I resigned in 2004

[Matthew Wilcox]

I quit Debian development back in 2004. This was a moral decision, based
on the malfeasance of the project secretary over the "Editorial changes"
GR.

For some reason, Debian as a project failed to notice that I had quit,
even though my ***@debian.org email address was deliberately forwarded
to a non-functional email address (in part because of the complete
catastrophe that was the Debian spam filtering system at the time).

Over the last couple of months, the MIA team has been trying to get me to
participate in some inane bureaucracy. I have been ignoring their emails.
Today, they took it to a new level by encouraging everybody who knows
me to pester me to answer my emails from them. This is not acceptable.

Leave me alone. Your project left me long ago. Do not contact me with
regard to Debian bullshit.

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Hi,

Post by Matthew Wilcox
For some reason, Debian as a project failed to notice that I had quit,

Probably because even at that time there were procedures that weren't
followed, and apparently nobody after then bothered to check your status
*and* follow up appropiately to clean it up.

Post by Matthew Wilcox
to a non-functional email address (in part because of the complete
catastrophe that was the Debian spam filtering system at the time).

I don't know what happened back then to your forwarding address (for
however strange your statement looks to me), so I can't quite comment
here.

Post by Matthew Wilcox
Over the last couple of months, the MIA team has been trying to get me to
participate in some inane bureaucracy. I have been ignoring their emails.

I can say that the MIA team didn't try to get you recently. That was
Jonathan McDowell that apparently was in contact with you and -according
to the note he left- started on 2018-08-25 the process¹ to have you
properly retire. Missing the required follow up from your side² I sent
a follow up on 2018-09-30 completely out of curtesy as from my side it
just seemed like you missed the mail but you were interested in cleaning
your position.

Post by Matthew Wilcox
Today, they took it to a new level by encouraging everybody who knows
me to pester me to answer my emails from them. This is not acceptable.

Today, more than two months after Jonathan started the process, I
proceed to follow the "remove" route instead of the "retire" route,

Post by Matthew Wilcox
Leave me alone. Your project left me long ago. Do not contact me with
regard to Debian bullshit.

ACK, we will have DAM remove you instead of retire. I suppose there is
no harm as you don't seem interested in the "benefits" that the
"retired" DDs have over the "removed" ones.
I'm sorry to have bothered you more than necessary.


Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!



¹ https://nm.debian.org/process/539
² which would have consisted in following one link in that mail, and
then click a single other button; really, nothing more

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Fri, Nov 09, 2018 at 09:29:30PM +0100, Mattia Rizzolo wrote:

I would like to start by highlighting one very important line from my

Do not contact me with regard to Debian bullshit.

And yet, you did. Fuck you. Do not contact me again. I shall consider
any further contact (from you or anyone else in regards to this matter)
as harassment, and I shall seek legal counsel.

Your email is full of self-justifications and I have not the slightest
interest in refuting any of them. You are a computer programmer
pretending to be an HR department. You are no good at it. You have
to appreciate that I owe you nothing. You don't pay me. It is not
incumbent on me to do anything for you. Get a professional to review
your procedures, because your procedures are completely inadequate.

Causing people who I consider my friends to harass me to do something
I find incredibly difficult and painful to do is not OK. You've made
them complicit in hurting me. You've dragged up some awful memories
from *fourteen* years ago, when I was betrayed by people who I thought
were my friends.

I don't care that you didn't do it on purpose. You've hurt me. And
you made my friends hurt me. Again.

[Laura Arjona Reina]

Dear Mattia,
Thanks for your work in the Debian MIA team.

For the Debian Anti Harassment team,

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Mattia Rizzolo (2018-11-09 21:29:30)
[a range of fine details snipped]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!

Thank you, Mattia. I found above to be a decent and polite post when I
read it yesterday.

Today after reading that other response I felt the need to share my
impression.


Have a pleasant day,

- Jonas

[Mathias Behrle]

Post by Jonas Smedegaard
Quoting Mattia Rizzolo (2018-11-09 21:29:30)
[a range of fine details snipped]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!

Thank you, Mattia. I found above to be a decent and polite post when I
read it yesterday.
Today after reading that other response I felt the need to share my
impression.
Have a pleasant day,
- Jonas

Dear Mattia,

big thanks to you for your precious work in the MIA team, this conversation is
surely the unpleasant side of your task. Nothing more to add to Jonas' mail,
keep up your good work.

Best,
Mathias

[Ian Campbell]

Post by Jonas Smedegaard
Quoting Mattia Rizzolo (2018-11-09 21:29:30)
[a range of fine details snipped]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!

Thank you, Mattia. I found above to be a decent and polite post when I
read it yesterday.
Today after reading that other response I felt the need to share my
impression.

I couldn't disagree more. I found it (and very nearly replied to this
affect) to be exactly as Willy characterised it ("full of self-
justifications" etc) and can entirely understand why, under the
circumstances, he should have become even more upset having received
it. To respond to the initial mail in that fashion was _incredibly_
tone deaf.

I think the MIA team need to understand that some people who have left
Debian may not want to be involved in any kind of retirement process,
for whatever reason, and to simply honour those wishes (which in this
case were made *very* clear) by just dropping it instead of continuing
to poke at it or try to justify actions up to the point where it
becomes clear they do not wish to be involved.

There is absolutely no value here to Debian having the last word and/or
being "technically in the right in having follow our procedures". The
maximum response which I would consider to have been acceptable would
have been:

ACK, we will have DAM remove you instead of retire. I'm sorry to
have bothered you more than necessary.

Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!

and even then I think it would have been better to simply say nothing
at all, in accordance with Willy's wishes.

Ian.

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Ian Campbell (2018-11-10 12:01:12)

Post by Ian Campbell

Post by Jonas Smedegaard
Quoting Mattia Rizzolo (2018-11-09 21:29:30)
[a range of fine details snipped]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!

Thank you, Mattia. I found above to be a decent and polite post
when I read it yesterday.
Today after reading that other response I felt the need to share my
impression.

I couldn't disagree more. I found it (and very nearly replied to this
affect) to be exactly as Willy characterised it ("full of self-
justifications" etc) and can entirely understand why, under the
circumstances, he should have become even more upset having received
it. To respond to the initial mail in that fashion was _incredibly_
tone deaf.
I think the MIA team need to understand that some people who have left
Debian may not want to be involved in any kind of retirement process,
for whatever reason, and to simply honour those wishes (which in this
case were made *very* clear) by just dropping it instead of continuing
to poke at it or try to justify actions up to the point where it
becomes clear they do not wish to be involved.
There is absolutely no value here to Debian having the last word
and/or being "technically in the right in having follow our
procedures". The maximum response which I would consider to have been
ACK, we will have DAM remove you instead of retire. I'm sorry to
have bothered you more than necessary.
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!
and even then I think it would have been better to simply say nothing
at all, in accordance with Willy's wishes.

Thanks, those a good points, and I appreciate your taking the time to
elaborate on them!


- Jonas

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Post by Ian Campbell
I couldn't disagree more. I found it (and very nearly replied to this
affect) to be exactly as Willy characterised it ("full of self-
justifications" etc) and can entirely understand why, under the
circumstances, he should have become even more upset having received
it. To respond to the initial mail in that fashion was _incredibly_
tone deaf.

Indeed, I was very bothered.
On the other hand, most of my reply to willy's mail was not addressed to
him, but to debian-devel@ at large, to have everybody else understand
how silly what he did was. Replying to my email in d-private@ saying
"aye aye, I really want to go away" wold have been *far* more effecting
(even if process-wise I'd have preferred him click the damn buttons we
sent him) and his case would most likely already been closed.
Instead, he decided to throw such a bothersome mail in debian-devel.

My reply indeed had quite a grumpy tone, and I realized only after
sending it, of course. I need to get into the habit of asking somebody
else to review my emails when they treat such matters.
But at the same time, I consider mine a very polite answer, without any
particularly accusatory wording or anything like that, nor I consider
any of what I wrote worthy of being replied with:
Fuck you. Do not contact me again. I shall consider
any further contact (from you or anyone else in regards to this matter)
as harassment, and I shall seek legal counsel.

All I did was dumping a couple of short facts mostly for the benefits of
everybody else reading the ML, and at the same time letting Matthew know
I received and accepted his wishes. Probably I could have just split
the email in two; I surely didn't know I would upset him so much...

Post by Ian Campbell
Debian may not want to be involved in any kind of retirement process,
for whatever reason, and to simply honour those wishes (which in this
case were made *very* clear) by just dropping it instead of continuing
to poke at it or try to justify actions up to the point where it
becomes clear they do not wish to be involved.

We have been working quite a lot in this direction. All we ask to
people is to let know d-private@ in some way —possibly authenticated—
that they want to go away. I don't think this is too much to ask, and I
will actually keep arguing over and over if anybody else try to argue
against this point.


Also, indeed I'm not an HRM person, but I believe that anybody whose
heavy emotions from events as old as 14 years before are triggered to
the point Matthew Wilcox's were by some simple emails, should seek
professional psychological counseling.

Post by Ian Campbell
There is absolutely no value here to Debian having the last word and/or
being "technically in the right in having follow our procedures".

The value is in to avoid situations (that have happened) were people
came to ***@d.o saying things like "wow I discovered I've been removed
[not necessarily from the project, ISTR even people realizing only years
later that their 1024D key was really removed from the keyring and not
realizing they couldn't do anything anymore] X months/years ago, what
should I do".
I find such occurrences to be scary. We have procedures in places to
try to limit them, procedures that have been communicated to the
projects, and that if you don't know of them the only reason I could
believe of is that you explicitly refused to be ignore.
Exceptions exists, this is not one. He rage quit without anyone of
those in charge 14 years ago realizing, that's his fault for how I see
it. Now we are cleaning up and we asking him what he wanted to do,
there is nothing wrong with this. He choose to ignore our emails, fine.
We went ahead and decided to remove him, he said yes. Cool, nothing
more. I don't think there is anything wrong with what happened, except
the tone of his mails and this annoyingly long email I'm writing.

Post by Ian Campbell
The
maximum response which I would consider to have been acceptable would
ACK, we will have DAM remove you instead of retire. I'm sorry to
have bothered you more than necessary.
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!
and even then I think it would have been better to simply say nothing
at all, in accordance with Willy's wishes.

Erm. Again, if one can't deal with such emails, you should really seek
help and support elsewhere, IMHO.
It was not my choice to have him spammed by his friends, that was his
choice when he decided to ignore the emails he admitted to have ignored;
he could have clicked that button and all he could have seen would have
been a couple of automated emails, saving himself a lot of grief. I
don't feel any "guilt" here, sorry.

[Dominik George]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
But at the same time, I consider mine a very polite answer, without any
particularly accusatory wording or anything like that, nor I consider
Fuck you. Do not contact me again. I shall consider
any further contact (from you or anyone else in regards to this matter)
as harassment, and I shall seek legal counsel.

Exactly what I thought. If you come up with such directly insulting words, you probably are in no position to judge others. This reaction, to some extent, suggests that the person does not understand any other tone than what Mattia used.

I am thus very happy that this DD is leaving immediately - whether you see this as bureaucracy or not, he agreed with rules and processes when he joined, he agreed with the CoC, and he deliberately chose to break quite a number of them.

-nik

[Wouter Verhelst]

Post by Dominik George
I am thus very happy that this DD is leaving immediately - whether you see
this as bureaucracy or not, he agreed with rules and processes when he
joined,

There were *far* fewer of them when he did. In 2000, you didn't need an
advocate, and the NM process was very new, and very much ad hoc still.

Post by Dominik George
he agreed with the CoC,

He did not, the CoC didn't exist yet 14 years ago.

Post by Dominik George
and he deliberately chose to break quite a number of them.

Given the context that he described -- the so-called "editorial changes"
GR, I can quite understand that. That GR was quite upsetting to a large
number of people -- myself included -- and plenty of people chose to
quit the project rather than be a part of a project that allows people
to be deceived in this manner. That was a breach of trust for some
people, and given that, why would you want to care about any of the
procedures anymore?

If you weren't around at the time, I strongly suggest you research that
a bit.

Even so, I do agree with the claim that his mail was overly aggressive,
and that that wasn't really necessary.

[Dominik George]

Post by Wouter Verhelst

Post by Dominik George
he agreed with the CoC,

He did not, the CoC didn't exist yet 14 years ago.

He did, if not before, when he sent his mail to a mailing list
@lists.debian.org.

He might not have realised that, of course.

-nik

[Roberto C. Sánchez]

Post by Dominik George

Post by Wouter Verhelst

Post by Dominik George
he agreed with the CoC,

He did not, the CoC didn't exist yet 14 years ago.

He did, if not before, when he sent his mail to a mailing list
@lists.debian.org.
He might not have realised that, of course.

I don't think that you can claim that the act of sending a mail to a
list @lists.debian.org can constitute an implied agreement to accept and
abide by the code of conduct. That is no different than "by reading
this, you are bound by these terms." No reasonable person would
consider either of those things valid.

Regards,

-Roberto

[Dominik George]

Post by Roberto C. Sánchez
I don't think that you can claim that the act of sending a mail to a
abide by the code of conduct. That is no different than "by reading
this, you are bound by these terms." No reasonable person would
consider either of those things valid.

This is a valid argument - which should be used to change the CoC. Right
now, it does imply that by using a Debian mailing list, you agree to it.

-nik

[Joseph Herlant]

Hi,

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
It was not my choice to have him spammed by his friends, that was his
choice when he decided to ignore the emails he admitted to have ignored;
he could have clicked that button and all he could have seen would have
been a couple of automated emails, saving himself a lot of grief. I
don't feel any "guilt" here, sorry.

Honestly I think you made the right choice to stick to the process and
make sure he wanted to never deal with Debian stuffs anymore.
Sometimes emails get lost in the mass of other emails and you find
yourself in an embarrassing position, just because you didn't see it
so perseverance is good.

Whatever happened 14 years ago have obviously been traumatic to him
and I'm hopping he'll get over it. Such violent reaction makes me
think he could get help to do that. Everybody deserves happiness after
all.

Anyway, keep up the good work! :)

Joseph

[Iustin Pop]

Also, indeed I'm not an HRM person, [
]

And especially because of that, thank you very much for your work.

I don't feel any "guilt" here, sorry.

And neither should you.

thanks,
iustin

[Ben Hutchings]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo

Post by Ian Campbell
I couldn't disagree more. I found it (and very nearly replied to this
affect) to be exactly as Willy characterised it ("full of self-
justifications" etc) and can entirely understand why, under the
circumstances, he should have become even more upset having received
it. To respond to the initial mail in that fashion was _incredibly_
tone deaf.

Indeed, I was very bothered.
On the other hand, most of my reply to willy's mail was not addressed to
how silly what he did was.

[...]

This is the problem. Whether or not it's "silly", that doesn't justify
making a public example of someone.

Ben.

[Russ Allbery]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Indeed, I was very bothered.
On the other hand, most of my reply to willy's mail was not addressed to
"aye aye, I really want to go away" wold have been *far* more effecting
(even if process-wise I'd have preferred him click the damn buttons we
sent him) and his case would most likely already been closed.
Instead, he decided to throw such a bothersome mail in debian-devel.

The general principle that I would advocate for here, though, is that if
someone says clearly and explicitly "never contact me again," we should do
what we can to never contact them again. (We're probably not organized
enough to guarantee we'll succeed in this, but we can make the attempt.)
Pretty much however obnoxiously they make that statement, to me that's
sort of a "magic phrase," and unless there's some legal or emergency
reason why we *absolutely* have to contact them, I'd just stop talking to
them completely and take whatever default actions we would take if we had
never been able to contact them again.

To be clear, I think his reply was unnecessarily nasty, and I greatly
appreciate the work that you're doing. This is not intended as any sort
of dissatisfaction with your work, just a suggestion for if this comes up
again.

[Wouter Verhelst]

Post by Russ Allbery

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Indeed, I was very bothered.
On the other hand, most of my reply to willy's mail was not addressed to
"aye aye, I really want to go away" wold have been *far* more effecting
(even if process-wise I'd have preferred him click the damn buttons we
sent him) and his case would most likely already been closed.
Instead, he decided to throw such a bothersome mail in debian-devel.

The general principle that I would advocate for here, though, is that if
someone says clearly and explicitly "never contact me again," we should do
what we can to never contact them again.

+1. This was a *very* clear message, in that respect, although I
certainly agree that it wasn't necessary to phrase it quite in that way.
A single sentence saying "message received", if at all, would have been
more than enough; the OP clearly wasn't interested in *why* Debian was
contacting him again after fourteen years, and any explanation to that
effect would only be a nuisance to him, anyway.

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Post by Wouter Verhelst

Post by Russ Allbery

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
On the other hand, most of my reply to willy's mail was not addressed to

The general principle that I would advocate for here, though, is that if
someone says clearly and explicitly "never contact me again," we should do
what we can to never contact them again.

+1. This was a *very* clear message, in that respect, although I
certainly agree that it wasn't necessary to phrase it quite in that way.
A single sentence saying "message received", if at all, would have been
more than enough; the OP clearly wasn't interested in *why* Debian was
contacting him again after fourteen years, and any explanation to that
effect would only be a nuisance to him, anyway.

Post by Russ Allbery
To be clear, I think his reply was unnecessarily nasty, and I greatly
appreciate the work that you're doing. This is not intended as any sort
of dissatisfaction with your work, just a suggestion for if this comes up
again.

ACK, yours sounds like a valid suggestion; I'll keep it in mind if
anybody ever tells me "never contact me again".

[Carsten Leonhardt]

Post by Russ Allbery
The general principle that I would advocate for here, though, is that if
someone says clearly and explicitly "never contact me again," we should do
what we can to never contact them again.

If the message would be signed I'd agree, but for a non-signed message
that would open abuse potential. I wouldn't like to find out I've been
retired from Debian because someone faked a message like that in my
name...

[Wouter Verhelst]

Post by Carsten Leonhardt

Post by Russ Allbery
The general principle that I would advocate for here, though, is that if
someone says clearly and explicitly "never contact me again," we should do
what we can to never contact them again.

If the message would be signed I'd agree, but for a non-signed message
that would open abuse potential. I wouldn't like to find out I've been
retired from Debian because someone faked a message like that in my
name...

If that ever ends up happening in practice, then the person who is the
victim of that problem can simply send a signed email saying "the
previous unsigned email that claimed I didn't want to be a DD anymore
was a forgery".

Meanwhile, it makes sense to be courteous to people who were a DD once
but really couldn't care less now and want to get rid of the nagging,
which seems like a far more likely scenario.

[Vincent Bernat]

Post by Wouter Verhelst
Meanwhile, it makes sense to be courteous to people who were a DD once
but really couldn't care less now and want to get rid of the nagging,
which seems like a far more likely scenario.

Then, they should click on the button they are asked to click. This
takes far less time than a long (and discourteous) rant.

I know you have good intention in trying to improve the MIA process, but
I think[*] this sends the wrong message to the current volunteers: you
can act as professionally as you can, you will still get criticism from
a few people on some minor details. Can we spare our volunteers more
carefully than rude people?

[*]: I am not part of the MIA team.

[Adam Borowski]

Post by Vincent Bernat
Then, they should click on the button they are asked to click. This
takes far less time than a long (and discourteous) rant.

Yeah... you walk out without a word, and are upset if people still care
about you? MW acted like an ass here.

Post by Vincent Bernat
I know you have good intention in trying to improve the MIA process, but
I think[*] this sends the wrong message to the current volunteers: you
can act as professionally as you can, you will still get criticism from
a few people on some minor details. Can we spare our volunteers more
carefully than rude people?

That's expected. The work of a mortician (MIA is basically this) is
unpleasant, and having people lash at you just for doing it is the norm
rather than an exception.

I see no way to make Mattia's work safe from being yelled at. Anything we
say here won't get to people MIA interacts with, and if any of us gets
MIA-but-alive, we'd long since forgotten how we're supposed to behave
(as apparently customs are different at wherever MW worked at these years).
So I hope you'll grit your teeth and keep going. You may end up as grumpy
as formorer -- but, notably, he still hasn't stopped his thankless unpaid
work. Yes, every time you contact him about a list issue you get a reply
in a tone so uncheery it can sour the milk in a cow, but what's admirable
is that he _keeps getting shit done_.

So in the interest of Debian, we need to keep Mattia, formorer and other
folks in such roles well stocked in DebConf beer, encouraging platitudes
and so on... :)


Meow!

[Alexander Wirt]

Post by Adam Borowski

Post by Vincent Bernat
Then, they should click on the button they are asked to click. This
takes far less time than a long (and discourteous) rant.

Yeah... you walk out without a word, and are upset if people still care
about you? MW acted like an ass here.

Post by Vincent Bernat
I know you have good intention in trying to improve the MIA process, but
I think[*] this sends the wrong message to the current volunteers: you
can act as professionally as you can, you will still get criticism from
a few people on some minor details. Can we spare our volunteers more
carefully than rude people?

That's expected. The work of a mortician (MIA is basically this) is
unpleasant, and having people lash at you just for doing it is the norm
rather than an exception.
I see no way to make Mattia's work safe from being yelled at. Anything we
say here won't get to people MIA interacts with, and if any of us gets
MIA-but-alive, we'd long since forgotten how we're supposed to behave
(as apparently customs are different at wherever MW worked at these years).
So I hope you'll grit your teeth and keep going. You may end up as grumpy
as formorer -- but, notably, he still hasn't stopped his thankless unpaid
work. Yes, every time you contact him about a list issue you get a reply
in a tone so uncheery it can sour the milk in a cow, but what's admirable
is that he _keeps getting shit done_.

I am not nearly as grumpy as you think. I usually don't have much time, which
is the reason for my answers often being as short as possible. There is also
the language barrier of "german english" that sounds more rude than english
spoken by a native.

I apologize if my answers sound more rude than they should.

Alex

[Adam Borowski]

Post by Alexander Wirt

Post by Adam Borowski
So I hope you'll grit your teeth and keep going. You may end up as grumpy
as formorer -- but, notably, he still hasn't stopped his thankless unpaid
work. Yes, every time you contact him about a list issue you get a reply
in a tone so uncheery it can sour the milk in a cow, but what's admirable
is that he _keeps getting shit done_.

I am not nearly as grumpy as you think. I usually don't have much time, which
is the reason for my answers often being as short as possible. There is also
the language barrier of "german english" that sounds more rude than english
spoken by a native.
I apologize if my answers sound more rude than they should.

Noooooo! This wasn't aimed to be a dig at you. Asking you to change would
be "shaking the boat", which is precisely the thing we don't want. :)

It's social people who put nice forms of speech above actual merit, and
I'm for one anything but social. What I want is for lists to be kept in a
good shape, a job that you're doing superbly. You have (almost certainly
unconsciously) done some social engineering -- that, by sounding grumpy,
you reduce the number of people bothering you unnecessarily. On the other
hand, had you been nice, people would flock for random unrelated minutiae
or even chit-chat. That'd explode your load. Thus, the very society that
touts nicety of speech actually punishes people who do that.

So, you want your list workload to not increase. We want you to continue
doing good work. Ie, you being grumpy is a good thing for Debian overall.


Meow!

[Jeremy Bicha]

Post by Adam Borowski
It's social people who put nice forms of speech above actual merit, and
I'm for one anything but social.

It sounds to me like you're implying that niceness does not have
actual merit in itself. I think that opinion goes against the spirit
of the Debian Code of Conduct.

You can say "no" to requests and still be nice.

You're also pulling someone else in (formorer) to demonstrate your
argument and I'm not sure he approves of your message here.

Thanks,
Jeremy Bicha

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Post by Adam Borowski
It's social people who put nice forms of speech above actual merit, and
I'm for one anything but social. What I want is for lists to be kept in a
good shape, a job that you're doing superbly. You have (almost certainly
unconsciously) done some social engineering -- that, by sounding grumpy,
you reduce the number of people bothering you unnecessarily. On the other
hand, had you been nice, people would flock for random unrelated minutiae
or even chit-chat. That'd explode your load. Thus, the very society that
touts nicety of speech actually punishes people who do that.

I both agree and disagree with you in this position you took.

On one hand, I totally agree that being grumpy and antisocial[*] is
positive for one's work. Indeed, it's an attitude that myself have
employed several times in RL situations when I thought somebody or a
whole class of people were being unhelpful to me and the task at hand.
It drove them away, giving me a lot of breathing space and made me much
more productive. Also, I haven't wasted so much time on picking the
correct words, etc.

On the other hand, such behaviour IMHO drives way too many people away,
that is not something I recommend in most situations. Furthermore, it
easily opens a can of worms if the place you are being even ever so
slightly antisocial is a public place like a Debian ML, making you waste
a lot of time, like me who spent over three hours only today to write
mails related to this thread. And you need to be ready to hold on if
anybody else starts speaking harshly with you, because you can't hope to
be grumpy and annoying in your writing and still have the other party
that is communicating with you be perfectly polite.


In fact, I see this kind situation happen very often in the Debian IRC
channels, for some reason always involving some German DD, even worse if
there are multiple ones: one person writes very harshly, than another
replies rising the tone to an even unfriendlier level, and in the span
of few lines ones just /part the channel, concluding *nothing* if not
worsening the day of multiple people (because also the bystander just
reading feels something, remember
).


This is way recommend everybody to keep a very polite attitude towards
anybody, unless you explicitly want to offend them (which is a perfectly
fine thing to do for what I'm concerned, just be ready to face what's
coming next), or you know the other party well enough to know their
level of acceptance of your words.


[*] note:
this is not a term you used, and probably not what you intended, but
it's what I'm talking about; also be conscious of the different between
antisocial and asocial

Post by Adam Borowski
So, you want your list workload to not increase. We want you to continue
doing good work. Ie, you being grumpy is a good thing for Debian overall.

Like all things, I think there is a cost-benefits analysis to do here.
For what lists are concerned, it's probably fine. Personally, I'd
rather not see such behaviour in backports, as I think that there is
actively causing unnecessary grief for contributors (I could easily list
a couple of recent examples if somebody wants).

In short: *I*, *Adam Borowski* and some others can deal with grumpy
behaviour and still work perfectly fine; not everybody can, and that
*does* causes problems. Whether those problems are worthy to be pursued
and fixed can be up to discussions.

[Chris Lamb]

[replying directly]

[…] for some reason always involving some German DD, even worse if
there are multiple ones […]

Loading Image...


Best wishes,

[Chris Lamb]

Post by Chris Lamb
[replying directly]

Or not! Enjoy our sub-conversation, -devel. :)


Best wishes,

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Post by Adam Borowski

Post by Vincent Bernat
I know you have good intention in trying to improve the MIA process, but
I think[*] this sends the wrong message to the current volunteers: you
can act as professionally as you can, you will still get criticism from
a few people on some minor details. Can we spare our volunteers more
carefully than rude people?

That's expected. The work of a mortician (MIA is basically this) is
unpleasant, and having people lash at you just for doing it is the norm
rather than an exception.

I never heard of anybody "lashing" at a mortician[*], but yes; as you
probably know I've been through several such unpleasant discussions like
this since I started taking on MIA work ~3 years ago.

Post by Adam Borowski
So I hope you'll grit your teeth and keep going. You may end up as grumpy
as formorer -- but, notably, he still hasn't stopped his thankless unpaid
work.

I actually think I became less grumpy-triggerable than I once was
 :)

Post by Adam Borowski
So in the interest of Debian, we need to keep Mattia, formorer and other
folks in such roles well stocked in DebConf beer, encouraging platitudes
and so on... :)

\o/ free beer!! \o/



[*]: although my mind is trying to picture it and find the situation
quite funny to look at ("hey, stop burying them right now!!") :3

[Tollef Fog Heen]

]] Vincent Bernat

Post by Vincent Bernat

Post by Wouter Verhelst
Meanwhile, it makes sense to be courteous to people who were a DD once
but really couldn't care less now and want to get rid of the nagging,
which seems like a far more likely scenario.

Then, they should click on the button they are asked to click. This
takes far less time than a long (and discourteous) rant.

It asks people to click a link if they want to retire, something which
is not the right course of action if they already have retired or
rather, left the project. The mail also gives the impression that we'll
just delete their account if they don't respond, so maybe it should
mention that we will send out a ping on debian-private?

(I also wonder if we should just require people to opt in to their
DD-ship on a yearly basis instead of doing most of the WAT/MIA dance. If
people can't be bothered to reply to a single email saying «yup, another
year please» with some reasonable amount of pinging and time to reply,
they are effectively MIA, at least if they haven't let people know on
-private or similar.)

[Roberto C. Sánchez]

Post by Tollef Fog Heen
(I also wonder if we should just require people to opt in to their
DD-ship on a yearly basis instead of doing most of the WAT/MIA dance. If
people can't be bothered to reply to a single email saying «yup, another
year please» with some reasonable amount of pinging and time to reply,
they are effectively MIA, at least if they haven't let people know on
-private or similar.)

ISTR that UDD tracks the "last appearance" of each developer, with "last
appearance" being upload, mailing list post (I think, if signed with the
developer's key), etc. The once a year ping then need not be universal
and instead only for those who have become dormant based on lack of
visible indicators of participation.

Regards,

-Roberto

[Wookey]

Post by Tollef Fog Heen
(I also wonder if we should just require people to opt in to their
DD-ship on a yearly basis instead of doing most of the WAT/MIA dance. If
people can't be bothered to reply to a single email saying «yup, another
year please» with some reasonable amount of pinging and time to reply,
they are effectively MIA, at least if they haven't let people know on
-private or similar.)

I don't object to the principle (although I'm also perfectly happy
with the status quo), but could I ask for every two years?

Yes a yearly ping is not a big deal, but multiplied by the number of
organisations one is a member of, such annual makework is quite
tiresome, and years go surprisingly quickly once you are over about
35. A bit less often than that will be better IMHO.

Wookey

[Russ Allbery]

Post by Carsten Leonhardt

Post by Russ Allbery
The general principle that I would advocate for here, though, is that
if someone says clearly and explicitly "never contact me again," we
should do what we can to never contact them again.

If the message would be signed I'd agree, but for a non-signed message
that would open abuse potential. I wouldn't like to find out I've been
retired from Debian because someone faked a message like that in my
name...

This theoretically could happen, but in practice using some basic
intuition while reading the message will, I think, reduce the chances to
nearly zero. For instance, the original reply did not feel like the kind
of thing someone would forge (it's too specific, too emotional, and too
full of easily falsifiable details), not to mention that it's hard to
figure out a motive for someone to forge such a message from someone who
had been inactive in Debian for a long time.

Also, if that does happen, it's remediable later, as Wouter points out.
We're not going to do anything completely irreversible.

"Never contact me again" is what one is supposed to tell someone if they
feel like they're being harassed. It's the sort of thing that I do think
we want to try to honor unless we have some reasonable reason to believe
that something weird is going on. I think it's highly unlikely that
anything good for anyone will ever come out of sending another message to
someone who says that.

To be very clear, I'm not saying this to defend the rudeness of the reply,
or to say that anyone did anything wrong by following our normal MIA
process. Just advocating for a change in procedure in the future if
someone sends that type of reply.

[Ian Jackson]

Post by Russ Allbery
"Never contact me again" is what one is supposed to tell someone if they
feel like they're being harassed. It's the sort of thing that I do think
we want to try to honor unless we have some reasonable reason to believe
that something weird is going on. I think it's highly unlikely that
anything good for anyone will ever come out of sending another message to
someone who says that.

And if it is absolutely necessary to follow up on such a message
because it seems like it might be a forgery or something, then that
should be done privately and with great care. It should be
accompanied by an apology; and the message should probably be reviewed
for tone and content by someone other than the author.

But I agree that this will almost never be necessary.

Ian.

[Chris Lamb]

Dear Mattia,

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
My reply indeed had quite a grumpy tone, and I realized only after
sending it, of course. I need to get into the habit of asking somebody
else to review my emails when they treat such matters.

Thank you for not only pausing for this self-reflection but for
subsequently sharing it so candidly on-list.

However, I must take slight issue with some of the ways you expressed
yourself in your follow-up.

On the one hand, people should indeed "just click those damn buttons"
and it's unfortunate that Willy chose to use the language he did, but
I would be surprised if there were no topics or issues for you
(including outside of the free software world) where reacting in a
ungentlemanly manner is likely given some history or context.

I'm also fairly confident you would agree that the fact that people
are not emotionless and predictable robots brings some much-needed
colour to this world, despite the tragic irony in that it can bring
both pain and pleasure to others.

Without wish to delve too much into the specifics, dismissing and
characterising a Developer's regrettable departure from the Project
as a childish "rage quit" appears to lack suitable empathy and
understanding for a fellow human being, yet alone a former colleague.

More concerning, though, might be the casual suggestion that someone
who reacts to "some simple emails should seek professional
psychological counselling", specifically in its implication that
someone who feels overly agitated from the reader's point of view is
by-definition mentally unstable and even has overtones of blaming
the victim.

I am certain that the abrupt response you received also engendered
strong feelings in yourself so what was written in the heat of the
moment was partially understandable, but I'm sure that you might wish
to consider modifying or even retracting some of the statements or
connotations that were made in the above light.

I hope that this episode has not deterred you from your indefatigable
work in the MIA team and that you, like me, have only the very best
wishes for your former confederate in his current endeavours.


Regards,

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Post by Chris Lamb
I would be surprised if there were no topics or issues for you
(including outside of the free software world) where reacting in a
ungentlemanly manner is likely given some history or context.

I naturally had my own cases of "ungentlemanly behaviour", but I don't
think I would be that easy to trigger. This may be arrogant of me, but
as a personal policy I try to always "keep my cool"—even if it did cause
me sudden lashes when I've been angered (luckily rare
).
To the point that many consider my behaviour as "too little emotional"
when it should have been, even


Post by Chris Lamb
I'm also fairly confident you would agree that the fact that people
are not emotionless and predictable robots brings some much-needed
colour to this world, despite the tragic irony in that it can bring
both pain and pleasure to others.

I find this quite amusing, helping me from getting bored :)
So yes, I naturally agree with this statement of yours.

Post by Chris Lamb
More concerning, though, might be the casual suggestion that someone
who reacts to "some simple emails should seek professional
psychological counselling", specifically in its implication that
someone who feels overly agitated from the reader's point of view is
by-definition mentally unstable and even has overtones of blaming
the victim.

I think this is a case of different "believes".
From my view, looking for psychological counselling is not a bad thing;
I surely appreciate if somebody can deal with their short-tempered
character by themselves, but asking for help for such matters doesn't
automatically classify one a "mentally unstable".
In this particular case, I think MW has too much grief coming from
whatever he experienced fourteen years ago (he admitted it!), and in my
humble opinion he should seek help in dealing with that resentment.

I also don't understand what you said about "blaming the victim": I
don't quite recognize a "victim" here, nor a particular conflict or
situation that could define a "victim".

Post by Chris Lamb
I am certain that the abrupt response you received also engendered
strong feelings in yourself so what was written in the heat of the
moment was partially understandable, but I'm sure that you might wish
to consider modifying or even retracting some of the statements or
connotations that were made in the above light.

I don't think any "strong feelings" in myself were stirred.
Perhaps my wording about the above "psychological counselling" could be
seen as a insulting by someone depending on their culture and personal
believes, but I don't see it as such myself. I hope my explanation
above clears what could be a misunderstanding.

Post by Chris Lamb
I hope that this episode has not deterred you from your indefatigable
work in the MIA team

Thanks for your work as the DPL, as I think you also find yourself
overseeing similar situations way more often than you probably would
like...

[Rhonda D'Vine]

Hey.

Post by Mattia Rizzolo

Post by Chris Lamb
I would be surprised if there were no topics or issues for you
(including outside of the free software world) where reacting in a
ungentlemanly manner is likely given some history or context.

I naturally had my own cases of "ungentlemanly behaviour", but I don't
think I would be that easy to trigger. This may be arrogant of me, but
as a personal policy I try to always "keep my cool"—even if it did cause
me sudden lashes when I've been angered (luckily rare…).

Thing is, just because something is written in a polite way doesn't
mean it can't be hurtful, and just because something comes across
brusquely doesn't mean it might not be justified. And willy was
extremely clear on not wanting a response, and yet you chose to respond
to it. So willy's anger towards that is very much justified, and
discussing about that tone is putting the focus on the wrong end here.
Expecting mistreated people to interact constructively about their
mistreatment is a tool of oppression and privilege, which you show in

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Erm. Again, if one can't deal with such emails, you should really
seek help and support elsewhere, IMHO.

That reads a bit like you intentionally ignored the request to not be
contacted again, or simply didn't care, and try to justify with this.
Which is what what I think Chris refers to as victim blaming, that is,
putting the emphasis for the reaction towards your mistreatment on
willy, which you make it read like you don't see anything wrong with,
which is really not cool.

Please think of your own actions and don't ask others to seek help with
what you have attributed to.

Fruits for thoughs,
Rhonda

[Rhonda D'Vine]

Hey ...

I only realized after sending this that I was responding to a three
week's old mail. Given that the thread was already painful for all
involved parties, please accept my appologize for that. My intention
wasn't (and isn't) to revive it.

My bad,
Rhonda

Post by Rhonda D'Vine
Hey.

Post by Mattia Rizzolo

Post by Chris Lamb
I would be surprised if there were no topics or issues for you
(including outside of the free software world) where reacting in a
ungentlemanly manner is likely given some history or context.

I naturally had my own cases of "ungentlemanly behaviour", but I don't
think I would be that easy to trigger. This may be arrogant of me, but
as a personal policy I try to always "keep my cool"—even if it did cause
me sudden lashes when I've been angered (luckily rare…).

Thing is, just because something is written in a polite way doesn't
mean it can't be hurtful, and just because something comes across
brusquely doesn't mean it might not be justified. And willy was
extremely clear on not wanting a response, and yet you chose to respond
to it. So willy's anger towards that is very much justified, and
discussing about that tone is putting the focus on the wrong end here.
Expecting mistreated people to interact constructively about their
mistreatment is a tool of oppression and privilege, which you show in

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Erm. Again, if one can't deal with such emails, you should really
seek help and support elsewhere, IMHO.

That reads a bit like you intentionally ignored the request to not be
contacted again, or simply didn't care, and try to justify with this.
Which is what what I think Chris refers to as victim blaming, that is,
putting the emphasis for the reaction towards your mistreatment on
willy, which you make it read like you don't see anything wrong with,
which is really not cool.
Please think of your own actions and don't ask others to seek help with
what you have attributed to.
Fruits for thoughs,
Rhonda

[Ian Jackson]

A Debian contributor tells me in private conversation that they
encountered this ex-Developer in real life, and that during that
conversation they told this ex-Developer they disapproved of the
ex-Developer's messages in this thread.

DO NOT DO THIS. Do not raise these issues with this ex-Developer
unless they invite you to do so.

I have spoken in private to the Debian contributor in question and
made it clear that I felt what they did was harassment of our former
colleague. As an isolated incident it is a very minor abuse, but from
the other end, if done by several people, it might easily amount to a
serious harassment or retaliation campaign.


Furthermore, the current contributor in question confessed to me that
they made these remarks even after being told that our former
colleague didn't want to talk about it.

IF SOMEONE TELLS YOU, IN PERSON, THAT THEY DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT
SOMETHING, DO NOT TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT.


Finally, this does not mean you should ostracise or exclude our former
colleague in other contexts, or refuse to speak to them. If you
cannot bring yourself to be friendly, at least be formal but cordial.
(I don't know that this advice is actually necessary but it seems wise
to write it.)


Excuse the shouting, but, really. It is very unfortunate that I am
having to explain these rather basic principles.

Ian.

[Filippo Rusconi]

Greetings Fellow Debianites,

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
Hi,

Post by Matthew Wilcox
For some reason, Debian as a project failed to notice that I had quit,

Probably because even at that time there were procedures that weren't
followed, and apparently nobody after then bothered to check your status
*and* follow up appropiately to clean it up.

Post by Matthew Wilcox
to a non-functional email address (in part because of the complete
catastrophe that was the Debian spam filtering system at the time).

I don't know what happened back then to your forwarding address (for
however strange your statement looks to me), so I can't quite comment
here.

Post by Matthew Wilcox
Over the last couple of months, the MIA team has been trying to get me to
participate in some inane bureaucracy. I have been ignoring their emails.

I can say that the MIA team didn't try to get you recently. That was
Jonathan McDowell that apparently was in contact with you and -according
to the note he left- started on 2018-08-25 the process¹ to have you
properly retire. Missing the required follow up from your side² I sent
a follow up on 2018-09-30 completely out of curtesy as from my side it
just seemed like you missed the mail but you were interested in cleaning
your position.

Post by Matthew Wilcox
Today, they took it to a new level by encouraging everybody who knows
me to pester me to answer my emails from them. This is not acceptable.

Today, more than two months after Jonathan started the process, I
proceed to follow the "remove" route instead of the "retire" route,

Post by Matthew Wilcox
Leave me alone. Your project left me long ago. Do not contact me with
regard to Debian bullshit.

ACK, we will have DAM remove you instead of retire. I suppose there is
no harm as you don't seem interested in the "benefits" that the
"retired" DDs have over the "removed" ones.
I'm sorry to have bothered you more than necessary.
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!
¹ https://nm.debian.org/process/539
² which would have consisted in following one link in that mail, and
then click a single other button; really, nothing more
--
regards,
Mattia Rizzolo
GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18 4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540 .''`.
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia `-

+1 !

Cheers,
Fiilppo

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Post by Mattia Rizzolo

Post by Matthew Wilcox
Leave me alone. Your project left me long ago. Do not contact me with
regard to Debian bullshit.

ACK, we will have DAM remove you instead of retire. I suppose there is
no harm as you don't seem interested in the "benefits" that the
"retired" DDs have over the "removed" ones.
I'm sorry to have bothered you more than necessary.
Good bye, and thank you for your contributions you made back then!

FYI, DAM took care of his request, and a couple of hours ago DSA
processed the request locking his account.

So the story can be considered officially closed.

Post by Mattia Rizzolo
¹ https://nm.debian.org/process/539