Curious, why did a project of programming language hire a multi-person moderation team in the first place? That's the OSS version of HR? Or is it equivalent to a team of diversity and inclusion?
Not hired, but voluntary.
> moderation team in the first place
Because a community of any larger size needs moderation (small communities tend to self moderate, larger communities without any form of moderation are at serve risk of becoming toxic and/or unwelcoming places).
> OSS version of HR
Oversimplified it's a Team which steps in when the Code of Conduct is (potentially) violated to moderate (i.e. resolve) the situation with the goal of keeping the community open, friendly and well coming.
And how would you describe HR?
The difference is the moderation Team does only moderation.
But HR does all kinds of things, which often (but not always) includes moderation.
Although in this scenario, isn't code of conduct something much more "local" that the ringleader doesn't really need to step in every time to enforce?
CoC is just something I expect everybody to enforce when needed. Having a dedicated team to do that seems odd to me. I guess you still need someone to issue bans and to wield the ban hammer, but it _should_ happen infrequently that simply informing the violator of their violation should be enough (unless they're a troll and will continue violating, in which case they can be kicked).
[0] https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-Jul...
That said burntsushi at least doesn't seem like an activist to me, so the grievances are probably legitimate. Coming from someone less prominent they'd not have anywhere near the same weight in my eyes. We just don't know what they are.
I take Linux organizational model over Rust's every day. A group of super competent people with no bullshit policy. It is proven. The problem is how to form the successor to the dictator.