An update regarding communication on this list

[Chris Lamb]

Dear all,

Thank you for your patience, understanding and support in the past
few days.

We recently placed the rb-general mailing list under close moderation
after a number of community members expressed concerns about the tone
and content of some threads. Since that time, no new messages have
been permitted on the list.

However, we've also been using this time to reach out to other members
of the community and have been listening to their feedback to ensure
we understood all perspectives involved.

We still fully intend to formalise a Code of Conduct for our mailing
list and other communication channels. However, we do not wish to
continue blocking all discussions pending this announcement.

--> We are therefore moving the rb-general mailing to a "rolling"
moderation model and appraising individual posts as they come in. <--

Because of this, may notice a slight delay in your messages before
they are distributed to others, as well as a small influx of messages
as we process the slight backlog. We will also be holding back
messages and threads that, to the best of our belief, are not up to
the standards we should be setting for our community or may be
unproductive during this particular time.

As before, if you have any questions or have input on what you
consider to be exemplary policies, practices and norms for
communities such as ours, please email rb-core at lists.reproducible-builds.org.

Although we are making this change today, we want to reinforce that
a formal CoC is incoming and that list participants should treat
other members of the community with respect and always help foster a
welcoming environment for all.


Thanks,

— Chris, Holger, Mattia, Vagrant and Gunner



Chris Lamb wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Thank you to those of you who have reached out to us with concerns
> regarding the tone and content of posts on this list in recent weeks.
>
> We realise and appreciate that the sometimes-confrontational
> interactions on the list have really not been what we expect or
> desire from our community. As maintainers of this list and community,
> we apologise for any role we have played in failing to de-escalate
> disagreements on various threads.
>
> The growth of both Reproducible Builds practices and the associated
> community places us at an important juncture. We want to enable growth
> and diversification of resources like this list without losing the
> positive and collaborative energy that has characterised our online
> communications from the outset of the project.
>
> For our part, we acknowledge some community governance shortcomings
> that we are working to address. While the Reproducible Builds Summits
> have operated under the guidance of the DebConf Code of Conduct [1]
> and the Debian Code of Conduct [2], we have never formally established
> a Code of Conduct for the mailing list or participation in the RB
> Community channels and platforms in general.
>
> We are in the process of addressing those issues, and we encourage
> input from anyone who might want to provide feedback or point us at
> what you consider to be exemplary policies, practices and norms for
> communities such as ours.
>
> In the meantime, we have placed the list under moderation to ensure
> that no further counter-productive exchanges occur. [3] Everyone on
> this list is requested to treat all people with respect and help
> create a welcoming environment.
>
> We are also reaching out to a number of individuals who have
> participated in recent threads or offered feedback in order to make
> sure that we are honoring and understanding the range of perspectives
> represented in our community.
>
> We welcome comment and questions, and are happy to be in dialogue with
> anyone who desires the same.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> — Chris, Holger, Mattia, Vagrant and Gunner
>
>   [1] http://debconf.org/codeofconduct.shtml
>   [2] https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct
>   [3] We had attempted to place the list into moderation on Friday,
>       but a snafu on our part prevented it from working as intended.