Reasons for hall monitoring

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 02:51:30AM -0400, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> Forgive me if this goes out twice, I didn't see it show up in the archives
> so I assume I missent it or something the first time.
> 
> Greetings Board,
> 
> The Fedora Hall Monitoring Policy doesn't currently encompass all the
> actions taken by the Hall Monitors.  I think that the policy needs to be
> clarified/added onto in order to encompass their current criteria or the
> hall monitors need to be instructed that hteir current criteria is off base.
> 
> The thread that brought this to my attention has had three mentioned
> reasons for being hall monitored:
> 
> 1) Redundancy of information in the thread
> 2) Increasing number of posts from a single party
> 3) Multiple complaints that people don't want to read the thread anymore
> 
> None of these are mentioned specifically in the Hall Monitor policy
> currently.  There are two general pieces of the policy that I could see
> being the basis of additional Hall Monitoring activity:
> 
> From the Background section which lays out the spirit of the policy:
> 
>   The Fedora Board has adopted a simple motto for general behavior as
>   a member of the Fedora Project. It is simply "Be excellent to each other".
> 
> There doesn't seem to be any lack of courtesy present in the thread yet or
> in the reasons given for hall monitoring the thread so this doesn't seem to
> be the root justification.
> 
> In the Overall Procedures section, there's an entry that says this:
> 
>   Hall monitors are allowed to send 'thread closure' posts to aggressive or
>   problematic mailing list threads to curtail issues before they become
>   serious enough to warrant an official warning.
> 
> The definition of "aggressive and problematic" seems to be that the thread
> seems to be leading to need to issue an official warning to an individual.
> That's outlined here:
> 
>   They [hall monitors] will be subscribed to and monitor the selected
>   mailing lists for instances of posts that are out of line with the "be
>   excellent to each other" motto. This includes, but is not limited to:
>   personal attacks, profanity directed at people or groups, serious threats
>   of violence, or other things seen by the monitor as to be purposefully
>   disrespectful. 
> 
> Which brings us back to the "Be excellent to each other" motto.
> 
> So here's some ideas on how to resolve this:
> 
> 1) Decide that these justifications fall outside of the Board's intention.
> In addition to letting the current hall monitors know, it might be good to
> add a clarification to the policy like:
> 
>   Although we hope the signal to noise ratio of the lists will increase due
>   to this policy, the intent is primarily to keep discussions from veering
>   off into personal attacks and negative comments to one another.  Remember
>   "be excellent to each other" is what it's all about.
> 
> 2) Add increasing signal to noise as an explicit goal of Hall Monitors along
> with some sample criteria.  This should probably be added to both the
> Background and the Overall Procedures sections:
> 
> Insert between second and third paragraphs to the Background section:
> 
>   In addition to needing to have a communication channel that is a positive
>   and supportive environment for people to express themselves we also strive
>   to make our communications efficient so that people can more effectively
>   process the communication that they do receive.  
> 
> Insert between first and second bullets in the Overall Procedures page:
> 
>   * Hall monitors will also look for cases where posts are not adding
>     any new information to a discussion.  This includes but is not limited
>     to:  Restating facts already stated in the current thread, trying to
>     have the last word with another contributor, presenting old arguments as
>     if they were new arguments, presenting old arguments as the basis for
>     refuting a new argument or new idea, debating old issues because new
>     people are in positions to make changes to rectify those issues.
> 
> 3) Add some policy to allow hall monitoring of threads that have too many
> complaints.  I don't see how a sane policy about this really works as it's
> something that just moves who can shout the loudest from the public mailing
> lists to messages to the hall monitors (if done objectively) or introduces
> a lot of bias based on what the hall monitors believe if done subjectively.
> 
> 
> For the record, I would strongly favor option #1 as the others are taking us
> too far into the realm of giving a few people the power to decide what is
> and is not useful communication.

This was a thoughtful post, Toshio, thank you.

I can't speak for the other Board members but I do think there are
senses in which we can be non-excellent to each other without using
insults.  If our mailing lists stay cordial, but their content becomes
increasingly redundant or repetitive, that also can contribute to a
negative environment that pushes people away from communicating with
each other.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
          Where open source multiplies: http://opensource.com