Hi everybody!
TL;DR: As mentioned in
https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/CAFEAcA8pqjY-VKXPOe9W7J6upVhMeX8jJ=9gmb8e64etqhm...@mail.gmail.com/
there's the idea of having a dedicated group of people that can help to
mediate Code of Conduct related problems. If you are interested in joining
such a group, please continue reading and get in touch with me.
Long story:
For most of the time, the QEMU project is (IMHO) a rather peaceful project,
but in some rare times it happens that people disagree and start to use
inappropriate wording in their communication. Sometimes this also happened
with maintainers, too, who should normally set a good example for the
community. We're all humans, and most of the time we're able to quickly
settle such situations on our own (e.g. by reflecting the situation and
providing an appropriate apology if necessary), but sometimes there are also
situations that need additional handling. For this, the QEMU project
introduced a Code of Conduct and a conflict resolution policy:
https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/devel/code-of-conduct.html
https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/devel/conflict-resolution.html
The conflict resolution policy suggests to contact the QEMU leadership
committee in case of problems that you can't solve easily on your own. But
since the people from the leadership committee are often very busy with
other stuff, there were some situations where this has not worked very well
(see also:
https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/cafeaca_rzibuswgj9cg9m1ps5png58eyim+_p9hmu5nf7g7...@mail.gmail.com/
).
Because of this, at QEMU Summit we decided to introduce a separate team
who's willing to help with handling code of conduct issues. This covers
mediation between parties, and if needed escalations to the remedies that
are described in the conflict resolution policy. I'm sending out this call
because I'd be interested in helping and being part of the team.
The team members will be listed as primary contact persons in the conflict
resolution document (instead of pointing the reporter to the leadership
committee), and should be ready to help with incidents in time (meaning that
they should e.g. respond timely during their normal working hours).
They will receive incident reports and try to mediate between the parties.
In case of severe or unmanageable misbehavior where further remedies are
necessary, the mediation team leadership will collaborate with the project
leadership team (to see what needs to be done according to the conflict
resolution document).
So if you like the QEMU community and want to help in keeping it a pleasant
place for everybody, please consider joining the team! It would also be
especially great to have people from different time zones and different
groups in the team, so please don't be shy if you've got a little bit of
interest in this topic! And in case you've got some questions first, please
also feel free to contact me, either on-list here or also off-list.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you,
Thomas
