Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Matthias Urlichs]

Hi Solveig,

> I think if you do something, do it right. Lots of feminists, who work on
> these questions since years, collectively, and are concerned by the
> problem, have documented not only *why* have a CoC, but also *how* - not
> following their advice is silly and wrong.

IMHO you are conflagrating two distinct reasons why people want, or need, a CoC.

One is for armchair lawyers. If Mr.Insensitive is at a conference and has
bought a ticket, you need a list of Bad Things he has agreed not to do as a
condition for attendance; if you don't, you basically have no cause if you
need to ban him, as long as he is not disruptifve to the assembly at large. 
"Be nice" will not work for these guys, as they're bound to think that all
they've been doing is to nicely compliment a woman about her boobs - and
what can possibly wrong with that?  :-/

The other is for online communities where participation is a privilege, not
a right. If the Debian mailing list admin kicks Mr.I off the list for being
a dick, he can fork Debian -- and that's it. The CoC's goal is to tell
people not that they're bad, but to get them to consider for themselves
how they can be better -- so that any harrassment or crude jokes or what-
ever don't even enter the picture. Ideally.

> So, what's their advice, and what's missing?
> 
Umm, no. Ubuntu's CoC worked very well when it was written (specifically
because of the absymal mode of "discussion" on our mailing lists at the
time) and it did not enumerate bad behavior either.

> There should be a way to report abusive or inadequate behaviour without
> starting a quest to find somebody interested, maybe have
> cond...@debian.org where people can redirect you to the right place AND
> keep trace, so that inadequate behaviour cannot continue on a different
> forum. Or maybe see if https://wiki.debian.org/AntiHarassment can be
> extended?
> 
That's a good suggestion.

> In general, this Code of Conduct seems to be more afraid to bruise
> offender's ego than to assure contributor's well-being.

I don't read it that way, frankly.

This CoC doesn't talk to the offenders. They won't listen anyway.
This CoC asks the rest of us to be more mindful so that we don't become,
or support (if only by inaction), offenders.

-- 
-- Matthias Urlichs


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Raphael Hertzog]

Hi Solveig,

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014, Solveig wrote:
> I can write specific amendments, if somebody is willing to sponsor them :)

Please do. I tend to agree with what Steve said. It doesn't hurt to have a
list of "don't" but this should not replace the "inspirational" part of the
CoC.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer

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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Wouter Verhelst]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 08:47:43AM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> Hi Solveig,
> 
> On Mon, 24 Mar 2014, Solveig wrote:
> > I can write specific amendments, if somebody is willing to sponsor them :)
> 
> Please do. I tend to agree with what Steve said. It doesn't hurt to have a
> list of "don't" 

Actually it does.

The danger of having a list of "do not"s is that people will do
something which is not on the list, and then point to it and say "see,
it's allowed by the code of conduct" when pointed out that they're being
a dick.

The proposed code of conduct is not meant to be a law text; it is not
meant to be all-encompassing. It is meant to show people what the right
way to move forward is, and it tries to do so in a positive sense. This
is after some discussion at debconf; my initial draft was phrased much
more negatively. The point is that we're aiming this towards the
contributors that we want to keep (to prevent them from straying from
the path, or from unknowingly misbehaving), not towards those that we
don't want on our mailinglists.

Debian's listmasters already kick people off our mailinglists if they
misbehave, with or without this code of conduct. I think that's a good
thing, and we should keep that; in fact, the proposed text explicitly
empowers them to continue doing so. It is not very detailed on the
specifics, but that's a feature, not a bug.

In addition, a list of "do not"s will make people assume that the
project is in a worse state than it actually is. To paraphrase one
participant of the CoC BoF during debconf, when the draft CoC was still
somewhat negative: "I get the feeling, if I read this code of conduct,
that Debian is a very problematic community with lots of problems."

I don't want our code of conduct to produce that feeling.

Instead, the goal of my proposed CoC is that medium administrators
(listmasters, IRC ops, ...) will interprete and enforce it within their
own interpretation, and that people who misbehave will simply be removed
from our lists (after due warnings, and with full review from the rest
of the project, but without a big and complicated procedure and/or many
avenues for trolls to use up the project's limited resources through
appeal procedures).

-- 
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If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
will not go to space today.

  -- http://xkcd.com/1133/


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Raphael Hertzog]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> The danger of having a list of "do not"s is that people will do
> something which is not on the list, and then point to it and say "see,
> it's allowed by the code of conduct" when pointed out that they're being
> a dick.

It's quite common to have an short introductory paragraph saying something
along “this list is not exhaustive and is not meant to be, it's just there
to avoid any discussion should any of those important misbehaviour arise.
For other cases, apply the above guidelines using your best judgment.”

Obviously, I would want such a list to be more like an appendix than the
main meat of the CoC.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer

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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Matthias Urlichs]

Hi,

Raphael Hertzog:
> Please do. I tend to agree with what Steve said. It doesn't hurt to have a
> list of "don't" but this should not replace the "inspirational" part of the
> CoC.
> 
It should also state that the list of "don't"s is not exhaustive,
and anybody who argues that their behavior should be allowed because
it's not on the list should get double penalty, just for playing
armchair lawyer. :-P

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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[enrico]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 09:25:37AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:

> The proposed code of conduct is not meant to be a law text; it is not
> meant to be all-encompassing. It is meant to show people what the right
> way to move forward is, and it tries to do so in a positive sense. This
> is after some discussion at debconf; my initial draft was phrased much
> more negatively. The point is that we're aiming this towards the
> contributors that we want to keep (to prevent them from straying from
> the path, or from unknowingly misbehaving), not towards those that we
> don't want on our mailinglists.

I agree 100%: if I end up having an unconstructive behaviour, I'm in
such a state of mind that I won't check on a list to see if it's
something I'm not supposed to do. Discouragement and enforcement is not
a use case where I think a negative list can help.

Solveig's email made me think of a different use case, though: telling
those we want to keep, but who are new on our mailing list, what they
can expect. Something along the lines of:

  "Things like these are not supposed to happen to you. If they do, it's
  a bug, please report it to .
  
  If something happened that made you uncomfortable and you don't see it
  in this list and are unsure it's a bug, you can ask  in full
  confidentiality."

I have found it useful, in other kinds of communities, to see content
along those lines and ajdust my cautiousness and defensiveness
accordingly.

That use case is something that I think now is addressed by close
friends who are already in Debian and can provide support and take
action. We may currently be leaving out those who do not already have
close peers who are already well settled in Debian.


Ciao,

Enrico

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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Mark Brown]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 09:25:37AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:

> In addition, a list of "do not"s will make people assume that the
> project is in a worse state than it actually is. To paraphrase one
> participant of the CoC BoF during debconf, when the draft CoC was still
> somewhat negative: "I get the feeling, if I read this code of conduct,
> that Debian is a very problematic community with lots of problems."

> I don't want our code of conduct to produce that feeling.

There's been a very strong and quite successful push recently to
convince organisations to adopt codes of conduct so at this point the
usual suggestion for people worrying about it being a sign of problems
is to point people at the list of other organisations doing the same
thing.

The usual reasoning for explicitly enumerating things is the thing
Solveig mentioned about people being (or professing to be) too inept to
realise what appropriate behaviour is.  Personally I do tend to share
some of the concerns about rules lawyering and evasion with that but
it's a reasonable view and I suspect you don't win either way.


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Russ Allbery]

Mark Brown  writes:

> The usual reasoning for explicitly enumerating things is the thing
> Solveig mentioned about people being (or professing to be) too inept to
> realise what appropriate behaviour is.  Personally I do tend to share
> some of the concerns about rules lawyering and evasion with that but
> it's a reasonable view and I suspect you don't win either way.

The other advantage of explicitly listing as unacceptable behavior some
common behaviors, like sexual jokes, is that it sends an up-front message
to people who are not yet part of the community that certain behaviors
aren't acceptable, thus discouraging those who enjoy those behaviors from
joining in the first place.  Other organizations appear to have found this
more successful than a "positive" CoC, which the same people seem to be
more likely to ignore until they violate it.

Most of this experience is with conferences, which have a much different
dynamic than mailing lists, so it may or may not carry over.  But what
people are seeing with conferences is that the people who get very upset
about their "freedom of speech" will get all upset and angry at a CoC that
explicitly lists unacceptable behavior and then "boycott" the conference,
which is the ideal outcome all around.

I don't have any strong personal opinions about this, but that's partly
because I'm also not one of the people who is likely to be the target of
any serious harassment.  My inclination is to weigh more heavily the CoC
experiences of people who *are* frequent targets of harassment than those
of us who are already happily participating in the project and have rarely
been on the receiving end of problems.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Wouter Verhelst]

Hi Solveig,

[I didn't have a lot of time this morning, so I could only fire off a
quick mail down the thread. This mail does deserve a more in-depth
answer, however, so here goes]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 02:31:54AM +, Solveig wrote:
[...]
> I think if you do something, do it right. Lots of feminists, who work on
> these questions since years, collectively, and are concerned by the
> problem, have documented not only *why* have a CoC, but also *how* - not
> following their advice is silly and wrong.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here

I'm sorry, but that characterisation is wrong. I did not pull the
proposed Code of Conduct out of thin air; while I did write the text
from scratch, I have looked at, and drawn inspriation from, a number of
CoCs before drafting it. This included the codes from Ubuntu, KDE, and
GNOME, to name a few, but there were more (I don't recall all of them,
but I mention a few more in the video of the bof at debconf).

I don't think it's fair to call it "not invented here" when most of my
inspiration comes from other, existing, codes of conduct.

> So, what's their advice, and what's missing? Please read the whole of
> these pages:
> http://adainitiative.org/2014/02/howto-design-a-code-of-conduct-for-your-community/

I have read that, and I disagree with it, as I've explained in
<20140321094129.ga24...@grep.be> (and elsewhere in this thread).

> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Code_of_conduct

That doesn't have much content beyond a table of codes of conduct of
several communities, and a note for each on how well they do on the
three points you list below.

Out of fourteen in that table, one (the Django CoC) scores "yes" on all
three, one (the Rust CoC) scores "yes" on two out of the three, and one
(the Drupal one) scores one "yes". Everything else is a "no" or a
"Some".

You're not going to convince me that what you propose is the best way to
do something when, according to your own argument, almost everyone else
does it differently.

> 1 * List specific common behaviors that are not okay
> 2 * Include detailed directions for reporting violations
> 3 * Have a defined and documented complaint handling process
> 
> The proposed CoC doesn't list specific behaviours,

That's correct, since I'm not convinced that such a list is useful
(quite the contrary, in fact)

> has no clear way to report violations and there is no sanction planned
> (or no way to have it happen). This thing only says "be nice" (or
> "don't be a dick").

This is not correct. There is a whole section "in case of problems"
dedicated to what to do when things don't go the way we want them to.

Your suggestion of a conduct@ address does have some merit, and I'd be
inclined to agree that something like that could be a good thing to
include. Beyond that, I don't think the code of conduct needs to be
specific on what will happen when someone goes astray; those are
procedures that do not belong in a CoC.

> http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wheatons-law
> Saying "be nice"? Cute, but doesn't work, and it even helps harassers
> going away with stuff.

My proposed code of conduct is not an anti-harassment policy, nor does
it try to be. Rather than enumerating badness[1], it tries to point out
the kind of behaviour that we want to see in our community. Rather than
telling people "You're welcome to do anything on our communication
media, as long as it's not one of ", it tries to empower
people through being positive, which I believe (as did several people
during the BoF with me) is a better way to convince people of the merits
of a CoC.

For the avoidance of doubt: that's not to say I think harassment is okay
(it is not), nor that an anti-harassment policy is necessarily wrong (it
may be a good idea to pursue this, although I don't think I'm the right
person to do so). But the goal of a code of conduct, in my eyes, should
not be to discourage bad behaviour; instead, a code of conduct should
encourage good behaviour. A list of "don't"s doesn't do that; worse, it
may actively detract from "do"s in the same document.

[1] http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/

[...]
> Since *lots* of people don't see what's bad with sexist jokes, or asking
> for body mensurations, or stalking you and publish your personal data,
> it does make sense to list what's inappropriate. It won't be complete,
> but if it catches 90% of bad behaviours, it's 90% we won't have to argue
> about. Also, with exemples, it's easier to see if a given situation is
> similar to those listed.

Yes, but it makes it much harder for the 10% when it isn't.

To quote from your example: it's easy to say that stalking, or sexist
jokes, or publishing personal data, is not being respectful towards
other people. If someone behaves like that on our lists, it will be well
within listmasters' prerogative to take action (as they already do
today).

However, if you add a list that contains the first two in this example
but not the third, then

Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Russ Allbery]

In general, I understand where Wouter is coming from, and the points that
Steve made about inspiring people to behave better in public.  However,
this one paragraph really lept out at me.

Wouter Verhelst  writes:

> This Code of Conduct is afraid to scare away potential contributors; so
> a lot of effort has been put into making this a positive, welcoming Code
> of Conduct rather than a negative, scary one.

I think this is a mistake.

The experiences of other groups have mostly convinced me that the point of
a Code of Conduct should be to scare away potential contributors who
cannot or are unwilling to behave according to the standards that we
expect of our community, and to reassure the people who would be injured
by violations of those standards that we're serious about declaring those
people unwelcome in our project.  Not welcoming them and attempting to
quietly encourage them to become better people (which doesn't work).

I feel like, from these responses, people are focusing on writing a Code
of Conduct with an aspirational goal of welcoming everyone and then
encouraging them to all be nice to each other.  It would be lovely if this
worked, but the experiences, time and again, of many different on-line
communities, is that it doesn't.

If you want a diverse and welcoming atmosphere, particularly for people
who aren't interested in aggressive communication patterns or who are
historically excluded, you have to not welcome the people who make the
environment hostile and uncomfortable for the people you want to attract.
It's not exactly a zero-sum game, but it is a choice.  You can choose to
attract one type of project participant or the other, but not both at the
same time.

I think the Code of Conduct presents an opportunity for us to be clear
about what type of project participant we're interested in, and what type
of project participant we're not interested in, and that we shouldn't be
afraid to be a bit confrontational here.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Mark Brown]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 08:43:06PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 02:31:54AM +, Solveig wrote:

> > 2. "Complaints should be made (in private) to the administrators of the
> > forum in question. To find contact information for these administrators,
> > please see [the page on Debian's organizational
> > structure](http://www.debian.org/intro/organization)"

...

> > Also, why "(in private)"? People who are not confortable to report in
> > public will do it in private, but shouldn't *have to* be discreet about
> > other's misbehaviour.

> The "in private" part is only about talking to administrators; it is my
> experience that saying "I think you're out of line here", with an
> explicit Cc to listmasters is often a fairly inflammatory way of doing
> things.

If I remember correctly there were also concerns about administrators
being directly included on public reports causing the reports to for
example get large mailing list flamewars sent directly to the listmaster
contact address which would be disruptive to the process of acting on
complaints.


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Wouter Verhelst]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 01:43:18PM +0100, enr...@enricozini.org wrote:
[...]
> Solveig's email made me think of a different use case, though: telling
> those we want to keep, but who are new on our mailing list, what they
> can expect. Something along the lines of:
> 
>   "Things like these are not supposed to happen to you. If they do, it's
>   a bug, please report it to .

I think it's difficult to word that in a way which will not also have
the negative consequences that I'm afraid of. You're welcome to try, of
course ;-)

>   If something happened that made you uncomfortable and you don't see it
>   in this list and are unsure it's a bug, you can ask  in full
>   confidentiality."

This seems sensible, regardless of whether the CoC has a list.

If we do indeed end up with a conduct@ address, I suppose that could be
a good place to point people to in this context.

-- 
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space.

If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
will not go to space today.

  -- http://xkcd.com/1133/


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Wouter Verhelst]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 06:09:25PM +, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 09:25:37AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> 
> > In addition, a list of "do not"s will make people assume that the
> > project is in a worse state than it actually is. To paraphrase one
> > participant of the CoC BoF during debconf, when the draft CoC was still
> > somewhat negative: "I get the feeling, if I read this code of conduct,
> > that Debian is a very problematic community with lots of problems."
> 
> > I don't want our code of conduct to produce that feeling.
> 
> There's been a very strong and quite successful push recently to
> convince organisations to adopt codes of conduct so at this point the
> usual suggestion for people worrying about it being a sign of problems
> is to point people at the list of other organisations doing the same
> thing.

There is indeed a large group of organisations having a code of conduct.
However, the list of organizations with a code of conduct with such a
list is short. So this argument doesn't really hold, IMO.

> The usual reasoning for explicitly enumerating things is the thing
> Solveig mentioned about people being (or professing to be) too inept to
> realise what appropriate behaviour is.  Personally I do tend to share
> some of the concerns about rules lawyering and evasion with that but
> it's a reasonable view and I suspect you don't win either way.

I could see how a separate document, with an explicit list of "do not"s,
could usefully be linked from the "further reading" section.

I think we should not make such a list authoritative.

-- 
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space.

If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
will not go to space today.

  -- http://xkcd.com/1133/


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Ean Schuessler]

- "Russ Allbery"  wrote:

> I think this is a mistake.
> 
> The experiences of other groups have mostly convinced me that the
> point of
> a Code of Conduct should be to scare away potential contributors who
> cannot or are unwilling to behave according to the standards that we
> expect of our community, and to reassure the people who would be
> injured
> by violations of those standards that we're serious about declaring
> those
> people unwelcome in our project.  Not welcoming them and attempting
> to
> quietly encourage them to become better people (which doesn't work).

I agree with Russ. I also think that specificity avoids a perception 
of people who run astray of the CoC to claim that they have been 
targeted by "The Cabal". The legend that there is a secret inner core 
of Debian members that controls things and plays favorites is almost 
as long-running as Debian's reputation for being inhospitable 
and unfriendly. I don't think its a perception that we want to
encourage.

Would it be possible for us to give a rich set of examples while,
at the same time, stating clearly that they constitute a 
guideline and that final decisions are left to the listmasters? If
it does turn out, eventually, we have someone in a position of 
authority who is repeatedly arbitrary then these examples would
help speak to them about how they should conduct themselves.


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Wouter Verhelst]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 01:19:11PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> In general, I understand where Wouter is coming from, and the points that
> Steve made about inspiring people to behave better in public.  However,
> this one paragraph really lept out at me.
> 
> Wouter Verhelst  writes:
> 
> > This Code of Conduct is afraid to scare away potential contributors; so
> > a lot of effort has been put into making this a positive, welcoming Code
> > of Conduct rather than a negative, scary one.
> 
> I think this is a mistake.
> 
> The experiences of other groups have mostly convinced me that the point of
> a Code of Conduct should be to scare away potential contributors who
> cannot or are unwilling to behave according to the standards that we
> expect of our community, and to reassure the people who would be injured
> by violations of those standards that we're serious about declaring those
> people unwelcome in our project.  Not welcoming them and attempting to
> quietly encourage them to become better people (which doesn't work).

Indeed.

Perhaps I should clarify that, personally, I don't see someone who is
prone to aggressive and abusive behaviour as a "potential contributor"
in the above-quoted paragraph, and I don't think the project should,
either. I think that people who have no respect for their peers,
regardless of their technical abilities, should have no place in our
community.

[...]
> If you want a diverse and welcoming atmosphere, particularly for people
> who aren't interested in aggressive communication patterns or who are
> historically excluded, you have to not welcome the people who make the
> environment hostile and uncomfortable for the people you want to attract.

This is absolutely true. However, I don't think you can do that through
a code of conduct; people who are abusive and aggressive tend to have
little consideration for other people's words. Instead, you should gear
your *actions* (in this case bans, whether temporary or permanent in
nature; law enforcement if thing get *really* serious) towards making
the environment not welcome for such people. The proposed code tries to
institutionalize and further encourage what is effectively already
happening.

Put otherwise, a code of conduct should be geared towards who will read
and heed it, not towards who will blatantly violate it, even in the face
of requests to stop doing so.

> It's not exactly a zero-sum game, but it is a choice.  You can choose to
> attract one type of project participant or the other, but not both at the
> same time.
> 
> I think the Code of Conduct presents an opportunity for us to be clear
> about what type of project participant we're interested in, and what type
> of project participant we're not interested in, and that we shouldn't be
> afraid to be a bit confrontational here.

I think the current text does attempt to be clear about what we're
interested in. Having a list of things that we want to see implies
people can infer what we're not interested in, even if it's not
explicit.

I don't think being confrontational is very helpful in this kind of
document.

-- 
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space.

If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
will not go to space today.

  -- http://xkcd.com/1133/


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Re: The Code of Conduct needs specifics

[Mark Brown]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 09:35:19PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 06:09:25PM +, Mark Brown wrote:

> > The usual reasoning for explicitly enumerating things is the thing
> > Solveig mentioned about people being (or professing to be) too inept to
> > realise what appropriate behaviour is.  Personally I do tend to share
> > some of the concerns about rules lawyering and evasion with that but
> > it's a reasonable view and I suspect you don't win either way.

> I could see how a separate document, with an explicit list of "do not"s,
> could usefully be linked from the "further reading" section.

> I think we should not make such a list authoritative.

I definitely agree that the list should at the very least be written to
have an "and anything else we find unacceptable" in it which is pretty
much the same thing I think.


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