One of the things I've noticed as I've been in the webmaster's queue is that there seem to be few publicly available policies regarding the "ins and outs" of this powerful and important drupal.org designation. Some of the policies I'd like to see clarified publicly:
- How do people become webmasters? I've only located a few issues where someone requested to become a webmaster, and there appear to be 139 current site maintainers.
- Are there any objective measures in place to determine when someone should be given these special permissions?
- How many webmasters does it take to +1 a new member? How many webmasters would it take to "veto" a new member?
- What checks and balances exists, if any, to ensure that webmasters don't abuse their power?
- Are people able to file complaints about abuse of these privileges? Where? How does this work?
- Are any records of complaints kept? If so, where? Can non-webmaster community members access this info?
I definitely felt "abused" by someone with sufficient permission to do so. I was banned from d.o. during a heated debate without warning, without an issue, and without actually violating the DCoC (for example). This act was committed by one of the people involved in the debate, and I'm pretty sure that no 'official' policy supports this person's right to deny community members access to d.o. This sort of "brute force" silencing of debate shouldn't be allowed, but maybe it is and I'm not aware of it, so a posted policy would be great. Also, I believe we need a method to complain about abuse from "permissioned" users on d.o., and some way to check on past abuses by these users (in this case, I'm pretty sure there are multiple instances of this abuse of power).
Comments
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This post is really asking questions, rather than asking for a policy to be implemented.
That's why it's called a "discussion"
And they're questions because I don't know the answer- are there any mechanisms to ensure accountability and transparency within this powerful d.o. role? How do I log a complaint when someone abuses their powers? How do I check on previous complaints?
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
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As reported in the description of this group:
If you are asking questions, then you are asking for support; you are not stating .
Thanks for your feedback...
@kiam- is there a "rule making" book I should read to get me up to speed on the most effective ways to draft rules? Edumicate me... please!
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
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As I said, this is not the place to ask questions; it's the place where to make suggestions.
Do you think there should be a policy for ensure accountability of site maintainers/webmasters? Then make a proposal, whatever it will be considered wrong or not.
your reply wasn't really any
your reply wasn't really any better than his post. if you had offered a solution, it would have likely diffused the situation, pointed him in the right direction, and helped many people with similar questions. but really, this kind of reply just adds to the confusion.
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mike stewart { twitter: @MediaDoneRight | IRC nick: mike stewart }
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The fact is that this group is not a Q&A group; if you look at the other discussions in this group, who opens a discussion proposes what the policy should be, and doesn't ask questions. If you want to ask questions, then you can ask in the forums, or (as it's a question about Drupal.org) in the Drupal.org webmasters issue queue.
If you followed what recently happened, you should know the reason why he opened three different discussions; you would also know the reason he created discussions here, rather than opening a report in the Drupal.org webmasters queue.
The fact he didn't open a support request in the Drupal.org webmasters queue shows he also misunderstood what the purpose of that queue is. As a matter of fact, the answers he got here are from users who are site maintainers/administrators on Drupal.org; they would have as well replied on the webmasters queue.
My reply is then similar to the reply you get when you open a bug report for a Drupal module, and you report something that is not really a bug of the module; such report would be closed as won't fix, and that is (I suspect) the real reason he asked something here, and not in the webmasters queue.
This is also a place to
This is also a place to discuss policies.
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That is my point.
If he would have opened saying "I don't find a policy about how webmasters are appointed, who can be appointed, where the records about who has been made webmaster and why are kept, and I think there should be such policy", then it would have been different.
I would still think that he needs to provide an example of what he thinks could be part of that policy, but it would be a beginning.
Suggesting that a policy is needed without to give a suggestion of what the policy would be sounds to me like saying "I pointed out the problem, now it's your business finding a solution", or "if you don't find any policy to apply is all your fault; I did point out the problem."
Doesn't it sound funny that he is asking for a policy for the others, when he was caught to not follow what was a guideline, and in another place he is asking for less policies?
I do not think we need to be
I do not think we need to be so anal over the exact format of a discussion starter. It's completely unproductive.
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In fact, I am not debating on the exact format, but what the purpose of his post is.
In the other comment you added here, you are replying to his questions; you are not debating of the necessity of a policy, and what the policy should be. It seems you didn't take this as a discussion about a possible policy either.
How do people become
Most were granted after discussions on IRC among existings site maintainers or site administrators. People doing good work were invited to the role. Mind you, this was the early days. Atm, this is more structured and logged in the issue queue.
No.
I think that depends on the perceived strength of the argument put forth in the +1 or veto
In the end, users of d.o (these include the site maintainers and site administrators).
Yes, by filing an issue in the webmasters issue queue. An alternative is to mail webmasters@drupal.org.
The issue queue is publicly accessible. Alas, the webmasters archive is only available to list members. I'm not sure why. If there are no other constraints, I'd be in favour of changing that to a public archive.