[uf-discuss] Re: Unjust banning of Andy Mabbett

[Manu Sporny]

Drew McLellan wrote:
> The simple fact is that the microformats community is *not* a lot of
> work, save for the disruption Andy has caused. That we even seen to
> spend effort having this conversation rather than working on
> microformats is further evidence of that disruption.

Drew,

We are spending effort having this conversation because governance is
vital to the health of this community. Talking about the method employed
to execute this ban is certainly not a waste of time. Talking about
contributions of community members is certainly not a waste of time, either.

If nobody had a problem with the admins' decision, you would have seen
my initial e-mail and silence thereafter. However, there have been a
number of people that have voiced a similar concern. To date, 10 people
have voiced concern about the length of Andy's ban and the methods used
to ban him. That is a clear indicator that there is a disconnect between
the admins and the community.

This isn't just about Andy - it is also about the methods employed by
the admins to come to this decision:

- Lack of a documented process for bans.
- Lack of proper documentation leading up to Andy's ban.
- A vote count for the admins (for and against).

At the very least, if we don't have a process in place, we should follow
Wikipedia's ban procedure[2].

To place the blame of this "disruption" squarely on Andy's shoulders is
to ignore the fact that the admins are the ones that brought about the
18 month ban. It also ignores the fact that proper due diligence was not
performed before the ban.

This would be happening if it were Andy, or anybody else on this list.
We are spending the effort to have this conversation because we don't
like what we're seeing.

Just to be clear, here's what the expectations are:

- The admins reply to each point in the initial e-mail that started this
  thread[1]
- The admins create a procedure for banning individuals from the
  Microformats community.
- The admins fully document Andy's ban, similar in scope to Wikipedia[2]

If you want to focus on making this community run smoother, focus on
those things and the next time something like this happens, we won't
have to re-hash this discussion.

-- manu

[1]http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2008-March/011713.html
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pigsonthewing

-- 
Manu Sporny
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: RDFa Basics (video)
http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2008/01/07/rdfa-basics