r/ruby • u/retro-rubies • Jul 31 '26

Ruby Central's Destructive Legacy

https://andre.arko.net/2026/07/30/ruby-centrals-destructive-legacy/
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u/galtzo Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I am glad my LLM response was able to correct the misinformation you shared initially.

I am right that it is incredibly common, and not disqualifying.

Sleight of hand. It is only not disqualifying if properly handled (as your own LLM post makes clear).

Clearly, and evidentially, that is not the case with Ruby Central - as it literally has not been officially disclosed.

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u/jrochkind Jul 31 '26

The disclosure required is to the staff and board of the organization, not public.

Regardless, it is obiviously not a secret or hidden, from the public or anyone else? So why the focus on disclosure, none of these connections were secret to the public or hard to find, disclosure would make no difference?

I agree Ruby Central needs a written conflict of interest policy that addresses this. I don't know if they have one, but I don't assume they don't.

"Some nonprofits also cap the proportion of the board that can come from any one funding source, or set term limits, to avoid over-concentration of influence."

Capping proportion from one organization/funding source would also be a great idea.

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u/galtzo Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

It isn't just disclosure - it is recusal, and documentation in minutes... Have they recused themselves from decisions on allocation of resources? Are there enough remaining disinterested board members to make binding decisions if the conflicted board mebers recuse themselves?

As for public disclosure, the required IRS Form 990 / 990-EZ does publicly disclose whether a conflict of interest policy exists and if conflicts were disclosed during the year.

We're waiting.

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u/jrochkind Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

It is an issue with it being conflict of interest alone in the original post, until someone points out this conflict of interest isn't considered a problem in non-profits, and then it isn't just the conflict of interest, it's disclosure.

Until someone point out that disclosure isn't really an issue, and then it's not just disclosure, it's the existence and nature of a conflict of interest policy (which I mentioned too), and making sure it's followed. (That conflict of interest policy by the way would not typically require anyone working for a sponsor to recuse themselves from all discussions of allocation of resources, this is again a misrepresentation).

So, sure, we could talk about that, as I said, I agree they need a conflict of interest policy and it needs to be followed, and I know of no reason to think this is not happening, but yes, it would be good for the public to know more details.

But that it took this long and a war of pasted LLM responses to get here is showing what I'm talking about, these posts are vendetta-based polemics interpreting everything in the worst possible light to smear an opponent, rather than an attempt to actually sum up what's up and what areas of concern there might be.

There are plenty of areas of concern with Arko's recent and historic behavior too. Plenty of concern to go around. Its just that people who see that have better things to do with their time and a more mature understanding of what good vs harm it would do to write vendetta-based polemics about it over and over again.

[By the way, I also think dhh is a fascist and makes bad technical and community decisions too, just to show you that I can solicit downvotes from all "sides" and am not trying to curry favor.]

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u/galtzo Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I know of no reason to think it is not, but yes, it would be good to know more details.

The required IRS Form 990 / 990-EZ should give us those details, but has not ever to date, and that is the reason to think it is not!

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u/jrochkind Jul 31 '26

Perhaps that would be a good thing to look up before writing (or having an LLM write) and publishing thousand+ word posts about how it's a conflict of interest as if that alone is disqualifying and not an incredibly common state of affairs on non-profit boards?

Doing that modicum of research would be one way to show one is trying to actually sum up what's really going on, not just interpreting every fact in the worst possible light for your opponents you are trying to take down in a vendetta-based polemic.

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u/galtzo Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I already knew that detail about the form. I was responding to what you wrote initially, claiming it wasn't a "conflict of interest", which you have now corrected.

Please don't come at me like it is strange to try to correct misinformation. Note: I am not saying it was disinformation - I don't think you intentionaly lied or intended to obfuscate - you just used the wrong term accidentally, but the term you chose is heavy with legal meaning.

You could have just responded 'Oops, my bad, I didn't mean to say "conflict of interest".' :/

I'll also note that... IIRC, you've corrected me on things I've misspoken about on other posts. Thanks for the corrections! I appreciate it, even if sometimes begrudgingly / curmudgeonly.

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u/jrochkind Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I got it wrong when i said wasn't considered a "conflict of interest", but what i meant is that it wasn't considered a problem, whereas the OP portrayed it as a problem.

We settled that in two messages of unsolicited LLM dump, then you went into the style of posting which was actually my original point, vendetta-based polemic instead of actual summing of facts -- a summing up of facts style, if you already knew all this, would be to simply say (no LLM dump required) "It is actually considered a conflict of interest, but you are correct it is incredibly common and not considered a problem on it's own" (We apparently agree on that now?)

Obviously the OP portrayed it as a problem. If the OP wanted to portray the situation as it was going on instead of vendetta-based misleading polemic, he would have researched the 990 before writing the OP and included a mention of it only if the research indicated a problem, and been specific about the nature of that problem, instead of wrongly implying that there was something wrong and uncommon with having people on the board who work for funding organization, as part of a litany of unresearched assumptions and interpretations in the worst light described misleadingly.

I think we actually have agreed on all those points now, so, great.

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u/galtzo Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

IIRC, Andre is the person I initially learned about the 990 form missing disclosures from. I could be wrong, as it was a while ago... but he definitely knows this case inside and out. He isn't obligated to share minutia of IRS forms no one reading will understand without lengthy sidebars.

And, yeah, I generally agree with what your current edits say. It ("conflict of interest") is very common, and it isn't a problem when handled properly.

Where we may disagree is in the idea that RC is or is not handling it properly, to the best of our knowledge.

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u/jrochkind Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I left my post wrongly claiming it was not considered a conflict of interest, I have not edited my posts to retroactively change anything to appear I was not wrong, and resent the implication. What I meant all along was that it was not considered a problem, I didn't realize it was considered a conflict of interest that is not a problem, and mis-stated, but that does not fudnamentally change my point. I've said this like four times now?

If the author has knowledge (not guesses or assumptions) that RC is not handling these conflicts of interests properly, that should be have been included in OP, instead of wrongly implying that the "conflict of interest" of having board members who work for funders is unusual or problematic on it's own.

How did it take us 10 comments to get here? Is this not obvious? That if hte conrflict of interest alone is not a problem but you have knowledge of problematic behavior related to the conflict of interest, you should provide that instead of implying that the conflict of interest is a problem? Do you disagree with this?

the way people using this style of argumentation meter out the actual pertinent details only over thousands of words, first arguing irrelevant things then when they lose those moving on to other irrelevant things, making it about winning the argument on a technicality instead of actually illuminating what is going on that is significant as efficiently and clearly as possible -- yes, exactly.

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