them for their viewpoint, or targeting them in particular, then I would agree with you. However neither is the case. My radical views on openness are coupled with some fairly radical views on freedom, and I would never dream of suggesting such a thing. I wrote this RFC in good faith, knowing full well that "somebody" would make this assumption. In fact, you could even say I used that understanding as an opportunity to attempt to kill two birds with one stone. We need to get past this damn silliness that has occurred in multiple places already and just decide if a particular policy is good for the community or not. If we do not address this somewhere, at some time, it will just keep happening. I just decided that I care enough about this particular topic (i.e. open communication) to attempt to resolve this now once and for all. This discussion really is just to decide if private rooms are good for the image that NixOS is giving out to the wider community. If the members of any particular room truly believe in and wish to be a part of the NixOS community, I see no reason why they wouldn't accept a decision here in either direction. When I see a private room I immediately wonder, why is it private? Does it really need to be private? What is being discussed there that the participants feel is necessary to be private? This is something that can lead to a lack of trust in the community and its leadership which I am trying to remedy right here and now if we are willing to do that. In my own experience I have found that adults typically can respect and accept a decision if it is made in the open where all opinions have been considered and analyzed. If you want your damn private rooms that badly, then have them. But you, like everybody else in this community, should be able to put forth a compelling argument for their existence which justifies the damage they can cause to the image of an otherwise extremely open community. Is it really worth that cost, when the damn thing can just exist somewhere else? That is the only question being asked here. If I have to wade through a mountain of garbage to get there, then so be it. What I do not like, and can not respect is an attitude of "this is what is, don't ask questions or you are an enemy of the community." Let us instead show the naysayers and scoffers of recent squabbles that we can, in fact, have a civil discussion from widely variable viewpoints in this community shall we? If you don't like something I've said, or assume it's coming from a place of mallice, I implore you to reconsider. |
|
Private groups and communications are not a choice, but rather a reality that you have to accept. If you ban private channels, then discussion would just move to direct messages, group direct messages or other platforms. If the stated goal is to promote more openness and transparency in Nix-related discussions, banning private channels won't accomplish that goal. Let's also be clear that this proposal is specifically directed at the Nix Gender Minorities channel (the Motivation section essentially admits this). This channel does not serve any official purpose within the community's decision-making or governance process so the community has no compelling interest to justify intruding on the channel's privacy. In contrast, I would support making the RFC shepherd discussion process public, because there is a compelling public interest to justify auditing that discussion |
Sure, and so do policies and restrictions. Nobody is saying that such a room should be banned, and I would appreciate it if everyone could stop trying to drag the discussion in that direction. Private rooms, exist. So do rules, and so do opinions. Where do they intersect in this community? |
|
We shall! Such discussion will feel like a safe and enjoyable place. |
Sure, I've taken care of that. |
|
Yes, I would also like to add that I do not wish anybody to feel unsafe or unwelcome in my presence. If you are doubtful of this, just try me. Let's have a meeting or a quick chat, by all means! The last thing I want is for an entire group of people to feel they have no choice but to segregate because of an unwelcome community. If this is what's happening, then I would be the first to come to your defense.
It, emphatically, is not. But maybe I'm the only one with enough courage to address what is actually happening here. I say that, because I've already seen one too many times people hold their toungues when they had something to say, and it wasn't anybody from the GM channel. I don't want segragation in this community at any cost personally, I would rather address whatever it is that causes you to feel as though you have to segrate in the first place. But again, that is a broader issue. Can we just focus on the question at hand first?
Is that really all you took out of my reply? When do I get to assume bad faith on the other actors involved here? This isn't the first time this has devolved into such a discussion, at what point am I to assume that the conversation derailing is the intention? I really don't want to have to do that. |
|
People are entitled to privacy and do not need to justify why. Quite the opposite: requests to intrude into people's privacy are what should require justification and a compelling interest. Regardless of whether your intentions are good or bad, you still haven't met the requisite bar to justify a blanket intrusion into every channel's privacy. Curiosity or suspicion is not a sufficient compelling public interest |
I'm calling out an instance of attempted unfaithful manipulation here since you can clearly read in the clarifying comments that this is not (intended to be) about gender minorities, regardless of how much said community seemingly attempts to reframe this discussion unfaithfully. Your attempted argument is far-reaching and ad-personam (hence undue). Translating your argument, it reads:
|
Absolutely agree. But that is merely a strawman. Intruding in people's privacy is sometimes consider a relevant activity when what's at stake has wider implications. Not everybody agrees with it, but I happen to think that the openness of this community is worth protecting, as without it we lose basically everything.
Sometimes it is, if what's at stake is important enough. You are also ignoring two very important facts here.
|
edolstra
changed the title
|
I'm closing for now. I was planning on taking the week and then redraft a bit, but #114 is basically what I was planning on. In any case, this has gotten completely out of hand, and my intention completely misinterpreted to the point now that I feel it necessary to write a blog post about how I came to this conclusion after nearly 2 1/2 years of thinking about what the biggest blockers in Nix adoption are. But the tl;dr is essentially that I realized that the major blockers aren't technical at all (I have 3 or 4 technically focused draft RFCs I've been toying with for a while) but social. This was to be the first in a series of possible policy driven RFCs as I see openness as a basic foundation we should all have been able to rally around. I think everyone would agree that a solid foundation is necessary to establish before working out the finer details. That said, I find the political affiliation drama more than concerning, but instead of continuing a somewhat pointless battle and leaving this here to cause further derision, I will quietly exit the field for the time being. Those who are interested in my further comments can watch out for my blog post. |
Rendered