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

Tue Dec 11 02:10:50 PST 2018

Adding one more comment: Please, I implore you: Do not remove the 
assumption of good faith from OSGeo's principles!

"Assumption of good faith" and "Quietening down somebody" are totally 
different things. In her blog on thebias.com Annalee somewhat hastily 
mixes the two up when she says:

"The harm is that telling people to “assume good intent” is a sign that 
if they come to you with a concern, you will minimize their feelings, 
police their reactions, and question their perceptions."

OSGeo and any open and welcoming community cannot exist without 
assumption of good faith. The opposite to assuming good faith is perfect 
paranoia which is only destructive. It is also quite impossible to set 
up rules to regulate everything without suffocating. So let us talk and 
interact as best we can from all our gender, cultural and individual 
background. If it starts to get out of hand - and this will happen again 
- look at it closely, have concerned people on a functioning CoC and 
repair the damage.

Unfortunately I have not followed the issue which Sara Safawi indicated 
as her reason to want to leave OSGeo closely enough to be able to 
understand all the intricacies. But it actually did not feel good, even 
from a distance. Maybe a functioning CoC could have helped? People on a 
CoC have to take every complaint serious (reverse citing Annalee): Do 
not "minimize their feelings, police their reactions, and question their 
perceptions".

And lastly, sometimes it is also time to let things go. If Sara has no 
intention of picking this up again we may want to let it rest.

Thanks,

Seven

Am 11.12.18 um 02:09 schrieb Daniel Morissette:

> I agree with Jonathan here. I also have my own similar personal story 
> from ~20 years ago where I used a French expression as the opening 
> line in an email where all the rest was in English... and some of the 
> recipients (co-workers) could very rightly have been offended. 
> Actually some wondered if I might have been mad at them, but instead 
> of jumping the gun, they asked me directly, I explained the meaning of 
> the French expression and why I used it in this context, they 
> explained that there was a corresponding slang word... that day they 
> learned a new French expression and I learned a new word of English 
> slang. I was not being careless, I simply had no way to know at the 
> time that there was a corresponding English slang word that could have 
> been offending, because I am not a native English speaker.
>
> We all had a good laugh in the end, but if it was not for their 
> assumption of good faith this could have turned into a huge mess.
>
> I realize that not everybody will agree and I am not planning to enter 
> this CoC debate... I just wanted to relay an experience.
>
> Stepping out of this thread now.
>
> Daniel
>
>
>
> On 2018-12-10 7:44 p.m., 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
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>
>
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