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0 points0x12421491y ago0 comments

The inner circle emerged after GvR resigned. It largely consists of people who haven't contributed that much to Python3 (sometimes nothing at all in terms of code).

The members occupy different chairs in the PSF, Steering Council and the all-powerful CoC troika. They rotate, sometimes skip one election and then come back.

Their latest achievement is the banning of Tim Peters and others:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41234180

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41385546

Tim Peters is just the tip of the iceberg. Many bans are private, intimidation is private.

Steering council members can insult, bully and mock others without any CoC consequences for themselves and keep getting elected. That is how you know that they are in the inner circle.

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pas1y ago

thanks for the details and links!

how they are getting elected? who can vote?

xcthrow101y ago

There are about 90 core developers who can vote. At most 30 of those are active and have any clue of what happens on the issue tracker or discuss.python.org.

For the other 60, if someone was friendly to them 30 years ago, they still think he is a awesome chap even if he is now a venomous bureaucrat.

Approval voting is used, and SC members often sail through with just 30 of 90 votes. The pool of candidates is limited due to lack of interest and the perception that only the inner circle will somehow get the required low bar of around 30 votes. Also, people are intimidated since the SC ruins careers and gets away with lying.

The whole thing has the dynamics of a high school party where somewhat popular people dominate the scene and a handful of intelligent people stand in the corner and wonder where the popularity comes from.

It is all a deeply unprofessional setup.

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