Court of Public Opinion & Due Process

[andrewdeandrade]

Adding a section that explicitly requires both people reporting violations and people seeking redress to grievances to defer to the team members, allowing them to perform due diligence with respect to any violations reported.

[andrewdeandrade]

FWIW, (1) if someone feels a violation was not dealt with appropriately and a violator was not punished appropriately or (2) if someone seeking redress ibecause they believe they feel they were falsely or unfairly accused s not satisfied how the team members resolved the issue, then I am 100% fine with the person who is unsatisfied with the resolution going to the court of public opinion, so long as that public statement from them is a comment on the official statement given by the team members.

The Court of Public Opinion should first be exposed to the official findings of the team members overseeing any investigation to wrong doing. This can only reflect poorly on NodeJS and the Advisory group if they have in fact failed in the eyes of the Court of Public Opinion. Failure to provide satisfaction is a failure of the process, and when that happens the process needs to stand trial as well so that we can figure out what might how gone wrong and what corrective actions to take, possibly revising the Code of Conduct and the procedures for addressing violations.

[ghost]

@malandrew You are wanting to silence victims, in order to protect someone from a potential "false accusation".

[leobalter]

a "falsely accused" person is never exposed. Your PR assumes the advisory board will make a really bad work when solving a CoC problem, the Court of Public Opinion is terrible at this point as it doesn't solve your own pointed issue, but amend more process to it, in the cost of a victim being exposed.

:-1:

[andrewdeandrade]

@leobalter I don't assume they'll do a bad job. Quite the contrary, I think they can do a far better job then the court of public opinion. This addition is a vote of confidence that the team will do a good job handling violations, and that they can do a better job if they are free to investigate calmly without angry villagers involved. I'm also fine with anyone who commits a violation being exposed. I want the team to handle that any violations and determine what punishments are appropriate not thousands of people on twitter.

This doesn't amend more process, it requires people to adhere to the processes already outlined in the current CoC.

If a victim doesn't want to expose themselves, they are free to do so anonymously if they prefer.

Another great addition would be to have the team produce a yearly report detailing exactly how many violations occurred, the nature of the violation and how those violations were resolved.

BTW, you should really take the time to read the CoC. "falsely accused" was not my language, so I don't know why you're putting it in scare quotes. I took it from the section "Addressing Grievances" written by @othiym23 .

[leobalter]

I'm also fine with anyone who commits a violation being exposed.

You shouldn't, that's not a way to solve a problem.

If a victim doesn't want to expose themselves, they are free to do so anonymously if they prefer.

It's impossible to do that without exposing the victim to the harasser.

[andrewdeandrade]

You shouldn't, that's not a way to solve a problem.

I didn't say I was in favor of it either. This is actually pretty common in our justice system where people who are arrested and commit crimes, have their names printed in the newspaper and public in public databases. So long as there is due process and an appeals process so someone can seek redress, making things public isn't that bad. Anyways, I don't feel strongly about whether people should be exposed or not, so I'll let others decide what is appropriate here. All I can about is allowing the team to investigate without interference from the Court of Public Opinion. Mob justice helps no one.

[dunn]

:-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1: :-1:

@isaacs please close + lock before it gets out of control.

[andrewdeandrade]

@grumble Is there a way to review comments before they are published so we can actually discuss this civilly. I don't mind submitting my comments for moderation first. There is something valuable here. It just sucks that it's so difficult to discuss.

All I did was refer to two complementary sections that already exist in the code of conduct and state that those two processes only work if we let them work, and that not letting the processes be followed was tantamount to vigilantism.This really isn't such a controversial thing as it is being made out to be. Please read the PR and read the sections that already existed that the PR refers to.

I honestly don't care what happens after the team has had a chance to investigate, only that they have a chance to investigate first.

[ghost]

@malandrew You are wanting any person who might be the victim of sexual harassment to be silent and not say anything about it until a "statement" is released.

This does not make me feel safe. At. All.

[andrewdeandrade]

@trynity I don't know how the people will be on this team will be determined, but lets assume for a moment that people are chosen that you trust will handle violations properly and with utmost gravitas and that they genuinely want to create and environment that lets you feel safe. Assuming this is true, what is wrong with due process?

If you don't believe that we are going to have a solid team in place to investigate things, then that is another matter that needs to be addressed. How should this team be selected so that you feel comfortable letting them handle this first?

[ghost]

@malandrew You're basically assuming the world is fair and idealistic and everything will "just work".

ProTip: It isn't.

Second ProTip: Silencing Victims is never good.

[andrewdeandrade]

@trynity Again, what can we do to help make sure this process works. This isn't the World we're talking about here. We're not trying to fix the US Justice System. We're just trying to come up with a way so that we can reasonable self-govern ourselves. I'm not trying to silence victims. I'm trying to let the process works. Let's figure out what process will work and who we trust will be able to carry out that process in a good and just way that makes everyone feel comfortable.

At the end of the day, you do realize that the people who are the community leaders generally agree with everything you want and they want to make a safe place, so I don't see how this is some perverse environment with regulatory capture and other shenanigans that would lead you to not trust the process.

I have no idea who will be on this team but at the end of the day, I would assume that some of the people chosen to participate on this team would include such people as @rockbot @ceejbot @mikeal @isaacs @othiym23 etc. Are these people you really don't trust to carry out due process fairly?

[ghost]

At the end of the day, you do realize that the people who are the community leaders generally agree with everything you want and they want to make a safe place, so I don't see how this is some perverse > environment with regulatory capture and other shenanigans.

I don't even know what this is trying to say. This isn't sarcasm. I do not understand this.

I'm not trying to silence victims. I'm trying to let the process works.

Yet, you are wanting people to be silent. Your intent doesn't matter. You are wanting people to be silent, and have an unreasonable burden to prove what has happened to them, and then wait until an official statement has been released, and then only comment from that official statement.

[ahdinosaur]

:-1:

[andrewdeandrade]

Yet, you are wanting people to be silent.

No, I want people to take violations to the team responsible for enforcing the CoC and I want them to know all about any violations that occur. I want them to catalog them, investigate them, report on them. I want them to be given the chance to figure out what happen? Was someone genuinely acting in bad faith or was the violation a misunderstanding? If it was a misunderstanding, is it possible to come up with a win-win solution [0] where the victim is satisfied with the outcome and the person committing the violation has learned a valuable lesson and hopefully been transformed into an advocate? If the person acted in bad faith, how will that person be punished so that the victim is satisfied? This are all important questions and they are questions that the Court of Public Opinion is ill-equipped to answer. Once the team, a team you trust, has had the opportunity to perform due diligence then people can do whatever they want, I guess.

What's the point of even discussing the adoption of a Code of Conduct if you don't trust what is in it.

FWIW, here are the two sections written by @othiym23 to which I refer in my additions:

• Reporting Violations of this Code of Conduct
• Addressing Grievances

[0] I highly recommend the book The Art of Possibility by Rosamunde and Benjamin Zander, who together devote many pages to the value of win-win thinking

[isaacs]

-1, for a several reasons.

First, it is overreaching. I'm actually pretty happy with "just copy Rust's CoC", since it seems to be working well, and is similar in scope to Node.js. Much of the rest of this is borrowed from npm's CoC, which is a great CoC, of course, but also designed to address a much larger set of concerns. I'm not 100% on board with @othiym23's proposed changes, but I think that's an interesting discussion to have, and might come around.

Second, if we are going to describe in detail the practices and policies for receiving reports, then we should do so properly, by using something like npm's Receiving Reports policy.

Third, words like "due process" and "investigate" and "taking justice into your own hands" all have specific legal meaning and are being thrown around rather casually here in a way that I'm not comfortable being associated with. The Node.js TC is not going to conduct investigations or make "judgements" about "justice". They're going to remove offensive comments and ban harassers so that we can make productive forward progress on Node.js and not scare people away from that process.

Fourth, it attempts to regulate the conduct of the victims of abuse, in areas other than Node.js, imploring them to be silent about abuse that they receive. Regardless of the intent of the author, this sends the message that the TC intends to keep victims silent. Rather than support people and let them know that our intent is for Node.js to be safe and welcoming harassment-free space for all, we'd be adding a whole new layer of victim-blaming and problematic oppression. If you harass someone, they're going to probably complain on twitter.

For all of these reasons, this proposal is counterproductive.

Fair warning: if any unproductive "my oppression is bigger than your oppression" chest-thumping happens this thread, it will be locked, and messages deleted with wanton abandon.

[isaacs]

Oh, looks like @dshaw already locked it :)