First Impressions Last - Bad moderation and its effect on new users

Gday,

I realise this probably isn’t the usual place for an introduction. But a recent thread here has motivated me to comment, because the author(s) are close friends, who actually started this thread on my advice, and the outcome has bothered me for a number of reasons.

I’m personally more the mailing list type, but I pointed them here because when I’ve browsed though previously I’ve been generally quite impressed: the code of conduct seemed to be taken seriously and didn’t see the sorta snobbery and chest-beating I’ve often dealt with in other places over 20-odd years of Linux/FOSS involvement. I know this sorta culture can entirely ruin someone’s passion for the subject, as it very nearly did with me at one point (hence the pref for mailing lists).

This felt pretty important in this case, because the OP is actually a very bright young lad who’s caught the *nix bug early and is doing some pretty impressive self-directed learning, and in this case unfortunately fell victim to understandable inexperience .

Not being a malware buff myself, and mailing lists not being ideal for a first-timer, I suggested that (with his parents) this would be a good place to post a question (an important skill to learn in its own right) without fear of a judgemental response quashing this passion over an innocent rookie error.

And I’ve gotta say - it’s been profoundly disappointing to have been proven wrong.

To be clear, not saying any babysitting was expected - just some basic empathy and manners, as for anyone. Instead, I’ve watched in dismay as one of your own senior members hijacked the discussion repeatedly, basically using privileges to enforce personal opinions on who does and doesn’t deserve help, and pretty clearly violating your own Code of Conduct in the process.

Specifically, shunting the thread to off-topic and directing language at the OP like “silly”, “click bait” “making wrong accusations” and “panic-making” seems a far cry from “Showing empathy towards other community members”, “Being kind to others” and “Using welcoming and inclusive language”. It seems clearly intended to deliberately isolate and make them feel invalidated, undeserving of help and ashamed for having even asked; which I’d say falls well within “Saying insulting/derogatory comments and making personal attacks”

It did get rightly moved back to “Ask Fedora” after pushback, but despite a direct warning from @py0xc3 and a determination the thread could remain, this individual continued to make several more snide remarks in attempts to push their opinion, or in other words “Repeatedly instigating conflict, and baiting people into arguments”:

When someone inevitably took the bait, rather than both antagonists being isolated, or any attempt at de-escalation or return to the topic at hand, this “Discussion leader” used it as a pretence to get their own shots in, then lock the thread once they had the last word, leaving the poor kid trying to find an actual solution in the lurch.

Setting aside the conduct and language itself, this individuals justification for their behaviour was supposedly because “the topic is not Fedora specific”. But that collapses pretty quick when you look at the precedent of active discussion on malware and other topics not " specific" to Fedora:

Some of those are functionally the same question as the OP, and nobody had a problem with them.

Of particular note is this:

This covers not only a mechanism directly relevant to this case, but also highlights how dubious the notion of calling something distro “specific” even is, when Linux is an ecosystem of overlapping packages and frameworks, and " issues" will almost always have crossover between multiple distros (xzUtils, anyone?).

Given this, it’s unsurprising that pretty much everyone - including other moderators like @ankursinha - was happy to continue the discussion, with Matt Miller even clarifying:

That should been the end of it. Instead, they persisted further with assertions that asking questions at all was “cr*p” and somehow impeding other more important work, ultimately using that as the grounds to get their way by closing the thread entirely.

The mental gymnastics needed to join a productive discussion to complain about it , then closing it because complaining was distracting you from more important things , makes it pretty obvious this isn’t a case made in good faith. It’s clearly a personal gripe being enforced under a pretence.

Moreover, it’s bullying. Which is bad enough on its own, but for it to come from someones using mod privileges to flaunt the rules they’re supposed to uphold? I’ve been in similar roles over my time and if you were caught doing this, you were shown the door, as you were pushed firmly through it. Left unchecked, it tarnishes leadership and then whole community by extension, because it doesn’t just make the place feel unfriendly; it makes it feel unsafe.

But even you accept the argument that this perhaps wasn’t the best place for this topic, I would ask: does any of this response constitute “Focusing on what is best for the community”. Because aside from the unresolved problems, it’s left a budding future contributor with a very distinct impression of what Fedora and its people are like, and I can tell you: it’s not a good one. I’ll leave it at that.

For my part, this whole thing has left me really embarrassed for even pointing them here thinking they’d get a good reception. You can say “it’s just one person”, but we all know the Linux space has struggled for years with a reputation for toxicity, and that only changes if people stand up to the toxic ones. Up till now I’d been persuaded Fedora really was the leader in progressive GNU/Linux, but this has left me reconsidering my stance on a number of things. Goodness knows I wouldn’t want the people in my own family who now use Fedora to get this sort of reception.

Its your forum and you can run it how you like. But for all the talk about how these topics are distracting from the “real work”, I’d like to point out literally all the work in FOSS software is done by the people - and this incident has alienated members of both the current generation and the next. If you can’t see how that affects a projects prospects, you have bigger problems than categorising forums threads.

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Hi there, I will just add a note from the moderators community, that we are taking this incedent seriously and having a discussion about what happened and how we want to handle such situations.

This might take a while, as all democratic processes do, so please be patient so that we can make a good decision :slight_smile:

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+1,

We’ve opened the thread now. Please do encourage the authors to return to the discussion if possible.

The moderation team will continue to discuss it to see how our moderation policies should be improved.

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this site’s awlays had problems with being toxic, it just gets covered up, squawk too much and they just delete your posts and or account like they did with me.

sorry your friends kid had to deal with it but tbh i wouldnt expect anything to change, one of the reasons i dont post here any more. theres seriously only like maybe a dozen active posters here anyway and half of them have these attitude problems

i you like the mailing list vibe tell him to find a private discrd channel, theres heaps more people, way faster responses and less bs.

Wow. Are you aware that you are contributing just that which you are complaining about?

There’s good and bad here on this site, on “the internet”, in the world in general. It’s our choice whether we contribute to and further the good or the bad - here or anywhere else.

In the case at hand, while someone went overboard and moderators are taking care now, there were two unfortunate escalating factors:

  • language/culture barrier: What comes across as harsh to one person in their native language in one culture may not be considered quite that harsh for someone else in their culture, after “translation” (which happens one way or the other when you converse in a language not native to you).
  • unaccompanied exposure: There are very few “safe spaces” on the internet, and this is not one of them, as much as we would like it that way. So, if you tell a minor to “go there” I’d rather have you accompany them.

Note that I’m using “you” as in “they/someone”, not addressing a specific person, and that “accompanying” does not mean helicoptering nor babysitting but “being there” just in case. My impression is that moderators try that already, as much as time and timezones allow. And if someone needs special protection “you” should take of that, too.

Again, things went bad - I’m not playing anything down but pointing out the multitude of contributing factors. Ditching the Fedora community or its subset here for it is not warranted.

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smh, did you even read the op?

and all this ‘oh it was translation’ is rubbish, the dude was clearly well literate in english, arguing back with no issue, and there was no misunderstanding about closing the thread, he just did it because he straight up wanted to. and now all the enablers are out in force maiking exuses.

are you aware that YOU are proving exactly my point ? that place cant even admit how it treats people?

Please stop.

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Hi folks,

This is a formal staff notice.

Please continue to provide feedback—it is most welcome. However, even when providing feedback, please observe the CoC to try and be excellent to others.

We happily accept criticism of work but we do not accept criticism of community members. So, any comments that include personal attacks are in violation of the CoC.

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