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

Wed Dec 12 11:54:47 PST 2018

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
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Discuss mailing list
> >> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >>
> >
>
>
>
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