| Well, policing the other teams is just part of the mod team's responsibilities. The design of the mod team can be found in the RfC[1]. The driving philosophy is to try and deescalate any situations which may crop up, either in situ or by privately discussing with the involved parties. It's easy to forget that the People on The Internet are humans too, so a technical discussion that gets heated sometimes needs a reminder to keep civil. The purpose is to make sure that the code of conduct[2] is upheld online. Rust has had a CoC for a while now, but it wasn't enforced. This meant that users violating it in reality were free to continue violating it without much repercussions. And this had happened a couple of times; users were warned after being abrasive but no action was ever taken and it just got worse. The mod team can enforce the CoC by temporarily blocking a user from the project if warnings are ignored. Deescalate whenever possible, and if it doesn't work out, warn/act on the warnings. Policing other teams is a part of it; the core team and subteams are also subject to moderation; which is why no core team member is on the mod team. In case of an ugly dispute between a core team member and some other user the mod team is a more impartial way of resolving it. Though in practice I don't think the core team would ever be in such a situation. People often say that technical communities should stay technical and not worry about civility or other social issues. In my experience this rarely turns out well, aside from Rust I've seen this idea cause problems in other technical communities. Technical communities are, in the end, communities, and community health is something that needs tending. Maintaining civility and avoiding the exclusion (active or passive) of other users is a part of it, and that's something the mod team handles. [1]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/1068-rust... [2]: http://www.rust-lang.org/conduct.html |