Hey all,
Didn't see anyone start this discussion yet, so I'll get the ball rolling.
Up to this point, we've pretty much only had a motto of 'Be excellent to each other' as an expectation for a community members behavior. This has worked pretty well since most of the community has worked together for many years (a lot from the fedora.us days), but as we've grown and gotten new blood, I think we've been hurt by not having some more concrete than a motto for a code of conduct. For my 2¢, I'd like to see us use KDE's Code of Conduct (1) as a basis for creating our own.
1. http://www.kde.org/code-of-conduct/
Later, /B
On Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:22:54 -0500 Brian Pepple bpepple@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Hey all,
Didn't see anyone start this discussion yet, so I'll get the ball rolling.
Up to this point, we've pretty much only had a motto of 'Be excellent to each other' as an expectation for a community members behavior. This has worked pretty well since most of the community has worked together for many years (a lot from the fedora.us days), but as we've grown and gotten new blood, I think we've been hurt by not having some more concrete than a motto for a code of conduct. For my 2¢, I'd like to see us use KDE's Code of Conduct (1) as a basis for creating our own.
I'm still not convinced having a code of conduct will help us. ;)
Pros:
* It's more clear and detailed than "Be excellent to each other", so perhaps some people will read it and realize that they need to be nicer.
* It helps us as a project say "hey, we want our community to be nice and welcoming, if you join and have a poor interaction with someone thats not what we want"
* Allows us to point to something more concrete when removing or moderating someone from the community. "You were not excellent" to "You didn't follow the second section of the 'be respectfull" section".
Cons:
* People will language lawyer. "The Code doesn't _say_ I shouldn't call your mother a llama".
* Some people will ignore or note that they didn't sign it or agree to it, so don't think they should be bound by it.
* Is it really that much different/better than "Be excellent" Or "Don't be a jerk"?
That said, I could be talked into it... should we try and bring more people into the discussion? I know some people have stong feelings on this topic.
As such things go, the kde one seems reasonable.
kevin
On Mon, 2010-12-06 at 09:59 -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
Cons:
- Some people will ignore or note that they didn't sign it or agree to it, so don't think they should be bound by it.
Spot mentioned on the board list that if we want to have contributors sign the code of conduct at the same time the new cla we need to make a decision on this asap.
Later, /B
On 12/06/2010 08:29 PM, Brian Pepple wrote:
On Mon, 2010-12-06 at 09:59 -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
Cons:
- Some people will ignore or note that they didn't sign it or agree to it, so don't think they should be bound by it.
Spot mentioned on the board list that if we want to have contributors sign the code of conduct at the same time the new cla we need to make a decision on this asap.
I think this is simply a matter of convenience - not asking people to go through bureaucracy more than they need to.
I'd prefer to not hold up the FPCA for this; we haven't decided if (a) a code of conduct is needed, or if one is, (b) if it should be signed, or simply posted - let alone sent to the board for approval, etc.
-Robyn
Later, /B
cwg mailing list cwg@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg
On 12/06/2010 09:59 AM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
On Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:22:54 -0500 Brian Pepplebpepple@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Hey all,
Didn't see anyone start this discussion yet, so I'll get the ball rolling.
Up to this point, we've pretty much only had a motto of 'Be excellent to each other' as an expectation for a community members behavior. This has worked pretty well since most of the community has worked together for many years (a lot from the fedora.us days), but as we've grown and gotten new blood, I think we've been hurt by not having some more concrete than a motto for a code of conduct. For my 2¢, I'd like to see us use KDE's Code of Conduct (1) as a basis for creating our own.
I'm still not convinced having a code of conduct will help us. ;)
Me either. ;)
Pros:
It's more clear and detailed than "Be excellent to each other", so perhaps some people will read it and realize that they need to be nicer.
It helps us as a project say "hey, we want our community to be nice and welcoming, if you join and have a poor interaction with someone thats not what we want"
Allows us to point to something more concrete when removing or moderating someone from the community. "You were not excellent" to "You didn't follow the second section of the 'be respectfull" section".
+1 to all those things.
Cons:
People will language lawyer. "The Code doesn't _say_ I shouldn't call your mother a llama".
Some people will ignore or note that they didn't sign it or agree to it, so don't think they should be bound by it.
Is it really that much different/better than "Be excellent" Or "Don't be a jerk"?
That said, I could be talked into it... should we try and bring more people into the discussion? I know some people have stong feelings on this topic.
I think that is a reasonable thing to do.
My #1 con (I suppose it is a grouping of cons, in a way): I honestly don't know how well we can enforce it, if *at all*.
Most of the cited "need" for a code of conduct revolves around mailing list conduct, and IRC conduct (mostly the former). We cannot prevent anyone from joining a mailing list, or IRC, over and over and over, using different addresses, coming from different IP addresses, etc. If someone is bound and determined to be a thorn in our sides, well, they're going to be.
If we are setting up community behavioral expectations and standards, that people need to sign their names to, they expect them to be executed upon. If it's something that is, in the end, unenforceable, it reflects poorly upon everyone - particularly the Board, who would likely wind up losing credibility in anything else they say in the near term. ("Well, you told us you could get rid of poisonous people, why should we believe you now?")
My other main gripe with Codes of Conduct is that they, in my opinion, tend to stifle discussion, because people tend to want to not be confrontational, because they don't want to get the ban-hammer. I think this tends to just dull rapid innovation, and that's not something we should be doing (again, IMO).
I *really* think that before we go crafting things, or talking to people in various groups, we should do the following:
1) Determine if any policy we create around a "worst-case scenario" could actually be enforced. What types of punishment are we dealing with? If it can't be enforced, 100% of the time, we are just digging ourselves a deeper hole of problems - are people being favored? Are people not doing their jobs? Etc.
2) If we determine that a "worst-case scenario" could actually be dealt with and enforced - who is going to do it, and ARE THEY ACTUALLY GOING TO. We've had a long-standing policy of "be excellent" - with the Board more or less responsible for "dealing" with situations - and I am not sure that any of the situations that could have been dealt with *actually* had action taken.
Frankly, I'm not sure that we've really *had* any situations that were so dire that they required any sort of serious intervention. And that makes me wonder if we really need one at all.
Bottom line: if it can't be enforced, we shouldn't do it. IMO :)
-Robyn
As such things go, the kde one seems reasonable.
kevin
cwg mailing list cwg@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg
On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 23:12, Robyn Bergeron rbergero@redhat.com wrote:
On 12/06/2010 09:59 AM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
On Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:22:54 -0500 Brian Pepple bpepple@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Hey all,
Didn't see anyone start this discussion yet, so I'll get the ball rolling.
Up to this point, we've pretty much only had a motto of 'Be excellent to each other' as an expectation for a community members behavior. This has worked pretty well since most of the community has worked together for many years (a lot from the fedora.us days), but as we've grown and gotten new blood, I think we've been hurt by not having some more concrete than a motto for a code of conduct. For my 2¢, I'd like to see us use KDE's Code of Conduct (1) as a basis for creating our own.
I'm still not convinced having a code of conduct will help us. ;)
Me either. ;)
Pros:
It's more clear and detailed than "Be excellent to each other", so perhaps some people will read it and realize that they need to be nicer.
It helps us as a project say "hey, we want our community to be nice and welcoming, if you join and have a poor interaction with someone thats not what we want"
Allows us to point to something more concrete when removing or moderating someone from the community. "You were not excellent" to "You didn't follow the second section of the 'be respectfull" section".
+1 to all those things.
+1
Cons:
- People will language lawyer. "The Code doesn't _say_ I shouldn't call your mother a llama".
What if the code says not to language lawyer? ;) No seriously, there's always people who try to misread/-understand the law, still they will land in jail if the police/judge doesn't agree with his reading of the law.
- Some people will ignore or note that they didn't sign it or agree to it, so don't think they should be bound by it.
Add it to the join page, ask mentors to point new contributors to it. Maybe add it to channel topics, list welcome-msgs. As the code would also affect non-contributors (e.g. people asking for support in fedora-list or #fedora) it doesn't make sense to have it signed anyway. I never signed the law of my home country/country of residence either, still I have to obey.
- Is it really that much different/better than "Be excellent" Or "Don't be a jerk"?
Yes. I have no idea what being excellent means. I think making "your mother" jokes is an excellent way of having fun in the community.
Seriously, "be excellent" is a nice summary - but people need to be told what the greater community understands by this. There's differences due to cultural differences and such. That's what people refer to as a cultural shock when they travel far away or move permanently to another country. I'm very sure everyone of you experienced this in one way or the other. I notice it mostly in restaurants and shops around the world where you notice different levels of politeness very quickly.
That said, I could be talked into it... should we try and bring more people into the discussion? I know some people have stong feelings on this topic.
I think that is a reasonable thing to do.
My #1 con (I suppose it is a grouping of cons, in a way): I honestly don't know how well we can enforce it, if *at all*.
Most of the cited "need" for a code of conduct revolves around mailing list conduct, and IRC conduct (mostly the former). We cannot prevent anyone from joining a mailing list, or IRC, over and over and over, using different addresses, coming from different IP addresses, etc. If someone is bound and determined to be a thorn in our sides, well, they're going to be.
Right now those people annoy us. You're right that they'll still annoy us once we enforce a code. But if we enforce again and again people themselves will get annoyed and vanish, e.g. if they're banned from a list for the 5th time with their 5th address they are getting too annoyed to set up a 6th email address just to annoy people.
Same goes for irc channels by the way, where we can enforce that only registered nicks can join our channels and therefore ban them. In the wiki and such people are bound to FAS accounts that can be blocked too.
If we are setting up community behavioral expectations and standards, that people need to sign their names to, they expect them to be executed upon. If it's something that is, in the end, unenforceable, it reflects poorly upon everyone - particularly the Board, who would likely wind up losing credibility in anything else they say in the near term. ("Well, you told us you could get rid of poisonous people, why should we believe you now?")
My other main gripe with Codes of Conduct is that they, in my opinion, tend to stifle discussion, because people tend to want to not be confrontational, because they don't want to get the ban-hammer. I think this tends to just dull rapid innovation, and that's not something we should be doing (again, IMO).
Maybe the code should state it's okay to be confrontational as long as the language used is not offensive.
I *really* think that before we go crafting things, or talking to people in various groups, we should do the following:
- Determine if any policy we create around a "worst-case scenario" could
actually be enforced. What types of punishment are we dealing with? If it can't be enforced, 100% of the time, we are just digging ourselves a deeper hole of problems - are people being favored? Are people not doing their jobs? Etc.
- If we determine that a "worst-case scenario" could actually be dealt with
and enforced - who is going to do it, and ARE THEY ACTUALLY GOING TO. We've had a long-standing policy of "be excellent" - with the Board more or less responsible for "dealing" with situations - and I am not sure that any of the situations that could have been dealt with *actually* had action taken.
The moderators should and I know some did do so on the lists.
So IMHO: a code (or rather an etiquette) can improve things without having bad side-effects. Of course it will take some time until it works smoothly. And of course the moderators need to actually enforce them.
-- red
Frankly, I'm not sure that we've really *had* any situations that were so dire that they required any sort of serious intervention. And that makes me wonder if we really need one at all.
Bottom line: if it can't be enforced, we shouldn't do it. IMO :)
-Robyn
As such things go, the kde one seems reasonable.
kevin
cwg mailing list cwg@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg
cwg mailing list cwg@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg
On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 09:12:26PM -0700, Robyn Bergeron wrote:
Most of the cited "need" for a code of conduct revolves around mailing list conduct, and IRC conduct (mostly the former). We cannot prevent anyone from joining a mailing list, or IRC, over and over and over, using different addresses, coming from different IP addresses, etc. If someone is bound and determined to be a thorn in our sides, well, they're going to be.
The code isn't expected to deal with people who are deliberately trolling, and it's obviously impossible to deal with someone who's determined to make trouble for us. But that's true regardless of whether or not we have a code of conduct.
If we are setting up community behavioral expectations and standards, that people need to sign their names to, they expect them to be executed upon. If it's something that is, in the end, unenforceable, it reflects poorly upon everyone - particularly the Board, who would likely wind up losing credibility in anything else they say in the near term. ("Well, you told us you could get rid of poisonous people, why should we believe you now?")
At the point where someone is repeatedly signing up under false names or using other technical means to subvert our policy, it's clear that they're not part of our community. There are limits to what we can do - such behaviour won't be tolerated (in the sense that the moment we observe it appropriate action will be taken to remove the individual via whatever technical means necessary) and demonstrating that intolerance sends a signal even if the target then reappears from another address.
But do you really think this is a likely outcome? I haven't noticed any significant attacks of this nature on our community (other than the occasional crapflood on IRC), and I don't see why introducing a code of conduct would make it any more prevelant.
My other main gripe with Codes of Conduct is that they, in my opinion, tend to stifle discussion, because people tend to want to not be confrontational, because they don't want to get the ban-hammer. I think this tends to just dull rapid innovation, and that's not something we should be doing (again, IMO).
When I see confrontational threads on devel-list, I see threads that aren't getting anything done. There's no problem in engaging in constructive disagreement.
I *really* think that before we go crafting things, or talking to people in various groups, we should do the following:
- Determine if any policy we create around a "worst-case scenario" could
actually be enforced. What types of punishment are we dealing with? If it can't be enforced, 100% of the time, we are just digging ourselves a deeper hole of problems - are people being favored? Are people not doing their jobs? Etc.
I think it can be enforced in 100% of the cases it's designed to cover. Deliberate trolling clearly falls outside its remit.
- If we determine that a "worst-case scenario" could actually be dealt
with and enforced - who is going to do it, and ARE THEY ACTUALLY GOING TO. We've had a long-standing policy of "be excellent" - with the Board more or less responsible for "dealing" with situations - and I am not sure that any of the situations that could have been dealt with *actually* had action taken.
If we agree on the need for a code then we need to discuss enforcement. I don't see the benefit of worrying about our enforcement strategy unless we decide that a code is beneficial.
Frankly, I'm not sure that we've really *had* any situations that were so dire that they required any sort of serious intervention. And that makes me wonder if we really need one at all.
I regularly see situations in our community that are outside the realm of reasonable behaviour, and I think this reduces our ability to market ourselves as a welcoming community. We're certainly not as bad as Debian, but we're nowhere near as well-behaved as the core of Ubuntu.
On Tue, 7 Dec 2010 14:43:24 +0000 Matthew Garrett mjg59@srcf.ucam.org wrote:
...snip...
If we agree on the need for a code then we need to discuss enforcement. I don't see the benefit of worrying about our enforcement strategy unless we decide that a code is beneficial.
Just to throw out my thoughts on enforcment:
I think the CWG should act as a sounding board, mediator, and helper to existing moderators or enforcement methods.
ie, If we see or are notified of a poor community interaction on a mailing list, we get someone to publicly reply to the person with the correct/friendly community answer, and ask the moderator of the list to mail any people doing poorly and ask them to try harder. If that doesn't work, we should work with the moderator of the list to do any further actions.
Frankly, I'm not sure that we've really *had* any situations that were so dire that they required any sort of serious intervention. And that makes me wonder if we really need one at all.
I regularly see situations in our community that are outside the realm of reasonable behaviour, and I think this reduces our ability to market ourselves as a welcoming community. We're certainly not as bad as Debian, but we're nowhere near as well-behaved as the core of Ubuntu.
(I can't speak to this, as I don't spend any time in those communities). Perhaps a list of these types (or specific incidents) to our private list would help us craft a COC or some enforcement methods that would work to combat them?
kevin
On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 09:59:17AM -0700, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
It's more clear and detailed than "Be excellent to each other", so perhaps some people will read it and realize that they need to be nicer.
It helps us as a project say "hey, we want our community to be nice and welcoming, if you join and have a poor interaction with someone thats not what we want"
Allows us to point to something more concrete when removing or moderating someone from the community. "You were not excellent" to "You didn't follow the second section of the 'be respectfull" section".
I agree with all of these.
Cons:
- People will language lawyer. "The Code doesn't _say_ I shouldn't call your mother a llama".
It's true! Jerks will be jerks, but that's human nature. I'd suggest that any code include something like "Overly pedantic interpretation of this document in an attempt to justify behaviour is itself a violation of this code" and leave it at that.
- Some people will ignore or note that they didn't sign it or agree to it, so don't think they should be bound by it.
We can indicate that engaging in use of project resources (including our mailing lists and IRC channels) is conditional upon abiding by the code, and if we recommend that then I'd hope that the board would sign off on it. Fedora isn't a free speech zone, and we have no obligation to allow people to behave as they want.
- Is it really that much different/better than "Be excellent" Or "Don't be a jerk"?
In an ideal world I'd say "no", but I think it is for the reasons you listed in your pros section. We advertise ourselves as a more willing community and we indicate that we have limits to the behaviour we'll accept.
Some other codes of conduct:
http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council/coc.xml http://drupal.org/dcoc