[COC-discuss] [OSGeo-Discuss] Changes (and proposed changes) regarding the Code of Conduct

Wed Dec 12 13:05:06 PST 2018

María,
I agree 99% with your intent, 80% with your implementation suggestions, and
in responding, we are likely to focus on the 20% where we disagree. Please
don't see that as a reason to leave the CoC committee.
I don't want you to leave for many reasons, but I'll focus on my selfish
reason. I want you to stay because your ability to explain a problem I'm
grappling from a different perspective helps me become a better person, and
helps us collaboratively develop a better system. Hopefully you will feel
the same.

On Thu, 13 Dec 2018 at 06:55, María Arias de Reyna <delawen at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> You are right, let's continue on this list too.
>
> Let me explain my point of view.
>
> Removing the "assume good intention" is not "assuming people are guilty
> until proven innocent" or "perfect paranoia". It is just putting the
> intention aside when trying to solve a situation where someone feels
> unwelcome or attacked. Presumption of innocence will still be there, why
> not? But you can be innocent and good intented and still be harmful. What
> the CoC should focus on is on stopping the harmful action, no matter the
> intention.
>
> A CoC is not a legal system to punish illegal actions, it is a set of
> rules to improve interaction on the best friendlier way. So I am not sure
> if the comparison with a legal system applies here. As I see it, the CoC
> main goal is not to punish, but to try to mediate and make people
> understand how to interact on a better way, removing and fixing any
> possible harm done. And, of course, in case of serious harrasment,
> specially if it is continued, remove (temporarily?) someone from the
> community. But most of the incidents should be able to be fixed with a good
> mediation where both parts understand what harm has been done and actions
> are taken to prevent further damage.
>
> I also have examples of being unintentionally rude, from both sides.
> Whenever someone uses religious expressions like "bless you", I feel
> uncomfortable, even attacked depending on the circumstances. Due to literal
> translation from Spanish, sometimes my English sound rude to some cultures
> and some people may feel uncomfortable. Neither of those cases have bad
> intention, in fact, in both cases there is a good intention behind.
>
> But the intention is irrelevant here: what is important is that we should
> try to be friendly on different circunmstances. When someone feels
> unwelcomed, attacked, harrased, that should be fixed. Does it matter which
> was the original intention? Shouldn't we be able to say "hey, you are doing
> harm, stop doing it and let's see how to repair that harm" even if the
> action was done in good faith? Don't you want to know if you are hurting
> someone?
>
> I know you think this is only one case, but I have seen more inside this
> community. But, at the same time, I/we couldn't act because, again, it was
> an unintended harm. We could only act when it was obvious the intention was
> not friendly.
>
> And also, define "good intention". Someone may have a perfectly good
> intention when doing sexual advances on someone and that doesn't make that
> action acceptable if the other person doesn't want it.
>
> Having "common sense" and "assume good intention" rules are good for small
> communities, where everybody knows everyone. But we are no longer a small
> family. We are a huge family, with cousins we have never met all around the
> world. If we don't know each other personally, if we come from different
> environments and cultures, we can no longer trust that that will keep the
> community together. We need to be really open and understand that it is not
> an issue if the CoC approaches us and points at something we have done
> wrong. That's not bad! We are learning and improving on every step. Better
> to be pointed by the CoC and learn how to improve our behaviour than making
> someone feel uncomfortable and not knowing it.
>
> The thing is, this is an important bug on the CoC from my perspective. If
> we don't remove that from the CoC, I don't think I will be able to mediate
> properly on the incidents that may arise. The worst cases, those that are
> hidden behind beautiful words and smiles, will not be possible to solve and
> people will continue leaving the community. So if we can't push this I
> think I will just step down from the CoC and let others, that have some
> idea on how to deal with the "assume good intent", take that place. Because
> I will be just useless there, not able to protect those attacked. This is
> not me threating anything, this is me being plain about me not knowing how
> to apply a broken CoC on common incidents.
>
> Remember that this Contributor Covenant is not somethign we are making up
> on the fly, a lot of communities are adopting it[1] and improving it
> continuously. If it has this approach, it has a reason. There is experience
> behind backing this up.
>
> Hope this has quieted your worries,
> María.
>
> [1] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/adopters
>
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 11:09 AM Jonathan Moules <
> jonathan-lists at lightpear.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> I think the counterpoint to this is highlighting that most western
>> justice systems are based around intent (i.e. good-faith or bad-faith,
>> or "mens rea"). For example. the difference between murder and
>> homicide/manslaughter is solely intent and it is up to the system itself
>> to determine that intent.
>>
>> As the famous old quote goes:
>>
>> "Better that 10 guilty men go free than to convict a single innocent
>> man" - William Blackstone
>>
>> Personally I'm not a fan of the Covenant; it has big subjective
>> loopholes and components that be used to retroactively change the rules.
>>
>> @Maria - a concern with having this conversation on the CoC list is that
>> that's a self-selecting group and there's a non-zero chance it can end
>> up as an echo chamber. How many of the folks who have put forth an
>> opinion in this thread on /discuss are also on /CoC for instance?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Jonathan
>>
>>
>> On 2018-12-12 01:32, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
>> > Rather than guilty until proven innocent, I think the covenant
>> > proposes a neutral and evidence-based approach. Mandating good faith
>> > as a starting point unfortunately enables bullies who provoke a
>> > response and then hide behind "X can't take a joke" or other
>> > minimisation to further harm their victim. I have not seen this in
>> > OSGeo but I have seen it in several cases elsewhere and I hope we will
>> > all be sufficiently alert to prevent it. I think that a proportionate
>> > and sensitive response will encourage consideration of the feelings of
>> > others without harming our collegial atmosphere.
>> >
>> > As another cross-cultural example, several of our members have given
>> > names that are masculine in Italian but feminine in English, resulting
>> > in their occasional misgendering on mailing lists and pull requests.
>> > While I found this amusing and assumed that it was unintentional, I
>> > also knew that some might find such misgendering insulting or hurtful
>> > and in any case it was not a good precedent, so I took the time to
>> > gently point out the mistake in private (IIRC). In each case, the
>> > mistake was not repeated. We can all take little actions that
>> > contribute to a welcoming environment.
>> >
>> > Kind regards,
>> > Ben.
>> >
>> > On 11/12/2018 13:44, Jonathan Moules wrote:
>> >> Hi Maria,
>> >>
>> >> Just a thought, but I'm not sure getting rid of the assumption of
>> >> good faith is a good idea. To do so would be basically assuming
>> >> people are guilty until proven innocent which runs counter to how
>> >> these things should work.
>> >>
>> >> To use a personal anecdote, many years ago I had a black flatmate who
>> >> I was joking around with and I made a comment that it turns out is a
>> >> negative racial epithet. Being young and unworldly, I didn't know
>> >> that at the time and certainly didn't mean it in that context, it
>> >> also has a perfectly innocent context - the only one I'd ever been
>> >> exposed to - which is how I was using it.
>> >>
>> >> Now, reading your thebias.com link, I can see that the author there
>> >> would suggest I be pilloried for what was an honest mistake. They'd
>> >> say I was being "careless" or "ignorant" and stepping on their toes.
>> >> But I don't think either is fair because it's not reasonable to
>> >> expect people to know everything that could offend everyone,
>> >> especially somewhere as multicultural as the internet.
>> >>
>> >> For example, consider this symbol: 👍a simple thumbs-up emoticon
>> >> that's commonly used to signify "it's all good" and "thanks". Well,
>> >> it turns out that it's "an obscene insult" in some cultures! I didn't
>> >> know that until a few seconds ago when I went searching for a simple
>> >> example.
>> >>
>> >> I have learnt over the years from experiences in both directions that
>> >> it's best to always assume good faith if possible. Humans may be the
>> >> species with the most complex communication on the planet, but that
>> >> doesn't mean we don't fail often.
>> >>
>> >> @Ben - Thanks for sharing World Human Rights day. I'm a long time fan
>> >> of the UNDHR!
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> Jonathan
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 2018-12-09 12:49, María Arias de Reyna wrote:
>> >>> Dear OSGeo community,
>> >>>
>> >>> As you may already know, I have been working for the last months in
>> >>> improving our community procedures[1] to make it a safer space.
>> >>> Recent events in the community have shown that we have a lot of work
>> >>> ahead.
>> >>>
>> >>> We all, as OSGeo, must remove the recent bullying and campaigning
>> >>> mentality that is unfortunately gradually become a part of our
>> >>> culture. Disclosing private data or hinting threats is not helpful
>> >>> and can only make our community less comfortable for everyone. We
>> >>> will work on improving actions on harmful behavior.
>> >>>
>> >>> This has been a slow task, but there are some actions taking place:
>> >>>
>> >>> CoC committee members have become inactive. I volunteered to pick up
>> >>> the task and lead a new CoC committee. Right now I am the only CoC
>> >>> member, but I am looking for more volunteers. If only, to make sure
>> >>> that if I am involved in any CoC incident, someone else can take
>> >>> care of it properly as mediator.
>> >>>
>> >>> I want to change also the way incidents and violations of the CoC
>> >>> are reported. I noticed there are reports being done on person and
>> >>> on private email, but never through the official channels (which
>> >>> right now is a mailing list).To improve this, I will ask the SAC to
>> >>> replace the mailing list with an alias and a form on the website.
>> >>> Also, there will be a public list of who receives those emails so
>> >>> people reporting incidents will have a clear understanding of who is
>> >>> receiving the information and decide to contact privately only a
>> >>> subset of the team. Replacing the mailing list by an alias that
>> >>> sends the data directly to the inbox of the CoC team is important,
>> >>> as sometimes incidents are not reported just because the person
>> >>> reporting is scared to leave a trace of the report or is not sure
>> >>> who will be reading the report.
>> >>>
>> >>> Another action I am going to propose is a change on the CoC itself.
>> >>> Our community has grown a lot both in diversity and in numbers, and
>> >>> we need a strict code of conduct that makes sure marginalized or
>> >>> harrased people is always covered by it. We can't rely anymore on
>> >>> just common sense and good faith.
>> >>>
>> >>> Once the new board is settled, I am going to propose to change the
>> >>> current CoC for another like the Contributor Covenant[2]. As it is a
>> >>> CoC shared by many communities, this has the advantage of receiving
>> >>> the upgrades and experience from other communities. As you can see,
>> >>> it fixes some of the bugs from our CoC, like the assuming good
>> >>> intent and good faith[3] part that made the current CoC useless on
>> >>> most cases. I will propose to add some foreword to adapt to
>> >>> specifities for our community, but in my opinion, the latest version
>> >>> of the Contributor Covenant is easy to read, simple, and cover most
>> >>> of what we need. My hope is that this new CoC can be adapted to all
>> >>> OSGeo Projects and Events that don't already have a CoC, so we have
>> >>> full OSGeo universe covered by default.
>> >>>
>> >>> I hope this actions will prove useful in the medium term and we
>> >>> don't have to see more members leaving the community. We should
>> >>> remember to be empathic and kind. We are all seeking the same goals
>> >>> and we should encourage cooperation, not hinder each other. I know
>> >>> that developer communities are very used to these bad behaviours,
>> >>> but I'm confident we can grow better.
>> >>>
>> >>> Have a nice day!
>> >>> María.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> [1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2018-August/011640.html
>> >>> [2] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/
>> >>> [3]
>> >>>
>> https://thebias.com/2017/09/26/how-good-intent-undermines-diversity-and-inclusion/
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> Discuss mailing list
>> >>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
>> >>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
>> >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
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>
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-- 
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant

M +61 (0) 419 142 254
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