Discussing potential adjustments to the code of conduct.

[smoothdeveloper]

Hello, this issue is for me to propose adjustments to the code of conduct of dotnet foundation.

I’ll start by saying my opinion that code of conducts can’t solve issues stemming from intolerance, they provide a tool / a framework to deal with situations where it is necessary, but their effectiveness in removing the cause of intolerance is not established.

Solving intolerance requires space for civil exchange, and opposing views not being suppressed or dissed.

Also, when issues are severe, a code of conduct can’t be a substitute to actual law and its enforcements, in that context, for activists looking to further their particular cause, it is on the legislation in respective nations that focus should be put.

I’ll state the main issues I have with our current code of conducts:

permanent ban

I’m from a country where death penalty was removed, I personally oppose to death penalty (sorry for bringing personal political views to explain the case), evicting a person from a community, in permanent fashion may cause significant harm to the person, and is akin to a death penalty.

If things are that drastic, it is for law to be put in use for remediation, not code of conduct.

There should always be a path, however thinning, allowing a community member which incurred issues to reintegrate it, and for the community to do it’s best to smoothen that, which helps the offender on a journey to adjust own behaviour, and restore what makes a community binds.

I suggest the idea of permanent ban to be plainly removed.

pledge

I’d prefer pledge to be expressed on abstracts and fundamental terms around tolerance and freedom, without giving specific issues that are varying with time, morals, locations, etc.

If this doesn’t meet adhesion, then, there is an extra cost, which I describe below:

I’ve encountered circumstance where people engage on topics listed in the pledge, and discussion be totally curtailed because it stirs people to share their personal views (which is healthy in the right context).

Curtailing those discussions is detrimental if the pledge itself bring the issues to awareness, I believe the intent is to reduce intolerance, and for this, people need to face opposing views, in a constructive context.

If for reasons specific to dotnet foundation, the detailed list would stand, because of our community taking a stand in raising awareness on those, then a space for discussion which accepts opposing views being exchanged in civil manner, needs to be provided in the community.

This will solve intolerant views remaining static, and it will solve people being intolerant to people having intolerant opinions (even if kept outside of the community) to remain with their issues hindering their own ability to collaborate with anyone disregarding personal views.

This is, in my book, the best way for people to work on overcoming intolerance in others, and intolerance to soften, by having discussion and mediation space, and / or, by working on ourselves to overcome opposing views even existing.

If the list stands, am I able to propose additions to it? Who has the hand on deciding the sort order of the issues?

enforcement

In order to provide transparency, and also help give a sense of the type of issues encountered in specific communities, as to better address them, and share the experience across communities when facing similar issues, I propose that the actual enforcement incurs the decision to be put in a public record.

This public record shouldn’t expose any personal details, but highlight the key points of the issue which occured, how the decision for the actual measure was taken.

Possibly, people who put the decision should also probably put their name and the vote they given (for, against, abstain), to stand for the decision.

The record should only list the (temporary) bans.

I don’t have the edits to propose, I’m seeking to initiate the discussion on those suggestions and let the rest take natural course.

[ReedCopsey]

evicting a person from a community, in permanent fashion may cause significant harm to the person, and is akin to a death penalty.

And here I strongly disagree. Conflating death with removing somebody from a specific community, after deliberation and with reasonable cause, is frankly ridiculous.

As somebody who has, unfortunately, been involved in actively organizing various online communities over the years, permanent bans are typically a very last resort, and only used in extreme circumstances. At the point where they are typically considered, IMO they're warranted.

Allowing people who have done significant harm to a community the opportunity to return can be extremely detrimental as well ... the feeling of safety of the people who did not do wrong is also important.

[natalie-o-perret]

@smoothdeveloper

evicting a person from a community, in permanent fashion may cause significant harm to the person, and is akin to a death penalty.

And here I strongly disagree. Conflating death with removing somebody from a specific community, after deliberation and with reasonable cause, is frankly ridiculous.

As somebody who has, unfortunately, been involved in actively organizing various online communities over the years, permanent bans are typically a very last resort, and only used in extreme circumstances. At the point where they are typically considered, IMO they're warranted.

Allowing people who have done significant harm to a community the opportunity to return can be extremely detrimental as well ... the feeling of safety of the people who did not do wrong is also important.

@ReedCopsey

Allowing people who have done significant harm to a community the opportunity to return can be extremely detrimental as well ... the feeling of safety of the people who did not do wrong is also important.

If I'm getting this right, the point of @smoothdeveloper is not to say it's exactly the same as death penalty per se. The point is (well I suspect, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but "akin" is a rather vague term) that people can change over time, whether they've done significant harm or not.

As someone who has experienced and suffered a lot in her life (i.e. I'm talking about harassments, assaults, identity theft and more), it definitely left me with "some" trauma (i.e. understatement). And yes, it took me years to recover and it does leave scars. That being said (and afaik, this is not the Stockholm syndrome speaking here), aggressors, gaslighters, and others who have done horrible things have very likely done those very things because they had underlying issues or conditions on which they might not even have any control whatsoever during some given period(s) of their life.

I think there is a middle-ground, i.e. what about then a significant amount of time (especially in the oss world) then 5y, 10y, 15y or 20y? Sounds like forever-enough in the OSS world while being fair when it comes to principles (i.e. you don't really know what trigger bad behaviours, so I guess there is a principle of charity or at least the benefit of the doubt that can apply here. I don't expect people to agree with this premise here, but whenever I see this sort of issues, I try to not jump to conclusions and give it some time, but I could be wrong).

You could even add this clause" if bad behaviours happen to be observed again, then the ban becomes permanent"

There is a quote of J.R.R. Tolkien

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.

Again it's not to so much about life or death, but just to illustrate the point that hasty (not saying they are but when we don't really have a full picture of who actually oppressors are, it's hard to really tell why people certain folks behave badly at a given point in time) and permanent decisions might be just as bad in terms of values. What the community is trying to convey and the ones you would like to fight against.

EDIT: I originally said "destructive" but in retrospect, it was pretty bad choice of words. Not being able to take part of a community clearly not as destructive as what oppressors may have done.

Also sorry if I'm being seen as a naive "do-gooder" of some sort, just wanted to give what I think is a more balanced and hopefully more nuanced vision of the things.

One last thing, and just in case, to set the record straight, I'm not making excuses for bad behaviours.

[smoothdeveloper]

@ReedCopsey

And here I strongly disagree. Conflating death with removing somebody from a specific community, after deliberation and with reasonable cause, is frankly ridiculous.

This is reading my word and taking it to the first degree only, so of course, it is a bit reductive. I think @mary-perret-1986 got the crux and provides interesting focus on "akin", so "something similar", and not "same".

It was meant with a tinge of allegory, but I've gotten the same feedback as yours from an influential source in private communication.

Taking only first degree only, also, makes it hard for people to come to understand intents.

On that end, I very much liked the last paragraph of this code of conduct:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141109123859/http://speakup.io/coc.html

When we disagree, we try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time and Speak Up! is no exception. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Remember that we're different. (...)

is frankly ridiculous.

I think it is apparent I'm not scared of that, ridicule is not threatening 🙂, we say it doesn't kill in my country to kids, they ear it from very young age.

Also, as a coder, there is place for refactoring, and @mary-perret-1986 proposes

if bad behaviours happen to be observed again, then the ban becomes permanent

With this, we could save readership a bit of time when they acknowledge the document setting the vibe in the community, we could remove "permanent ban section".

For the record of bans, I figured it would expose to risks around background search for personal views, so there is more work on my end to see if there is a better way, I think having a grasp of issues faced in the community would help contributing enhancements to the document and more importantly, the community to deal with similar occurrences before they escalate.

Right now, only the community leaders have that information, if this is even tracked, and also, the power or mean of enforcement may be abused in certain cases.

You can read about this type of issue in http://paul-m-jones.com/post/2016/01/19/on-the-proposed-php-code-of-conduct/ but it is long read to get full context.

It shows that even people having full cognition of code of conduct can have a bit of misjudgement in how enforcement takes place.

So I'll retract the idea of record for now.

For the pledge, @ReedCopsey , @mary-perret-1986 do you have an opinion on making it more abstract?

It is quite a long read, and I don't see political opinions being even listed as falling under the protection of the code of conduct, which seems like an important omission (hence my questions in the issue).

As I explained in the issue itself, I'd prefer a more abstract and short description about all the various factors of discrimination our society brews, this would cut short that part of the discussion, and be more resilient for new factors of discrimination taking ground in society and having impact on the community.

Thanks for your valuable feedback.