Code of Conduct

@boofy that question came up, but it was decided that we need a separate policy for federation rather than trying to include it in the code of conduct for our members. So, look for upcoming convos on that topic in the Community WG.

That's good to know and was a question of mine. Thanks!

I was part of the working group but couldn't find a draft to comment on it at all before it was apparently approved. The process for participation if you couldn't be on the calls was really unclear, and as far as I can tell this draft was never actually submitted for any kind of discussion except during a call. At the very least, I never saw a link to an actual draft document before now.

Unfortunately, this has a LOT issues and I think it's going to need at least one more draft. The choice of "citizen code of conduct" as a base was somewhat inappropriate (it's relatively outdated, and a lot has been learned since it was drafted on what does and doesn't work for online CoCs, which don't really resemble ones for in-person events for what are mostly important reasons)

The reporting guidelines should really say something about confidentiality (like, whether, the reporters can expect any) and "create a thread in the community working group" is an exceptionally inappropriate way to handle potentially sensitive situations that can involve multiple people's personal information. It also says nothing about who will receive the reports, what will be done with them, when they can expect any response (if ever?) or when they might expect any action to be taken.

"Unwelcome sexual contact" being moved to a subset of harassment and only prohibited on repeat offenses is a red flag. It's also a red flag that much more space was devoted to the prohibition on product advertising than sexual harassment.

"Reconsideration" says to check the reporting guidelines for how they will be handled, but the reporting guidelines don't say anything about reconsideration, or describe the process initial complaints are handled by either.

"Not safe for work" is really unclear, this should explicitly say which things it covers (presumably sexually explicit content, nudity and violent imagery?).

There's more, but I'm trying to be somewhat brief here. I really wish the process for contributing to this had been clearer and at least some of it took place asynchronously -- requiring video calls for participation can be really alienating to marginalized people -- who are the people you really needed participating in this process.

I appreciate that this has been a long time in development, and that a lot of work went into this, but in my opinion this isn't ready for a vote.

Hey Melody,
A number of issues you raise definitely require more consideration, but a quick comment on the process that large parts of it did happen asynchronously. The most recent iteration was this check poll that closed eight days ago in the Community Working Group that called for comments to be left on the document, so there was a great deal of work contributed by many people that was integrated into the document in the synchronous work session that @emido @manuelabosch @mattnoyes @tomelliott @jakebeamish and I had this morning.

As to a number of the items you raise, this code of conduct is a starting point that requires the development of a bunch of different policies that will define the processes mentioned here. There is definitely still much work to be done, and my intention is that, once we have a CoC adopted, I will be redirecting energy towards the formation of the Ops Team that will tackle that next round of work.

So, my sense is that, having been run through the agreed-upon process, this is a starting point that can then be amended as we continue the next levels of work. Happy to discuss further...

Hi Melody. I couldn't make the call either but was able to leave some comments the draft. We should definitely look into how pre-propsal drafts are spread out there (maybe as a separate thread inside the Governance WG or Community WG) as it seemed like considerable effort to get contributions on the pre-prosasal draft was done but that you didn't see them is of concern.

You raise some valid points. The best thing to do from a process point of view may be to Vote BLOCK on the proposal which will raise the threshold for it to pass and allow for other members to consider their votes along with your concerns.

Possible that this could lead to an additional revision period for the proposal.

If not there the bulk of the policy/process work still has to be done for how the CoC is actually implemented that will be done by the Community WG which is open to all members to join.

Unfortunately, the issues with the reporting guidelines are critically serious. If there's not a well-developed process for handling reports, the code of conduct is actually worse than not having one. In order for the CoC to matter, it has to be enforceable, and the members need to trust the anti-abuse team. When nobody knows what that process is, whether reports will be confidential, who will be handling them, or what they can expect to happen if they do, that's impossible.

Nobody active in this space, who needs codes of conduct to participate in a group like this, will read this code of conduct and be comforted. Our reputation might already be sunk for people who care about this kind of thing by having gone so long without one, but taking over a year to develop one and then releasing one that misses really important details about what makes a code of conduct matter will be worse than taking longer to approve one.

If this goes forward as-is, I will have to vote to block, but I'm concerned that there weren't more obvious calls for participation and a clear link to the document being worked on (now that it's been pointed out, i can see it in the poll, but the tiny "here" link in the poll really should not have been the only link to the doc ever shared)

At work, so will try to respond further to the operational elements you've raised soon, but do want to point out process-wise that that check poll was a specific call to action to review the document in its title, that the document was linked in several additional polls as the process progressed (you may review the past decisions in the working group).

Additionally, I and several other folks tooted on the instance encouraging participation at multiple points in the process as it progressed (example), so, while there's always more to be done in terms of getting the word out, I stand by the outreach that was done to collect feedback as a good faith best effort.

Here is a very preliminary draft of reporting guidelines copied from Django's. Please feel free to edit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pZTXsGuWNTe5X6z_DytJZTbjOyJUT4HlvPPnfmbuPEw/edit