I received a personal message making some fairly serious claims of violence against a member of this group. The message was from someone I don't know, about someone I do know, using an account that is about 4 weeks old.
While I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who is the victim of physical or mental violence, I can also see how unfair it is for people to make claims against others anonymously with no means of redress. There is something just about being able to face your accuser, and there is always another side to a story.
Occasionally, people identify me with the company I own and send complaints to a general mailbox looking to get me in trouble over perceived transgressions. It always amazes me how different the claims are that they make from the reality of what happened. More often than not, the person is inflating the truth if not outright lying, and the majority of messages I receive are exceptionally petty or the result of simple personality differences.
I would never judge someone based on an anonymous message I received from a stranger, and it's doubtful I am the only one to receive this message. I just wanted to say there is a time and place for everything, except for anonymously attacking others through online contact forms on g.d.o. It has too much potential to unfairly damage other people's reputations and there are more appropriate ways to deal whatever the situation happens to be.
Comments
Can you please provide more information...
Is this actually about standards for the New York City group, or about standards for G,D,O. in general? Although Subject header suggests that this is specifically for the New York City group, the rest of the message seems to be about the more general group,
Also, can you please provide more specifics about the incident mentioned? It is not clear how we can work to improve the "standards" without knowing substantially more about what has occurred, and in what group.
What exactly are you proposing that we do?
The NYC Drupal group and the
The NYC Drupal group and the Drupal community at large take comments about violence very seriously.
I corresponded with Michael (techsoldaten) privately and the message that he received was not a threat or warning about violence in the future, but allegations that a community member committed violence in the past. A similar message was posted publicly to this group and the Drupal.org Webmasters team decided to delete it.
My personal take on the message was that while the nature of the allegations were serious, the objective of the message was to disparage the reputation of a community member, rather than to prevent harm from occurring to anyone, specifically or in general.
Anyone who is a victim of violence should feel free and have the courage to confide in others for help and support, and especially to contact the authorities. However, the allegations here seem clearly inactionable and intended to tarnish, rather than help.