User:MGorny/Evasion ComRel Policies
Those are draft policies for ComRel to explicitly explain ban evasion and related cases.
Special cases
Ban evasion
A ban evasion occurs when the offender uses technical means to work around the ban and post to the communication venue from which he/she was banned. A common example of ban evasion is using a different e-mail address to post to a mailing list. An event of purposeful ban evasion can result in extending the disciplinary action already set, without additional warning.
An event of posting is not considered ban evasion if either of the following occurs:
- the message is blocked from reaching the venue (i.e. the ban works),
- the message is passed through because of incorrect implementation of the ban (i.e. there is no real attempt of working it around),
- the offender was not informed of the ban (however, note that he does not need to confirm receipt of the message).
Ban evasion via cross-posting
A special case of ban evasion may occur when the offender cross-posts or re-posts his message to another communication venue, or restarts the thread that belonged to the venue from which he/she has been banned and is off-topic to the new venue. An example of this is when the offender is banned on the -dev mailing list, and starts using -project to discuss topics belonging to -dev.
Since this case is more blurry, ComRel will make decisions on a case-by-case basis, and issue a warning before extending the disciplinary action.
Posting by proxy
Posting by proxy occurs if the messages from the banned person are forwarded to the mailing list by another user of this mailing list. Posting by proxy is allowed if and only if all of the following conditions are met:
- the proxy is a recognized user of the appropriate communication venue (i.e. there is no doubt that it is a fake identity created to evade the ban),
- the proxied messages are marked as such, and clearly indicate whom they are proxied for,
- the proxy is directly responsible for verifying that the messages do not violate the CoC or escalate conflicts.
If proxied messages are found in violation of the above, ComRel can issue disciplinary action both against the proxied offender and the proxy.