[Noisebridge-discuss] notes from a sad slacker

Fri Jan 25 20:28:31 UTC 2019

With regards to this point:

"Retaliatory actions are a problem because they lead to a might
makes right culture where people with power are free to take whatever
actions they wish, bypassing the rest of the community."

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.

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.

--Naomi

On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 12:18 PM Naomi Most <naomi at nthmost.com> wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Lying is absolutely not something I consider acceptable.  I'm not cool
> with what I did, and neither should anyone else be.
>
> This isn't a proud moment for me.  I'm sorry and I'm happy to be made
> accountable.
>
> Thanks,
> Naomi
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 10:01 PM Pecan Avocado <pecanavocado at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> While many people have already brought up objections to Noisebridge
>> using slack before (closed source, external infrastructure,
>> essentially a private club house, etc.), I'd like to address a more
>> specific issue with the current "Noisebridge" slack and its operation.
>>
>> On August 24th, 2018, the user nthmost, the primary owner [1]  of the
>> "Noisebridge" slack (noisebridge.slack.com), made the following
>> changes to administrative roles (a screenshot of logs showing these
>> changes is attached):
>>   - Lemons (formerly signal): promoted to Owner and then later demoted
>> back to Admin.
>>   - Lady Red: demoted from Administrator to regular user.
>>   - ruthgrace: demoted from Administrator to regular user.
>>   - miloh: demoted from Administrator to regular user.
>>   - ratikate: promoted to Administrator from regular user.
>>   - yesac: promoted to Owner from regular user.
>>   - fineline: promoted to Owner from regular user.
>> - On August 28th, 2018, multiple members of the Noisebridge community
>> noticed that the make-up of the owners and administrators of the
>> "Noisebridge" slack had mysteriously changed.  As far as I am aware,
>> the new admins / owners and the demoted admins as well as promoted
>> users, were not informed of this change with the singular exception of
>> miloh who had requested that he not be an admin anymore.
>>
>> In talking with people familiar, the following points were raised for
>> who may have made these changes and why:
>>     - Lady Red archived the #community channel.
>>     - Ruthgrace asked Naomi to take a month break from slack on or
>> around August 7th, 2018.
>>     - Ruthgrace, around the same time, requested that Naomi step down
>> as primary owner of slack.
>>     - I believe Lady Red also asked Naomi about transfering primary
>> ownership to someone else.
>>     - nthmost has expressed frustration with people shutting down
>> important conversations
>>     - since Lady Red and Ruthgrace had shut down conversations that
>> she wished to continue, it would make sense that she would want to
>> stop them from doing just that.
>> - During the reconciliation meeting on October 4th, Naomi stated that
>> she did not remove Lady Red as an admin or remove Ruth Grace as an
>> admin of the "Noisebridge" slack.
>> - On November 29th, 2018, the user beka posted a screenshot in the
>> bravespace channel of slack logs showing that the user nthmost had
>> made the adminship changes on August 24th, 2018.
>> - The user nthmost then responded to the screenshot by requesting IP
>> Logs (note: the user posting the screenshot, beka, would not have the
>> necessary permissions to view IP Logs whereas the user nthmost does
>> [2])
>> - The user nthmost then proceeded to change her slack "status" to
>> (iirc) "changing passwords".
>>
>> These mysterious administration changes make me concerned about the
>> security of slack and the integrity of the community that has relied
>> on it as a key line of communication.
>>
>> Given the totality of events, I currently believe that:
>> - Naomi is in fact responsible for having made the slack adminship
>> changes.
>> - Naomi lied at the reconciliation meeting about removing Lady Red and
>> Ruth as administrators.
>> - Naomi's removal of Lady Red and Ruth from the role of administrator
>> was retaliatory.
>>   - Retaliatory actions are a problem because they lead to a might
>> makes right culture where people with power are free to take whatever
>> actions they wish, bypassing the rest of the community.
>> - Naomi should not be an administrator / owner / etc. of any
>> Noisebridge infrastructure.
>>
>> Extra Notes:
>> [1] - For details on the slack permission model, see
>>
>> https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201314026-Roles-and-permissions-in-Slack
>> [2] - Only owners and admins can access ip logs; for details on
>> Slack's IP logging see
>>
>> https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/360002084807-View-Access-Logs-for-your-workspace
>>
>> Screenshot of admin changes (top of screenshot is most recent change):
>> Link:
>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HSlouNZYUjNQ5AvPNqHNKUQ8JHNQIeOq/view?usp=sharing
>>
>> -- r
>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://lists.noisebridge.net/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>
>
>
> --
> Naomi Theora Most
> naomi at nthmost.com
> +1-415-728-7490
>
> skype: nthmost
>
> http://twitter.com/nthmost
>

-- 
Naomi Theora Most
naomi at nthmost.com
+1-415-728-7490

skype: nthmost

http://twitter.com/nthmost
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