[uf-discuss] Unjust banning of Andy Mabbett
Sarven Capadisli
csarven at gmail.com
Sat Mar 8 14:27:50 PST 2008
I must say I was embarrassed to read Manu's response to Andy's ban due
to not speaking out about the ban sooner. I felt that there must have
been something that the admins knew better then myself about this
'slowing down the process' business. I was nevertheless shocked to
hear about the ban simply knowing that Andy has been far more involved
in the community then anyone else (as Manu rightfully pointed out). I
had no problems following his contributions and I'm glad he took the
time to put them forward.
Instead of banning someone that pushes the community forward (at least
in my view), why not make use of such great resource and work
together? If you feel that someone is holding the community back from
moving forward due to their reasoning, then present your case - I'm
sure the community will settle on the right approach sooner or later.
At least it will be documented.
Just my two cents.
-Sarven
On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 4:45 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny at digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> I just got back from vacation, otherwise this would have gone out
> sooner. It has come to my attention that Andy Mabbett has been banned by
> the admins for 18 months[1].
>
> This is an unjust punishment, especially considering that he is one of
> the largest contributors to our community. Rather than make sweeping
> assertions and accusations, I'm going to back this post up with hard
> data. Here are the statements that will be addressed:
>
> - Andy is one of our most prolific contributors, this community will be
> harmed by such a long-term ban.
> - An 18 month ban does not fit Andy's behavior - it is an unjust
> punishment.
> - Andy was tried as guilty, without complete documentation.
> - Andy pushes the limits in this community, and because of him, we know
> what is and is not acceptable in this community.
> - Andy says what some of the rest of us are thinking, and he shouldn't
> be banned for such an extreme length of time for voicing his opinion.
>
> Andy is one of our most prolific contributors
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> Maybe most of you are unaware of Andy's contributions to this community.
> I took the time to write a script to download and analyze the entire
> history on Microformats.org's mailing lists (the script is attached to
> this e-mail). Here are the top contributors to the microformats-discuss
> mailing list:
>
> andy mabbett - 1133 posts - 9.68% of contributions
> ryan king - 885 posts - 7.56% of contributions
> tantek celik - 833 posts - 7.11% of contributions
> scott reynen - 504 posts - 4.30% of contributions
> brian suda - 467 posts - 3.99% of contributions
> david janes - 432 posts - 3.69% of contributions
> chris messina - 388 posts - 3.31% of contributions
> charles krempeaux - 233 posts - 1.99% of contributions
> mike schinkel - 193 posts - 1.65% of contributions
> dr. ernie prabhakar - 188 posts - 1.61% of contributions
> danny ayers - 171 posts - 1.46% of contributions
> kevin marks - 145 posts - 1.24% of contributions
> ciaran mcnulty - 135 posts - 1.15% of contributions
> frances berriman - 134 posts - 1.14% of contributions
> ben ward - 126 posts - 1.08% of contributions
> bruce d'arcus - 120 posts - 1.02% of contributions
> paul wilkins - 119 posts - 1.02% of contributions
> dimitri glazkov - 110 posts - 0.94% of contributions
> benjamin west - 107 posts - 0.91% of contributions
>
> Here are the top-10 contributors to the microformats-new mailing list:
>
> manu sporny - 298 posts - 19.13% of contributions
> martin mcevoy - 238 posts - 15.28% of contributions
> andy mabbett - 182 posts - 11.68% of contributions
> scott reynen - 148 posts - 9.50% of contributions
> brian suda - 62 posts - 3.98% of contributions
> tantek celik - 37 posts - 2.37% of contributions
> david janes - 36 posts - 2.31% of contributions
> guillaume lebleu - 27 posts - 1.73% of contributions
> frances berriman - 26 posts - 1.67% of contributions
> julian stahnke - 20 posts - 1.28% of contributions
>
> It is quite evident from this data that Andy has produced more than
> anyone else in this community, even assuming that 10% of the threads
> that he starts result in a ban on his account. I know of no other
> community that would treat one of their primary contributors in this manner.
>
> An 18 month ban doesn't fit Andy's behavior
> -------------------------------------------
>
> Banning somebody for 18 months is quite a serious amount of time, and
> while the admins might not have come to the decision lightly, I do
> question whether the punishment is justified. If you look at the
> documented rules that were added/changed due to Andy[2], you will note
> that a whopping 13 of the 17 are EDITORIAL rules. The other 4 are
> behavioral rules that Andy has broken in the past (as have several
> others on the mailing list). I am not defending bad behavior, just
> noting that part of the reason that Andy is being banned is due to these
> EDITORIAL rules that he has broken and I don't think that an 18 month
> ban is justified for breaking editorial rules.
>
> His behavior as of late has been much calmer and more respectful, so I
> see no reason why this ban has appeared, seemingly out of the blue, at
> this time.
>
> Andy was tried as guilty, without complete documentation
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
> There is still no documentation as to what Andy has done in the past to
> warrant this type of ban. In the admin's post to the list, the following
> was mentioned:
>
> > As time permits, the admins will both hyperlink each of those
> > annotations to the specific email in the archives or edit in the wiki
> > history that caused it, as well as annotate any remaining rules with
> > their causes as well. We believe this will help provide better
> > transparency and accountability.
>
> The time to generate transparency and accountability is BEFORE a ban,
> not after. This is why people are tried as innocent in most parts of the
> world - you may discover that what you think to be evidence against Andy
> falls down upon closer examination.
>
> This sends a dubious message indeed - "The admins can ban you and then,
> ex post facto, document the reasons why they banned you". This is backwards.
>
> Andy pushes the limits in this community
> ----------------------------------------
>
> I wouldn't expect that the people that have not started a company, a
> cause, or tried to change something for the better will fully understand
> this concept, but here goes.
>
> First they ignore you.
> Then they laugh at you.
> Then they fight you.
> Then you win.
>
> –Mahatma Gandhi
>
> Anyone that has tried to change the status quo knows that good people
> will fight you just because you are trying to enact change. They do it
> because they don't know what the world looks like with the change that
> you are attempting to impose. I know Andy well enough to know that he is
> fighting to change this community for the better, and while he may not
> always approach the problem from the proper direction, he does have this
> community's best interests in mind. Why else would he spend so much time
> as to become the #1 contributor as far as raw posts to the community go?
>
> This behavior to affect constant change should not be punished - it is a
> recipe for languishing in mediocrity. I've felt this pressure from the
> admins when working on hAudio and it makes it that much more difficult
> to volunteer to be treated as a pariah (also known as a new Microformat
> contributor).
>
> I have had more purposeful discussion with people off-list than on-list
> as of late - most of it revolving around how those that try to push the
> limits of Microformats are quickly beaten down instead of taken
> seriously. Writing off Andy Mabbett in this way is further proof, in my
> mind at least, that the admins don't respect that particular aspect of
> doing something revolutionary.
>
> Pushing the limits should be rewarded, not punished.
>
> Andy should not be banned for voicing his opinion
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> Andy is best known for voicing his opinion quite loudly, and while I
> don't +1 everything he says, I agree with a great deal of the criticisms
> he has about this community - namely how the admins operate.
>
> You guys make Dick Cheney look downright candid at times.
>
> With respect, I have no idea how Drew McLellan, Eric A. Meyer, and Dan
> Cederholm became admins. Is there a secret handshake? Were they voted
> into the position? How are these things done?
>
> Andy has been a critic as to the somewhat secretive nature of the
> admins, and this looks like you guys are just beating up on him due to
> lack of progress made in Microformats over the past 18 months.
>
> In other words - he's being turned into a scapegoat for his criticism of
> how the admins in this community operate and for the lack of progress made.
>
> The problem isn't Andy Mabbett - it's the Microformats Process.
>
> Closing statements
> ------------------
>
> This ban turns my stomach. I'm starting to not enjoy working in this
> community - especially since you've gotten rid of one of the key people
> that argued with us about the future direction of hAudio.
>
> Personally, I butted heads with Andy on numerous occasions with regard
> to the hAudio uF specification. The result was a better specification
> because we actually listened to what Andy was saying, instead of taking
> his curt replies to be disrespectful.
>
> I'd like to see the ban on Andy reduced to a month or lifted completely.
> I do not see the justification for the length of this ban - no
> documentation has been provided to back up the claims for the ban.
>
> I'm attempting to understand the behavior of the admins - if you respect
> the members in this community, please make an honest effort in
> responding to each point in this e-mail.
>
> with respect,
>
> -- manu
>
> [1]http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2008-March/011674.html
> [2]http://microformats.org/wiki/how-to-play
>
> --
> Manu Sporny
> President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: RDFa Basics in 8 minutes (video)
> http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2008/01/07/rdfa-basics/
>
> ---------------------------------------
> #!/bin/sh
> #
> # Retrieves all of the mailing list archive indexes.
>
> for year in 2005 2006 2007 2008 ;
> do
> for month in January February March April May June July August
> September October November December ;
> do
> echo "Getting $year $month..."
> wget -O ufdiscuss-$year-$month.html
> http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/$year-$month/thread.html
>
> wget -O ufnew-$year-$month.html
> http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-new/$year-$month/thread.html
> done
> done
>
> ---------------------------------------
> #!/usr/bin/env python
> #
> # Analyzes a Mailman mailing list and displays the top-posters.
> #
> # @author Manu Sporny
> import sys, os
>
> gPosts = 0
> gPostsByUser = {}
>
> def dictionaryComparator(a, b):
> if(a[1] > b[1]):
> return 1
> else:
> return 0
>
> ##
> # Sorts a given dictionary and returns an ordered list of items
> #
> # @param dictionary the dictionary to sort.
> def sortItems(dictionary):
> items = dictionary.items()
> items.sort(lambda (k1,v1),(k2,v2): cmp(v2,v1))
> return [(key, value) for key, value in items]
>
> ##
> # Analayze the files given on the command line.
> #
> # @param argv the arguments from the command line
> # @param stdout standard output for the program.
> # @param environ the environment variables for the program.
> def analyze(argv, stdout, environ):
> global gPosts
> global gPostsByUser
>
> # Get all of the statistics from each HTML file
> for filename in argv[1:]:
> #print filename
> tfile = open(filename, "r")
> for line in tfile:
> if("<I>" == line[:3]):
> name = line[3:].strip().lower()
> if(name == "david janes -- blogmatrix"):
> name = "david janes"
> #print "Name", name
> if(gPostsByUser.has_key(name)):
> gPostsByUser[name] += 1
> else:
> gPostsByUser[name] = 1
> gPosts += 1
>
> # Dump out the statistics
> items = sortItems(gPostsByUser)
> for item in items:
> print "%20s - %3i posts - %1.2f%% of contributions" % \
> (item[0], item[1], (float(item[1])/float(gPosts) * 100.0))
>
> # Call main function if run from command line.
> #
> if __name__ == "__main__":
> analyze(sys.argv, sys.stdout, os.environ)
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
>
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