TL; DR: People other than the community team can skip this message if they like. I was talking with Steve about the idea to help sanity check their process and results by looking at the project's needs so we can compare those to what the team is offering to provide. This is just another way to look at things; I am supportive of the team's process to describe where they want to go.
I've been involved in a couple of rounds of figuring out what the community team wants to do (in Cambridge and at DebConf), but it's been a while since I've actually read their current thinking. I have not yet read Steve's mail in full. So I decided to try running the exercise from the other direction. In the sort of areas of conduct/safe space/communicating well with each other, what does the project need? Not all of these have to be supplied by the community team. So, here are my thoughts in decreasing priority order. 1) At Debian events, we need somewhere people can go to report incidents with appropriate training and care. 2) At Debian events, we need to be able to rapidly take steps including removing people from events in response to incidents in order to keep our events safe. Fortunately we don't have a lot of incidents at our events. But when something happens, handling it well can be the difference between an experience that reassures people we take their needs seriously and an experience that drives someone away from our community. 3) Outside of events we need a place for people to report incidents/cases where they were not treated consistently with our standards. People should promptly be able to get help in terms of understanding their report, understanding what options they have, and understanding how they can expect to be treated. 4)Both DAM and I have observed a need to get help de-escalating situations. Stuff happens and people get upset. It's very easy for a lot of permanent damage to be done if things continue to escalate. Helping getting people to take a step back, helping them find a way that they can successfully do so are things we sometimes really urgently need. And this is something where a team really helps. DAM has indicated that when they are in the middle of trying to come to an internal consensus, they often don't have energy to also be trying to de-escalate things externally. If the DPL is in the middle of a situation, they are often not the best to de-escalate it. Especially if something they have done has caused things to escalate. More generally, the more people who see a situation, the more likely it is one will have the right answer to get people to step back. 5) Sometimes we need measures short of account-level actions (suspensions, expulsions) to deal with inappropriate behavior. Moderating lists, removal from planet, suspending bts privileges, etc. This is typically handled by service admins. Noted for completeness, because it is important to the project. 6) Interpreting the CoC so that various people in 5 can consistently apply things. 7) Helping people out. "Is this something reasonable to say?" "How can I say this within our standards?" And sending proactive mails to people where needed. 8) Helping with issues that cross media boundaries. I.E. where there's a problem both on lists and in the bts. 9) Ultimately the ability to remove people from our community. Typically handled by DAM. --Sam
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