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<p>It sounds like Naomi used admin powers to make Slack work more
reliably. Nobody was removed from the discussion, nothing deleted.
She did however demote a few people who had a record of censorship
and admin overreach. Those people are going to be unhappy that
they lost a power, but who wants power anyway? The moment Naomi
archives an active channel to stifle a conversation they don't
like, I will get out my pitchfork. But as she's been a benevolent
dictator (and Slack's model requires dictators), the status quo is
that everyone who wants to communicate on there is able to. That's
not awful.<br>
</p>
<p>--DF<br>
</p>
<p>On 1/25/19 8:28 PM, Naomi Most wrote:<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAPKWcoyo_=uX__P+KSfPsZhhh0XUcS+XS7BK3=Q1ae7r5BD6Aw@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">With regards to this point:<br>
<br>
"Retaliatory actions are a problem because they lead to a might<br>
makes right culture where people with power are free to take
whatever<br>
actions they wish, bypassing the rest of the community."<br>
<br>
Yeah, I agree with that. That's why I don't think unilaterally
archiving a channel where a discussion is taking place is good
community behavior.<br>
<br>
At any rate, I'm not super pleased with being the "landlord" of
Slack. If it can be transferred to a non-person entity with a
set of people who have keys to it, that would be better.<br>
<br>
--Naomi<br>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 12:18
PM Naomi Most <<a href="mailto:naomi@nthmost.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">naomi@nthmost.com</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Hi there,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I did in fact make these changes and subsequently
forgot about them, as the meeting was more than a month
after. When confronted at the meeting, I panicked. I
hadn't thought about any of that and wasn't expecting to
hear about it.<br>
<br>
I was experimenting with a "chaos monkey" that uses the
Slack API to randomly assign privileges. I also
discovered a few people who shouldn't be Owners or admins
(like Miloh, since he's very much tapped out) and
de-priv'd those.<br>
<br>
It's worth talking about who should be able to do what,
and for what reasons, when it comes to communication. But
that's another discussion.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Lying is absolutely not something I consider
acceptable. I'm not cool with what I did, and neither
should anyone else be.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
This isn't a proud moment for me. I'm sorry and I'm happy
to be made accountable.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Naomi<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr"
class="gmail-m_-4457934938827952543gmail_attr">On Thu, Jan
24, 2019 at 10:01 PM Pecan Avocado <<a
href="mailto:pecanavocado@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">pecanavocado@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">While many people have
already brought up objections to Noisebridge<br>
using slack before (closed source, external
infrastructure,<br>
essentially a private club house, etc.), I'd like to
address a more<br>
specific issue with the current "Noisebridge" slack and
its operation.<br>
<br>
On August 24th, 2018, the user nthmost, the primary owner
[1] of the<br>
"Noisebridge" slack (<a
href="http://noisebridge.slack.com" rel="noreferrer"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">noisebridge.slack.com</a>),
made the following<br>
changes to administrative roles (a screenshot of logs
showing these<br>
changes is attached):<br>
- Lemons (formerly signal): promoted to Owner and then
later demoted<br>
back to Admin.<br>
- Lady Red: demoted from Administrator to regular user.<br>
- ruthgrace: demoted from Administrator to regular user.<br>
- miloh: demoted from Administrator to regular user.<br>
- ratikate: promoted to Administrator from regular user.<br>
- yesac: promoted to Owner from regular user.<br>
- fineline: promoted to Owner from regular user.<br>
- On August 28th, 2018, multiple members of the
Noisebridge community<br>
noticed that the make-up of the owners and administrators
of the<br>
"Noisebridge" slack had mysteriously changed. As far as I
am aware,<br>
the new admins / owners and the demoted admins as well as
promoted<br>
users, were not informed of this change with the singular
exception of<br>
miloh who had requested that he not be an admin anymore.<br>
<br>
In talking with people familiar, the following points were
raised for<br>
who may have made these changes and why:<br>
- Lady Red archived the #community channel.<br>
- Ruthgrace asked Naomi to take a month break from
slack on or<br>
around August 7th, 2018.<br>
- Ruthgrace, around the same time, requested that
Naomi step down<br>
as primary owner of slack.<br>
- I believe Lady Red also asked Naomi about
transfering primary<br>
ownership to someone else.<br>
- nthmost has expressed frustration with people
shutting down<br>
important conversations<br>
- since Lady Red and Ruthgrace had shut down
conversations that<br>
she wished to continue, it would make sense that she would
want to<br>
stop them from doing just that.<br>
- During the reconciliation meeting on October 4th, Naomi
stated that<br>
she did not remove Lady Red as an admin or remove Ruth
Grace as an<br>
admin of the "Noisebridge" slack.<br>
- On November 29th, 2018, the user beka posted a
screenshot in the<br>
bravespace channel of slack logs showing that the user
nthmost had<br>
made the adminship changes on August 24th, 2018.<br>
- The user nthmost then responded to the screenshot by
requesting IP<br>
Logs (note: the user posting the screenshot, beka, would
not have the<br>
necessary permissions to view IP Logs whereas the user
nthmost does<br>
[2])<br>
- The user nthmost then proceeded to change her slack
"status" to<br>
(iirc) "changing passwords".<br>
<br>
These mysterious administration changes make me concerned
about the<br>
security of slack and the integrity of the community that
has relied<br>
on it as a key line of communication.<br>
<br>
Given the totality of events, I currently believe that:<br>
- Naomi is in fact responsible for having made the slack
adminship changes.<br>
- Naomi lied at the reconciliation meeting about removing
Lady Red and<br>
Ruth as administrators.<br>
- Naomi's removal of Lady Red and Ruth from the role of
administrator<br>
was retaliatory.<br>
- Retaliatory actions are a problem because they lead to
a might<br>
makes right culture where people with power are free to
take whatever<br>
actions they wish, bypassing the rest of the community.<br>
- Naomi should not be an administrator / owner / etc. of
any<br>
Noisebridge infrastructure.<br>
<br>
Extra Notes:<br>
[1] - For details on the slack permission model, see<br>
<a
href="https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201314026-Roles-and-permissions-in-Slack"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201314026-Roles-and-permissions-in-Slack</a><br>
[2] - Only owners and admins can access ip logs; for
details on<br>
Slack's IP logging see<br>
<a
href="https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/360002084807-View-Access-Logs-for-your-workspace"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/360002084807-View-Access-Logs-for-your-workspace</a><br>
<br>
Screenshot of admin changes (top of screenshot is most
recent change):<br>
Link: <a
href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HSlouNZYUjNQ5AvPNqHNKUQ8JHNQIeOq/view?usp=sharing"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HSlouNZYUjNQ5AvPNqHNKUQ8JHNQIeOq/view?usp=sharing</a><br>
<br>
-- r<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
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<a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
<a
href="https://lists.noisebridge.net/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.noisebridge.net/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr"
class="gmail-m_-4457934938827952543gmail_signature">Naomi
Theora Most<br>
<a href="mailto:naomi@nthmost.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">naomi@nthmost.com</a><br>
+1-415-728-7490<br>
<br>
skype: nthmost<br>
<br>
<a href="http://twitter.com/nthmost" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://twitter.com/nthmost</a></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">Naomi Theora Most<br>
<a href="mailto:naomi@nthmost.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">naomi@nthmost.com</a><br>
+1-415-728-7490<br>
<br>
skype: nthmost<br>
<br>
<a href="http://twitter.com/nthmost" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://twitter.com/nthmost</a></div>
<br>
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