5 Jun
2026
5 Jun
'26
5:08 p.m.
Hi,
Someone just wrongfully banned me from the XSF MUC, I of course don't think I said
anything that should result in a ban at all, but clearly neither of these
<https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0458.html#immediate> apply so if someone thought I
did it should follow the reporting+discussion requirements from the CoC, and not be a
unilateral ban from a mod that doesn't like what I said.
I'd like to be unbanned immediately and the mod that wrongfully banned me to re-read
the CoC they are supposed to enforce.
Thanks,
moparisthebest
6 Jun
6 Jun
12:30 a.m.
Dear Travis,
* Travis Burtrum <travis(a)burtrum.org> [2026-06-06 01:08]:
Someone just wrongfully banned me from the XSF MUC, I
of course don't think I said anything that should result in a ban at all.
I was that someone, and I did so after multiple warnings to you due to
your behavior. We can discuss the specifc details off-list if you wish
so.
but clearly neither of these
<https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0458.html#immediate> apply so if someone thought I
did it should follow the reporting+discussion requirements from the CoC, and not be a
unilateral ban from a mod that doesn't like what I said.
We (the XSF moderation team that was formed by Board on March 5th) have
followed the CoC and arrived at the conclusion that a temporary ban is
appropriate.
I'd like to be unbanned immediately and the mod
that wrongfully banned me to re-read the CoC they are supposed to enforce.
The CoC states that you have the right to appeal the decision with the
Board. Bringing it to the members@ list, however, is not appropriate.
Therefore, this is my final email to this thread and I kindly ask
everybody else to not continue this discussion on this list.
Georg
7:48 a.m.
Hello,
I brought it to the member's list and not board because the CoC was not followed since
I was banned immediately when clearly nothing warranted that. Someone else obviously
agreed since I was unbanned a few hours later (and then re-banned later obviously).
The CoC also says:
Finally, the result will normally be explained to the
person accused of bad conduct
Which wasn't done, I would welcome the specific details to be discussed in public
since I did nothing wrong.
I have CC'd board@ here (note: CoC doesn't say how to contact board, it should)
who can consider this my appeal. I would additionally ask for an explanation as to why
Ge0rg didn't abide by the CoC when banning me immediately, and for a plan to prevent
this from happening in the future.
Thanks,
moparisthebest
On June 6, 2026 2:30:32 AM EDT, Georg Lukas <georg(a)op-co.de> wrote:
Dear Travis,
* Travis Burtrum <travis(a)burtrum.org> [2026-06-06 01:08]:
Someone just wrongfully banned me from the XSF
MUC, I of course don't think I said anything that should result in a ban at all.
I was that someone, and I did so after multiple warnings to you due to
your behavior. We can discuss the specifc details off-list if you wish
so.
but clearly neither of these
<https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0458.html#immediate> apply so if someone thought I
did it should follow the reporting+discussion requirements from the CoC, and not be a
unilateral ban from a mod that doesn't like what I said.
We (the XSF moderation team that was formed by Board on March 5th) have
followed the CoC and arrived at the conclusion that a temporary ban is
appropriate.
I'd like to be unbanned immediately and the
mod that wrongfully banned me to re-read the CoC they are supposed to enforce.
The CoC states that you have the right to appeal the decision with the
Board. Bringing it to the members@ list, however, is not appropriate.
Therefore, this is my final email to this thread and I kindly ask
everybody else to not continue this discussion on this list.
Georg 
8:59 a.m.
On Samstag, 6. Juni 2026 15:48:30 Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit Travis Burtrum
wrote:
Someone else obviously agreed since I was unbanned a
few hours later
To clarify this part, without commenting on anything else in this thread: That
was a technical malfunction of the mod_muc_members_json module, which overrode
the outcast affiliation set by the moderators.
That bug has been fixed [1] and the fix has been deployed earlier today, ...
(and then re-banned later obviously).
... after which the intent of the moderator team has been restored.
kind regards,
Jonas
[1]: https://hg.prosody.im/prosody-modules/rev/228859ea4781
12:58 p.m.
Thanks for that, always happy to help fix bugs. :D
Still that means Ge0rg unilaterally banned me without discussing with the mod team first
as the CoC requires.
And I'm still waiting for the ban reason I was supposed to be provided with.
On June 6, 2026 10:59:05 AM EDT, "Jonas Schäfer" <jonas(a)wielicki.name>
wrote:
On Samstag, 6. Juni 2026 15:48:30 Mitteleuropäische
Sommerzeit Travis Burtrum
wrote:
Someone else obviously agreed since I was
unbanned a few hours later
To clarify this part, without commenting on anything else in this thread: That
was a technical malfunction of the mod_muc_members_json module, which overrode
the outcast affiliation set by the moderators.
That bug has been fixed [1] and the fix has been deployed earlier today, ...
(and then re-banned later obviously).
... after which the intent of the moderator team has been restored.
kind regards,
Jonas
[1]: https://hg.prosody.im/prosody-modules/rev/228859ea4781 
2:49 p.m.
Before or after the ban? I asked a member of the mod team when it happened and they
hadn't heard and I still have yet up be provided with a reason.
I went over the chat and I see nothing I did even remotely against the CoC and no
warnings. Still waiting on that reason and please feel free to make it public here. I
can't really be expected to properly appeal to the board without that.
On June 6, 2026 3:55:53 PM EDT, "Mickaël Rémond" <mremond(a)process-one.net>
wrote:
Hello,
On 6 Jun 2026, at 20:58, Travis Burtrum wrote:
Still that means Ge0rg unilaterally banned me
without discussing with the mod team first as the CoC requires.
This is not correct. That decision was actually discussed with the mod team.
Best regards,
--
Mickaël Rémond 
3:14 p.m.
Hey,
As moparisthebest has been unbanned, what is the reason for continuing
this on the mailing list? Its just causing noise.
It has already been established the ban itself was a mistake and thus
been revoked. Others have expressed the fact it was excessive on XMPP.
Can't we just have calm?
Thanks,
--
Polarian
Jabber/XMPP: polarian(a)icebound.dev
3:27 p.m.
As moparisthebest has been unbanned, what is the reason
for continuing
this on the mailing list? Its just causing noise.
They have not been unbanned, but will be on Tuesday at the end of the
moderation-team agreed temp ban period, which they were informed of by me
within moments of the ban having been executed. I'm told they were also
informed by PM by the one who executed the ban.
OTOH, they were specifically asked not to keep talking about it here on list
as this is not an appropriate venue for appeal.
It has already been established the ban itself was a
mistake
There was no mistake. After several warnings about repeated code of conduct
violations issued to the member, all of which have been ignored or even
outright rejected as valid by the member, the moderation team voted that the
breach yesterday was an "enough is enough" moment and issued the temporary
retriction until Tuesday.
If you want a chapter an verse from the Code of Conduct for some reason, the
usually cited sections are "2.4 Be Respectful" and "2.5 Be Friendly and
Supportive". I believe yesterday's violations ran afoul of both of these.
The member was warned, infomred their conduct was inappropriate by several
moderation team members, and continued even after a ban had been effected
(due to the temporary technical issue that accidentally rescinded the ban as
has been described up thread).
The mod team has been discussing and is very aware that communication about
this action was weak. There are a number of excuses here, but no matter it
has been resolved to communicate around these actions more verbosely in the
future to avoid misunderstandings.
5:23 p.m.
I messaged singpolyma since no one warned me ever or contacted me before or after the ban.
singpolyma told me that he didn't ban me so it must have been someone else.
I still haven't been told why (which is itself a violation of the CoC) and so I
obviously don't know if it was discussed and agreed on by the conduct team before the
ban (if not that's another violation). I'll also note the CoC says generally the
accused should be contacted first before punishment and that also was never done.
In a separate thread I'll address how the CoC says to contact the board or conduct
team but provides no way to do so, nor does the website. Until that's resolved
I'll continue to demand the reason for the ban here, which is the only venue available
to me and required by the CoC. If someone wants to tell me in private instead you all
obviously have my XID and email which is the same.
It's absolutely unacceptable >24 hours and counting have passed without anyone
telling me.
On June 6, 2026 5:27:05 PM EDT, Stephen Paul Weber <singpolyma(a)singpolyma.net>
wrote:
As
moparisthebest has been unbanned, what is the reason for continuing
this on the mailing list? Its just causing noise.
They have not been unbanned, but will be on Tuesday at the end of the moderation-team
agreed temp ban period, which they were informed of by me within moments of the ban having
been executed. I'm told they were also informed by PM by the one who executed the
ban.
OTOH, they were specifically asked not to keep talking about it here on list as this is
not an appropriate venue for appeal.
It has already been established the ban itself
was a mistake
There was no mistake. After several warnings about repeated code of conduct violations
issued to the member, all of which have been ignored or even outright rejected as valid by
the member, the moderation team voted that the breach yesterday was an "enough is
enough" moment and issued the temporary retriction until Tuesday.
If you want a chapter an verse from the Code of Conduct for some reason, the usually cited
sections are "2.4 Be Respectful" and "2.5 Be Friendly and Supportive".
I believe yesterday's violations ran afoul of both of these. The member was warned,
infomred their conduct was inappropriate by several moderation team members, and continued
even after a ban had been effected (due to the temporary technical issue that accidentally
rescinded the ban as has been described up thread).
The mod team has been discussing and is very aware that communication about this action
was weak. There are a number of excuses here, but no matter it has been resolved to
communicate around these actions more verbosely in the future to avoid misunderstandings.
5:31 p.m.
I still haven't been told why (which is itself a
violation of the CoC)
You're literally replying to an email telling you why in a thread where you
were previously told why.
so I obviously don't know if it was discussed and
agreed on by the conduct
team before the ban
As you've been told several times in this thread, yes it was.
says generally the accused should be contacted first
before punishment and
that also was never done.
Several warnings were issued by mod team members during the discussion. I
know because one of them came from me. It's true no one used the word "ban"
because usually the approach is to suggest not threaten...
Please stop using this venue for this, as you've been told. You already
contacted board and they are (obviously) already aware of the situation. If
you cannot leave this list for the intended purpose we may need to discuss
extending the technical implementation of the ban.
5:46 p.m.
There's clearly many misunderstandings here on both sides.
No one has told me why or warned me ever, please link to explicit messages that violated
the CoC with reasons why from <https://logs.xmpp.org/xsf/2026-06-05>, if the mod
team discussed and agreed there were violations this will be easy. The CoC says they
already should have been provided.
It's absolutely possible the conduct team discussed this and agreed on the ban
beforehand, but since no one contacted me and you didn't say when I contacted you how
could I possibly have known? Please provide the exact timestamp of the report and ban
decision.
Obviously I have no other venue to ask for the explanation the CoC promises me. I
don't believe in secrecy and have nothing to hide, the members need to see these kind
of decisions to determine how to vote.
On June 6, 2026 7:31:56 PM EDT, Stephen Paul Weber <singpolyma(a)singpolyma.net>
wrote:
I still
haven't been told why (which is itself a violation of the CoC)
You're literally replying to an email telling you why in a thread where you were
previously told why.
so I obviously don't know if it was
discussed and agreed on by the conduct team before the ban
As you've been told several times in this thread, yes it was.
says generally the accused should be contacted
first before punishment and that also was never done.
Several warnings were issued by mod team members during the discussion. I know because one
of them came from me. It's true no one used the word "ban" because usually
the approach is to suggest not threaten...
Please stop using this venue for this, as you've been told. You already contacted
board and they are (obviously) already aware of the situation. If you cannot leave this
list for the intended purpose we may need to discuss extending the technical
implementation of the ban.
6:02 p.m.
I want to be crystal clear, the only reason this thread exists is because the conduct team
violated the CoC by not contacting me and informing me the reason for the ban, if that had
been done I could have either accepted the decision or appealed to the board.
And I'm still waiting...
On June 6, 2026 7:46:43 PM EDT, Travis Burtrum <travis(a)burtrum.org> wrote:
There's clearly many misunderstandings here on both
sides.
No one has told me why or warned me ever, please link to explicit messages that violated
the CoC with reasons why from <https://logs.xmpp.org/xsf/2026-06-05>, if the mod
team discussed and agreed there were violations this will be easy. The CoC says they
already should have been provided.
It's absolutely possible the conduct team discussed this and agreed on the ban
beforehand, but since no one contacted me and you didn't say when I contacted you how
could I possibly have known? Please provide the exact timestamp of the report and ban
decision.
Obviously I have no other venue to ask for the explanation the CoC promises me. I
don't believe in secrecy and have nothing to hide, the members need to see these kind
of decisions to determine how to vote.
On June 6, 2026 7:31:56 PM EDT, Stephen Paul Weber <singpolyma(a)singpolyma.net>
wrote:
>> I still haven't been told why (which is itself a violation of the CoC)
>
>You're literally replying to an email telling you why in a thread where you were
previously told why.
>
>> so I obviously don't know if it was discussed and agreed on by the conduct
team before the ban
>
>As you've been told several times in this thread, yes it was.
>
>> says generally the accused should be contacted first before punishment and that
also was never done.
>
>Several warnings were issued by mod team members during the discussion. I know because
one of them came from me. It's true no one used the word "ban" because
usually the approach is to suggest not threaten...
>
>Please stop using this venue for this, as you've been told. You already contacted
board and they are (obviously) already aware of the situation. If you cannot leave this
list for the intended purpose we may need to discuss extending the technical
implementation of the ban.
6:45 p.m.
Hey,
They have not been unbanned, but will be on Tuesday at
the end of the
moderation-team agreed temp ban period, which they were informed of
by me within moments of the ban having been executed.
Apologies, I didn't quite understand what Jonas was talking about, I
understand now.
OTOH, they were specifically asked not to keep talking
about it here
on list as this is not an appropriate venue for appeal.
I think this is 50/50, mopar is arguing that the moderation action was
wrong. By appealing in private the case is not seen by other members.
The membership elects the board and the council, the board has elected
you (the moderation team) to moderate, if the conduct of moderator(s) is
to be questioned, then I don't see why there shouldn't be a case taken
to the membership on the mailing list.
On the other hand, the drama is undesirable.
If you want a chapter an verse from the Code of
Conduct for some
reason, the usually cited sections are "2.4 Be Respectful" and "2.5
Be Friendly and Supportive".
You don't need to justify your decision to me.
I also agree, he was not being respectful. However this is quite common
when discussions get heated, or when people get emotional. I myself
have lost my cool within the operators channel.
This is why assuming good faith is required, and I can't honestly feel
like any of the moderation staff involved in said incident assumed
any good faith. Sometimes discussions are hard to keep civil (especially
ones of a political nature), and its important that people take a step
back when that boundary has been crossed or are about to be crossed. A
mute would have been more than enough to satisfy this, mopar became
argumentative, he refused to take a step back, mute him.
It seems the actions taken from moderation was in bad faith and
that mopar is out to verbally abuse everyone, so he must be banned
asap. This is exactly how a heated argument blows up into this.
I will note I have been given two bad faith warnings for moderation in
the past. One of them was actually me trying to be productive but was
assumed to be insulting, and the other was issued for a discussion
between where me and someone else choose to spend our cash, in fact, we
were discussing an operator meetup. So I know first hand that at least
one of the moderation staff assumes bad faith, so this is a problem.
infomred their conduct was inappropriate by several
moderation team members
I am sorry but this is not entirely true.
Ge0rG said:
moparisthebest: please stop it now.
With mopar's response obviously being argumentative:
why? you gonna sue me ?
and then you responded:
That's really rather inappropriate
in which mopar stated directly after:
lol I'm done too
in which Ge0rG then replied:
moparisthebest: no, I would moderate you and then you
can sue the
XSF, me, or anybody else to get that lifted.
So observations:
1. Only one person pointed out that his comment was inappropriate
(singpolyma), with no threat of moderation or highlighting that it
violated the CoC, aka no due process.
2. There was at no point a warning of code of conduct violation and a
threat of moderation from Ge0rG.
3. Mopar actually finished only to be banned the moment he did.
(Obviously anything sent in private I can't see, and thus there could
be more to this)
I am sorry, as much as I would love to blame mopar, this entire drama
was caused through woeful moderation, no due process which you
explained to me was followed, no clear warning of moderation was
issued, and a ban issued after the drama had seemingly ceased.
(due to the temporary technical issue that
accidentally rescinded the
ban as has been described up thread).
As a result of this and the aforementioned moderator action, led to
mopar returning angered about the moderation action, and also the drama
on the list. Which all seemed avoidable with a simple mute, or just
letting it go and letting the drama cease for everyone's sake.
and continued even after a ban had been effected
I don't know what was said in private, but all I saw this morning was
mopar opposing moderator action, and if we get to the point where
someone is moderated for disagreeing with the actions of another member
then there's a problem.
The mod team has been discussing and is very aware
that communication
about this action was weak. There are a number of excuses here, but
no matter it has been resolved to communicate around these actions
more verbosely in the future to avoid misunderstandings.
I think this evaluation is severely lacking. Moderators were too heavy
handed (IMO) and I am not the only person who seems to hold this
opinion, on a heated discussion which started from what looked like a
legitimate question about the usefulness of the XSF having a legal
entity.
You can not throw petrol on a fire, and then take credit for putting
the fire out and ignoring the collateral damage caused. This has lasted
an extra day than it should have, spread to the mailing list because a
member complained about their treatment, which I don't entirely
disagree with.
No due process, no clear warnings, and moderation after the drama would
have potentially ceased. That's not just merely poor communication, that
is a total failure.
And mopar how hard is it to apologise for your conduct? A sure way to
get unbanned if you feel like you have been wrongly banned is to first
apologise, you don't even need to agree that your conduct was wrong,
just apologising that if you had offended anyone during your
discussion is the best way to de-escalate a situation.
This all was entirely avoidable (IMO), and you both (that being the
moderation team and mopar) are as bad as each other. So could the
bureaucracy be cut, and people accept the incident for what it is, a
discussion which got out of hand.
Please stop throwing mud at each other, and accept you both acted wrong.
For the sake of the mailing list and the other members in the community.
I hope the 2 hours I spent drafting this email might help avoid this
repeating all this drama the next time there is a CoC violation.
Take care,
--
Polarian
Jabber/XMPP: polarian(a)icebound.dev
0
days inactive
2
days old
13 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Georg Lukas -
Jonas Schäfer -
Mickaël Rémond -
Polarian -
Stephen Paul Weber -
Travis Burtrum