Re: transparency on message moderation

[Solar Designer <solar () openwall com>]

On Sun, Jun 08, 2014 at 03:16:31PM -0400, Josh Bressers wrote:
> > general.  I also like to take this opportunity to thank Kurt Seifried,
> > Josh Bressers, and Vincent Danen for their help approving obviously
> > on-topic oss-security postings sometimes quicker than I do.
>
> I can't take credit for this. I'm probably the worst list moderator ever.
> It would certainly make sense to have someone replace me as a moderator,
> probably not from Red Hat to help avoid any possible conspiracies.

Josh, I do recall you wanted to resign as a co-moderator a while ago,
and it makes sense for us to have a new co-moderator from neither
Openwall nor Red Hat, and preferably not from a for-profit Linux
company.  For example, someone from Debian or a *BSD could be OK, or
some active oss-security contributor who is not with any distro.

IIRC, a long while ago Henri Salo expressed an interest (in private
e-mail to me) in contributing to this sort of activities.  Henri, would
you like to help co-moderate oss-security - which currently means only
approving obviously-desirable messages, and leaving everything else to
me?  What are your current affiliations (e.g., any Linux distro)?

On Sun, Jun 08, 2014 at 07:27:11PM -0400, rea wrote:
> I have no stake in the game. If you need a hand just let me know.

Thanks rea, but as far as I can tell this is the very first time you
posted to oss-security.  While the task of approving obviously-desirable
messages quickly is simple enough that I think you'd manage well, I
think it's better for us to choose a co-moderator who has been actively
contributing to discussions on oss-security.

I've also received an offer off-list from someone who is with a
for-profit Linux-related company.  While I appreciate the offer greatly,
I think it's preferable for our new co-moderator to have no such
affiliation.  I'm confident this doesn't actually matter for how the
messages are processed (as long as I'm involved and I see the lack of
abusive delays), but I guess it might matter for the confidence of
others who don't have this sort of direct visibility into how message
moderation is done.

Alexander