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Slack Governance Policy #31

Closed the-simian closed 7 years ago

the-simian commented 8 years ago

This can be subject to amendment based on board majority, if we learn new ways to properly run the slack channels

  1. Members violating the CoC are subject to being banned. All activity in Slack channels must conform to the agreed upon CoC that all usergroups and events follow. This includes non harassment policy.
  2. No Solicitation Policy. The Slack forums are a way to conduct usergroup and developer activity in Oklahoma. It is not a place to post jobs, sell goods or otherwise conduct for-profit business in the virtual space. Infraction results in a warning first, and then a ban. This extends to public channels, private channels and private messages.
rhoegg commented 8 years ago

Where is the "no solicitation policy"? It would be good to understand what qualifies. I "solicited" someone in #general to design a web site once, for example.

groovecoder commented 8 years ago

36°N Slack has a #jobs channel for those kinds of solicitations.

vlucas commented 8 years ago

Yeah - I was going to suggest either a separate channel for these types of things, like "promotions", or a codified limit of "[x] promotions per [month] allowed in the [promotions] channel only"

rhoegg commented 8 years ago

We have many communication channels, including Slack, GitHub, e-mail, meetup, LinkedIn, text messaging, phone, and in-person meetings. It's perfectly reasonable to reserve one or more for non-economic/sales/marketing activity.

Perhaps we can just make it more of a grievance procedure, similar to what Homeowner's Associations do. We could warn, then ban, then unban after some kind of in person conversation.

DevinClark commented 8 years ago

@rhoegg I like the idea of a grievance procedure.

rhoegg commented 8 years ago

Approved as written by vote of 5/2, plenty of ideas for improvements.

vlucas commented 8 years ago

After thinking about this a little more, I propose two things:

  1. The creation of a promotions channel. We would make it clear that this is not for job postings, but for anything anyone is working on or involved with that they want to share or promote. This is important because it makes it clear to all members that they are allowed to promote, share, and be excited about the things they and/or their friends are building and working on. We may have members (myself and possible @jagthedrummer included) that are working on things and launching them that want to promote them, but don't do that currently in Slack due to concerns about how it would look to the overall community. This would give things like that a dedicated place to "live" and be "okay". We are trying to foster a community of programmers and makers, and not having a clear space to show off your work is a gap we need to fill.
  2. The addition of a grievance procedure as suggested by @rhoegg so we have codified rules to deal with, warn, and ban offenders. The text of this should also deal especially with unsolicited private messages as being very NOT OK.
the-simian commented 8 years ago

I'm digging that verbage @vlucas , this looks like it captures the same goals and give a clear place for announcements. I definitely also people to be able to show off their product launches - and having a promotions channel is nice. Its one place to go where we can see what Oklahomans are doing

rhoegg commented 8 years ago

Idea 1

Nice @vlucas . What if we give it a little grass roots feel by naming it something unstuffy? Some ideas, to get your juices flowing:

energydev commented 8 years ago

"The text of this should also deal especially with unsolicited private messages as being very NOT OK." So we can't DM someone unless it is solicited? If so, what is considered solicited? Sometimes people ask questions and I answer them via DM, that would seem solicited. Even if that is considered solicited, what if I hear someone is running a user group and I want to ask them more about it? That would technically be unsolicited.

energydev commented 8 years ago

I recommend each channel have a clear designation of what their purpose is. For example, it's not uncommon for someone to promote an upcoming technology conference, even though it's not officially a Techlahoma event. We'll need to determine if such kinds of information are promotions.

the-simian commented 8 years ago

"So we can't DM someone unless it is solicited? If so, what is considered solicited? Sometimes people ask questions and I answer them via DM, that would seem solicited."

@energydev

Solicitation means any request or appeal, either oral or written, or any endeavor to obtain, seek or plead for funds, property, financial assistance or other thing of value, including the promise or grant of any money or property of any kind or value.

So simply DMing someone is not solicitation. DMing them to buy timeshares in Venezuala is. DMing them, as a recruiter, for a 'hot new opportunity' in New York for great $$$ is also solictiation. Asking when the next meetup is is not solicitation. like as in a door-to-door salesperson is soliciting, as is also a DM-to-DM salesperson, or someone posting ads in general chat. It also become much more clear is someone is a'professional solicitor'. (your job is to sell software or recruit, and you're 'using' our forums to make money for youself personally)

We are using the common legal definition here. I'm sure we could expound on an exhaustive list of examples given the time, but I think that should be clear to most.

I mainly want there to be something enforceable by admins if abuse occurs. We will always have to rely on good admins to step in and stop bad behavior, and there will always be people trying to do as much naughtiness as possible without ever-so-technically breaking the rules. Its just how internet spaces are. Our first line of defense is admins, and this is what they point to when they see bad behavior. So in some sense, you are trusting their judgement.

The CoC also outlines how one should behave as well. Some of the rules are admittedly subjective, "Exactly how much empathy is enough empathy and what unit of measurement is that in"? You can see that a lot of this requires sound judgement at the time of infraction. Simply put: I think some of the things you mentioned noone would ever consider violating of the solicitation clause, that is not the spirit and intent of the clause.

energydev commented 8 years ago

@the-simian - I'm totally cool with noone DMing people with solicitations. The text of "The text of this should also deal especially with unsolicited private messages as being very NOT OK." was interpreted by me as not allowing a DM to person X unless person X already authorized person Y to DM them.

the-simian commented 8 years ago

ah yeah, so unsolicited doesn't mean "unauthorized", specifically. It means the definition I posted. So that considered, it doesn't mean exactly "DMs are prohibited unless you ask for them". hope that clears that up

I would say that if someone asks you to not Dm them and you still do that's a problem but for different reasons.

rhoegg commented 8 years ago

OK, so I propose this language:

Soliciting people through direct messages without their prior consent is prohibited, and generally considered bad manners. Solicitations of any kind are tolerated on Techlahoma Slack only when the audience is small, the frequency is low, and the recipient has shown interest beforehand.

Because only a few incidents can change many peoples' view of the community, we will act quickly to respond to complaints by removing solicitors' access while we are communicating with those involved. While it's possible someone becomes permanently banned, we'll try to work with each person to help them regain access.

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 2:09 PM, Jesse Harlin notifications@github.com wrote:

ah yeah, so unsolicited doesn't mean "unauthorized", specifically. It means the definition I posted. So that considered, it doesn't mean exactly "DMs are prohibited unless you ask for them". hope that clears that up

I would say that if someone asks you to not Dm them and you still do that's a problem but for different reasons.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/techlahoma/board_meetings/issues/31#issuecomment-187845234 .

datachomp commented 8 years ago

This is very long now and full of minutia I'm not going to read - I just want to make sure that there is at least an obvious call to action for someone that is feeling threatened. For example 'if you see a problem, please contact conduct@techlahoma.org to get immediate assistance in resolving the problem.'

energydev commented 8 years ago

Possible short version

1.Members violating the CoC are subject to being banned. All activity in Slack channels must conform to the agreed upon CoC that all usergroups and events follow. This includes non harassment policy. 2.No Solicitation Policy. The Slack forums are a way to conduct usergroup and developer activity in Oklahoma. It is not a place to post jobs, sell goods or otherwise conduct for-profit business in the virtual space. Infraction results in a warning first, and can ultimately result in a short term or permanent ban. This extends to public channels, private channels and private messages. Providing awareness for paid technology or educational opportunities is not considered solicitation if the promoter is not receiving a financial benefit from the promotion.

  1. Please, report any issues to conduct@techlahoma.org.
amandaharlin commented 8 years ago

This needs to stop spiraling into such a big deal.

energydev commented 8 years ago

I understand the desire to focus on items more specific to our mission, however, policies like these impact those involved in the community. To me the thread isn't really spiraling but is showing a lack of consistent understanding between leadership as to what certain aspects of the policy mean. There seem to be two main questions that have been under discussion 1) what does solicitation mean. That seems to have already been addressed and 2) do we want to allow some kind of occasional solicitation.

energydev commented 8 years ago

If we don't want to allow any kind of solicitation ever, then the original policy seems very well worded, although, adding how to communicate issues would be great to include

the-simian commented 8 years ago

The short version: Behave. Don't be a troll. Report problems when you see them. In most cases: don't solicit.

The long version: 1. Code of Contact Members violating the CoC are subject to being banned. All activity in Slack channels must conform to the agreed upon CoC that all usergroups and events follow. This includes non harassment policy.

Depending on the severity of the infraction, this could result in a warning, temporary ban or permanent ban.

2. No Solicitation Policy

Techlahoma Slack is not a place to

This extends to

Infraction usually results in a warning first, and can ultimately result in a short term or permanent ban.

Providing awareness for paid technology or educational opportunities is generally not considered solicitation if the promoter is not receiving a financial benefit from the promotion. Solicitations, such as product launches, software releases are tolerated on Techlahoma Slack only when the audience is small, the frequency is low, and the recipient has shown interest beforehand. Simply put: do not spam the channel.

3. Report Please, report any issues to conduct@techlahoma.org.

I'm cool with this. I took much of the proposals and combined them into what I believe is clear verbage, that achieves everyones goals. I know this has been kind of a long discussion, but I think we've learned a lot on how to improve policy-craft, and the above feels like something we can vote on.

energydev commented 8 years ago

@the-simian looks great! Is "Code of Contact" the term you were going for or did you really mean "Code of Conduct"?

groovecoder commented 8 years ago

Ran this thru Hemingwayapp.com too ... still good?

The short version:

Behave. Don't be a troll. Report problems when you see them. In most cases: don't solicit.

The long version:

1. Code of Conduct

All activity in Slack channels must conform to the Techlahoma Code of Conduct. We may warn or ban you if you violate the CoC.

2. No Solicitation Policy

Techlahoma Slack is not a place to

This extends to

You may share commercial tech opportunities unless you profit from the opportunity. (I.e., do not sell.)

You may share infrequent software & product releases when the recipient(s) have shown interest. (I.e., do not spam.)

We may warn or ban you if you violate the no-solicitation policy.

3. Report violations

Please, report any issues to conduct@techlahoma.org.

energydev commented 8 years ago

Looks really good to me.

the-simian commented 8 years ago

I'm cool with it, @groovecoder . and yes @energydev I meant Code of Conduct. thanks autocomplete!

seejessicacode commented 8 years ago

I posted an issue about Slack moderation to the techlaoma/discussions repo that dovetails into this: https://github.com/techlahoma/discussions/issues/4

vlucas commented 8 years ago

We discussed this in the November 2016 board meeting, and I recommend the following changes to the policy:

--

The short version:

Behave. Don't be a troll. Report problems when you see them. In most cases: don't solicit.

The long version:

1. Code of Conduct

All activity in Slack channels must conform to the Techlahoma Code of Conduct. We may warn or ban you if you violate the CoC.

2. No Solicitation Policy

Techlahoma Slack is not a place to

This extends to

You may share commercial tech opportunities in the #promotions Slack channel, limited to 2 per month per person.

You may share infrequent software & product releases when the recipient(s) have shown interest. (I.e., do not spam.)

We may warn or ban you if you violate the no-solicitation policy.

3. Report violations

Please, report any issues to conduct@techlahoma.org.

the-simian commented 8 years ago

I've been thinking about this also, @vlucas after we discussed it. I like your reply, and wanted to add a bit. As I think about it, there's really a few categories to extend to:

  1. Something you've made yourself. As in, you actually built with your own hands. This also happens to be for sale in some way.

Exhibits:

  1. Evangelism or promotion about a product you might not have made yourself
    • you're a microsoft evangelist and you have product codes for 1/5 off visual studio
    • you're a salesperson at a Saas/Paas company and you want to tell the world about how cool your product is
    • Giving away free trials for your company's product.
    • you are an author and o'reilley is doing half off for a book you contributed to last year,

I feel like these are pretty general and I've been trying to find a way to describe what the real difference is here. Things in category 2 we want to encourage to sponsor us, if possible. Beyond that, things in category 2 are, in my mind, promotions (I'm selling a product) and things in category 1 are more like a show and tell (Hey look I made this). They're blurry lines.

We have two channels show-and-tell and promotions, that are good places for these kinds of posts. For show and tell, I think (like an actual show and tell) you wouldn't 'go' more than once for a particular thing, and its generally about something you finally made, or are launching for the first time. Doesn't have to be for sale..but can be. For the other its about a promotional opportunity. I'd like to propose we modify this to account for that.I know in general more complexity and verbage is bad, so I'm not proposing this lightly. I think these two things are really different in scope and spirit. This means we'd add back "otherwise conduct for-profit business in inappropriate channels that have not been approved for that activity"

So in short

as of now show-and-tell and promotions are ok for for-profit business, the others are not but there may be more 'ok' channels in the future.

energydev commented 8 years ago

@the-simian I like the additional points from your "so in short" summary. I wasn't quite sure to what "commercial tech opportunities" was referring.

energydev commented 8 years ago

On the promotions clarification note, what if someone hears about an IT-related conference that is free or maybe not free that they think members might want to hear about? Would they go in promotions? If so, if they are free educational events, we might not want to limit people to 2 posts per month. In the past, I've put such info in either random or tech-talk, but it's less clear with the new wording.

the-simian commented 7 years ago

@energydev I am actually proposing that we

To answer your seconds quesiton, I also wouldn't mind an event being promoted in promotions, such as maybe a pay-for-workshop that isn't necessarily a techlahoma event, or techlahoma announcment. An event by, or sponsored-by techlahoma could go in announcements. A good example might be if, say Kyle Simpson comes back by and gives a js workshop at StarSpace ? I might post that in promotions, because its something I think people woudl value from attending. Kyle also does happen to charge for his events (its how he survives). So I'd essentially be promoting him, his product is the workshop.

groovecoder commented 7 years ago

I like having specific channels for specific kinds of chat that we want to keep out of the other channels. (e.g., spamming Visual Studio promotions in a Java channel)

Have we decided we do not want to have a #jobs channel at all? I like the jobs board to be the canonical source of info for Techlahoma jobs, but maybe a bot that auto-posts from the jobs board to a #jobs Slack channel and allows people to chat about jobs in general too?

amandaharlin commented 7 years ago

yeah, exactly! automating a job board bot post would be great. since all the jobs are manually approved by vlucas I'd be for the auto post to slack.

On Dec 1, 2016 11:19 AM, "luke crouch" notifications@github.com wrote:

I like having specific channels for specific kinds of chat that we want to keep out of the other channels. (e.g., spamming Visual Studio promotions in a Java channel)

Have we decided we do not want to have a #jobs channel at all? I like the jobs board to be the canonical source of info for Techlahoma jobs, but maybe a bot that auto-posts from the jobs board to a #jobs Slack channel and allows people to chat about jobs in general too?

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energydev commented 7 years ago

Automating job board posts to a #jobs channel sounds like a great idea, and the channel could be locked down posting-wise like #Announcements.

energydev commented 7 years ago

As for the #promotions channel, if say there was a JavaScript local training opportunity, Some people might prefer to see it in the #JavaScript channel, since we have one.

groovecoder commented 7 years ago

Do we want to lock down the #jobs channel? I know a few people in Tulsa who would like to hang out in a #jobs channel and talk about the jobs market, scene, ask for advice etc. The story I'm imagining is that the jobs board posts something to the channel, and someone asks "Does anyone know what the engineering culture is like at ?"

the-simian commented 7 years ago

yeah as long as its for discussion not posting the actual job. We may chose another name so its very obvious its for discussion and not to just post a job or "my company is hiring". We want people to use the job board, and i dont mind automating announcements from the board to the channel

groovecoder commented 7 years ago

Since I'm advocating pretty strongly for #jobs Slack channel, I'm happy to be moderator and keep people clear on the guidelines. I.e., post jobs to the jobs board, which will auto-link into #jobs. Then people can discuss jobs in the channel, but no direct postings into #jobs?

On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Jesse Harlin notifications@github.com wrote:

yeah as long as its for discussion not posting the actual job. We may chose another name so its very obvious its for discussion and not to just post a job or "my company is hiring". We want people to use the job board, and i dont mind automating announcements from the board to the channel

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the-simian commented 7 years ago

I'm glad, that sounds good, are you ok with a name like 'job-talk', something that doesn't imply its literally just a job listing? We can also sticky instructions on how to use the job board, and reiterate that a posting there will also get announced in #job-talk.

I know I've been advocating pretty strongly for the job board itself, if it hasn't been stated outright be me in here, I want it to be clear that I sincerely believe this is what's best for the job seeker in the long run. Just to capture some discussions we've had in other places I'll summarize those:

If I were looking for a job I want to get out of the world of "please DM me" and "I know a guy" type stuff. I feel like this turns jobs into secrets the applicant pays for in the long run whether they know it or not. The job could as easily been posted publicly from square one. That is in my mind better for both the business and the seeker.

On the board, I'd like the jobs to be easily compared, and transparent. I can see a vision for the job board where we implement features that make job transparency a first class citizen, such as badges for being a TDD shop, or having maternity leave. I've had discussions with folks I know who are good with machine learning about ways we can improve our board to make it empowering to the job seeker. I won't go into those details, but that's the longer-term dream.

I feel like @groovecoder 's proposal fits well into that vision, assuming the channel is not locked, but moderated, (so thanks for volunteering).

kacollins commented 7 years ago

It seems especially ironic after the TechHire announcement last week that we aren't allowed to ask about jobs. I would like to see that rule removed.

energydev commented 7 years ago

On the note of "The job could as easily been posted publicly from square one. " there are a lot of "hidden" jobs out there. I.e. jobs that never get posted publicly or not posted publicly in many places. All of my last 3 jobs came through connections I already knew, and one of them was for a position that was essentially not publicly posted, as they found who they were looking for through "word of mouth".

energydev commented 7 years ago

Also, when looking from the perspective of job seekers, I would encourage that feedback be sought by individuals with a variety of job seeking backgrounds. One perspective that should be sought after is anyone that has been laid off in the last few years or for other reasons may have been looking for a job unexpectedly. I don't know the perspectives of everyone on the board and officers, but if none have been laid of in the last few years, then I highly recommend seeking feedback of those who have been. There are plenty of those that have found themselves in such a situation in the past two years in OKC.

energydev commented 7 years ago

I'm not a fan of recruiters posting jobs to our Slack channel, but if someone is indeed looking for a job, there is some validity to allowing someone to ask about job opportunities and a non-recruiter being able to reach out to them.

the-simian commented 7 years ago

@kacollins these days I also think that shouldn't be there. I am really on board with @groovecoder 's suggestion to make job-discussion a hosted channel that is really about that. In that light the same amendments I'm proposing for show-and-tell/promotions work similarly.

As for the tech hires, I want to follow through with that and absolutely connect people with jobs (and everything else our mission is about). That verbiage was proposed nearly a year ago, and I agree its not relevant now). What's important to me is that we connect folks with work the right way, and in a way that empowers the community members the most.

A long read, but here's some context:

This actually got started in Feb as a reaction to something in Slack. We had an out of state recruiter basically start DMing a bunch of folks, and I got a lot of complaints about it. This wasn't someone trying to contribute to the discussion, they were pretty upfront they were there to make money "off us". Folks objected to that: They weren't even from here, and they made those community members feel uncomfortable. Another Slack channel for devs in our general area (the midwest) that i know about literally does invite only specifically to prevent this sort of thing. I can see why. Maybe I'm biased, but I've actually seen an aggressive (in this case also out-of-state) recruiter email @amandaharlin literally 5 times in a few hours, getting increasingly pushy and mean as the emails progressed. There is also the volume of it all. Myself, I get many, many out-of-state spam recruiter emails a day in my inbox. I'm not alone. Its exhausting on top of my github notifications and 'important stuff'. I'm not dissing recruiters, actually the ones around town are pretty good-natured. However, this slack channel, like our github, is accessible to the world, and there's some feisty ones out there. Basically, we could see the need for a clause about this sort of thing in out governance policy, so we didn't become a place where folks didn't want to frequent.

At the same time, people want, and often look for jobs. We understood that, but its also hard to have a rule set that can enable what @energydev is describing but isn't unfairly and selectively enforced to do so. This was the challenge. One of the things that makes the slack channels 'good' right now is we've worked to curate a safe space for techlahomans to dwell. I guess I, and others, are trying to preserve that, and not turn it into Linkedin. (Sorry Linkedin, but tbh your inbox is a spam-box).

So what do we do? If we didn't have "job-stuff" in the channels we needed an alternative, and we saw a chance for a what we thought would be a win-win solution and fit well into the original policy.

We started the job board itself months ago, because we imagined a tool that would be better than Slack anyways for jobs. Slack messages get lost to time, and while its searchable, its not really all that great at this. (Slack actually was even worse at the time because it wasn't yet a pro version and would 'forget' after so many messages). We imagined a focused tool that would allow the jobs higher visibility, allow filtering, search-ability etc. Hopefully it could really highlight the very good jobs, by its design. So not just 'better' than Slack, but actually "ideal". I briefly mentioned the badges and machine learning above, but that's not really all the job-board committee has discussed. I'm trying to avoid getting into the details of the design, but it purpose is very different than other boards.

I'll try to communicate a few of the big ideas:

Nearly all boards like Dice, Monster and others are about empowering the job poster. What if most features were about inverting that? What if keyword spam was minimized by forcing the poster to carefully pick relevant skills, and not dilute the posting? What if a description of actual daily-work was somehow rewarded? What if things like "7 years React Experience", got rejected for being absurd? What if the person looking for a job had a quality dashboard and not just the poster? What if the board was equally useful to part-timers, freelancers, and consultants as well as traditional full-time positions? What if it was ok to post 'informal' jobs, or just "leads" and the board supported a model for that (eg. "I think I might have some PhP work hit me up")? It could even be the sort of place your usual 'hidden job' might appear for reasons like that. (like the kind @energydev described) In the long run we felt like it would be better for everyone, even the business posting, because the increased transparency would actually result in more talent-and-skill to position matching.

We also realized that if we wanted something like this, it didn't really exist and we'd have to make it. Every board that's out there is about reinforcing the existing power structure, or simply isn't expressive enough, (or just plain bad). If you've ever tried to sign up for one, or use one its pretty obvious. You fill out this little resume template that makes you, as an applicant, easy to parse for the job board, but doesn't really empower you to understand more about the listings, or the postings. You are the product, tagged, and keyworded. What if it could be the other way around? I think you'd be able to find what you're looking for and it would be better for all. That's the big idea.

Needless to say as of now, it is functional but still largely feature-incomplete. With the Tech Hires initiative,the job board becoming truly complete matters even more. Unfortunately right now its mostly a list view, and needs more work, but the foundation is there. The work put in by @vlucas is very solid groundwork for something epic. I reviewed the code some time ago and its well built and extensible. I think in time we will have this very-nice-thing but right now basic functionality's what we have.

The reason I'm saying all this is to understand the goal of the policy in the beginning. The goal was to keep the boards curated and get folks to use this 'better thing' than Slack. Right now, the reality is that the Job Board hasn't become popular yet, and ready or not, Tech Hires is here. There's been a lot of discussion about this, even recently. Some folks feel like telling people to keep job discussions to #job-discussions and tell people to post on the board is too bureaucratic. I understand their position, even if I am on the fence about that. Regardless, I do think its very true that we haven't finished the board to the point where its enough of a value add for someone to want to go post there instead. Some of that is awareness (we haven't' promoted it enough), some of that is that the really distinguishing features, and ideas are yet to come.

Maybe the right approach is, as they've suggested, to do a less-is-more approach and still try to finish the board. My feeling today is that I really do want folks to be able to talk about postings, and have conversation. I also want to see this job-board get built to feature completion and used, because I really think it will help us all.

As for the governance policy, I want the community to feel like it has freedom and awareness, but I don't want it to feel antagonized, or used. I want folks to feel like there's an enforceable governance policy that ensures safety, but not with it being overly restrictive either. I don't want any community member to feel like they are a product being sold to someone, and I think that's a fear many have felt. I think, above all I want ya'll to feel like you have ownership of this.

My thoughts now are that, Id' still like to see the Job Board be the 'source of truth' for postings (even leads) but maybe the responsibility is on us to promote it more and improve it still. As @jagthedrummer and others have suggested, rather than tell people 'no', maybe we should just focus on making that tool better and they will happily use it anyways. I think it can be great. I'd still like us to actively encourage its use even now. Right now, as-is it is actually still better than slack for the actual posting. I also would like to see the job board itself to automate postings to the Slack channels, to the degree that there's increased awareness about the board, but not to the degree its frustrating to Slack users. (We discussed this a bit at the last board meeting and it shouldn't be hard, at least technically.). As I said at the beginning, I agree we should remove the 'talk about jobs' clause, but I do want us to encourage job-talk to be in the right channel.

Its taken me a long time to compose this. I know that was a long read, but I am trying to capture and summarize a lot of conversations with a lot of folks outside of this thread in here. Today I read starting from the beginning and I saw a lot of that was history and reasoning was missing. When I can, I'll refactor the verbiage in the proposal taking these things into consideration.

Finally after many months, I think we're zeroing in on what's right.

TL;DR we should....

jagthedrummer commented 7 years ago

Reading this whole discussion I think things are heading in a better direction than they were at the start.

I'm still concerned that we may be worrying more about preventing problems than we are about fostering a real sense community.

On the jobs side of things I realize that we've already had problems with some crappy recruiters trying to abuse the community, and I understand that we need to protect against that. But I'm not sure that trying to have an "everyone plays by the same rules" policy about jobs and job discussions is the right approach if we want to preserve a real feeling of community. Maybe we need a basic set of guidelines that apply to everyone, and then an additional set that apply only to recruiters (no offense, Lucas).

When a community member (who is not a recruiter) says "hey I know of a company that's looking to hire for ____" in any forum/channel/thread I don't want our official policy to be "No! You can't talk about that here, you have to go over there (and maybe pay us)", I want it to be "Yes! We love to help connect people with jobs. Feel free to continue the discussion here, and if you'd like to get more reach on this and attract a wider audience we'd suggest doing X, Y and Z."

Same for when someone says "Hey, I'm looking for a job doing ___" or "I'm looking to pick up some side work" or whatever. I think we want to encourage people to have those discussions and to have them in the places where it seem most natural to the community members involved at the time.

From the point of view of making people feel like they're part of a community that is thriving and helping its members to thrive I want us to have "Yes, and..." policy on jobs instead of a "No, but..." policy.

I love the long term vision for the job board, but I think we need to realize that until we've implemented a lot of the "grand vision" features then we're not really offering anything that's substantially different from any of the thousands of jobs boards already out there. Even when we have those new features we'll still need to overcome the perception that people have from 20+ years of crappy experiences with on-line job boards.

Even aside from the technical aspects of on-line job boards there are very good reasons that many of the best jobs are never posted to job boards. And those reasons are : human nature. It's natural for people to talk to people that they already know who are qualified for a job. It's natural for people to ask those people "if you're not interested, do you know someone who might be?" It's natural for news to spread via informal word of mouth. There's also the fact that publicly posted jobs often result in what's best characterized as "a deluge of laughable resume spam" for the employer. Nobody wants to deal with that, so they actively try to avoid it by not posting a job publicly anywhere if they can manage it. Human nature. I don't think that's a problem we can fix.

There's also something to be said for allowing people who don't think they're in the market for a new job (and who aren't subscribed to #jobs-discussions) to be made aware of new opportunities in their field of specialty.

I feel less strongly about the proposals for #promotions and #show-and-tell, but I do think they're troublesome. As someone deciding if I want to subscribe to them #promotions may as well be named #spam so I see it being of limited use to the people who would want to promote anything, and #show-and-tell seems like we've just gone too far in creating channels for "things/activities". If I've written an article about JS why should I not be able to share that in #javascript? I think the grievance procedure idea floated by @rhoegg would give us latitude to say that a lot more things are OK in a lot more places "within reason".

groovecoder commented 7 years ago

I agree that a minimal policy with reasonable moderation and a grievance procedure is better than a strict and specific policy.

I.e., job mentions in other channels are reasonable - esp. as the job may relate to the channel topic; but I'd moderate folks away from posting just their job links in any channel besides the #jobs channel.

E.g., I posted a few Mozilla jobs to the jobs board, and if someone in #javascript seems interested in jobs, I might mention the postings to them. But I wouldn't want to clutter up the #javascript channel with Mozilla job talk, y'know?

the-simian commented 7 years ago

@jagthedrummer , you (and some others) seem to have a pretty clear vision of what the slack channels 'need to be'. I'm glad you've pointed out problems with every proposal, and that's good. I think we are at an impasse where we want solutions. What I am not interested is another year of some folks proposing a policy and other folks just kind of saying 'no, no, no', with no real sense of progress.

If anyone is going to say "no", I'm very un-ironically suggesting it is a "No but .." "I'd like to see a policy like this" (and then post a revised version).

If you see clear problem with what we've proposed in the past, the very best thing you can do, beyond "filing a bug", is "making a PR". By that i mean: please take some time and post the wording you'd like to see so we can vote on it. The previous proposals could have passed more than once by a majority, and we could have had a policy by now and be amending it, but we've tried to find something that makes everyone happy. I'm starting to feel like that might never be possible if every complaint isn't also followed by a suggested improvement. By improvement I mean a real, tangible change to the way the proposed policy is worded or a new proposed policy, not an ephemeral/general suggestion or wish list.

I will also add that I understand many of you want a 'hands off/be chill' sort of approach, but you also need to give the moderators something that they can point to and enforce. That, or volunteer to be a moderator for a while and be in the position of having to talk to folks that are causing trouble. Its harder than it looks, and we need any help we can get. The people that are pushing for a more direct and clear policy are the people who have been moderating thusfar. The folks that feel like that policy 'isn't welcoming' haven't done this as far as I can see. Consider this when you're drafting a revised version and try to see from that point of view

I can say this: we can't have no policy (100% laissez faire). We need to be clear exactly how we we consider someone from say, Ohio, coming in and posting 'great opportunities' in the board. Is this A+ ok behavior? Do we make the policy specifically 'no recruiters'? how will many of our potential sponsors feel about that? Do we just leave that out of the policy altogether? Now its happening and you're a moderator.. what do you do? This is within the realm of possibility because its happened already more than once.

As for me? I don't want out of state recruiters trying to take advantage of the community. Upfront, I will vote for that 100% of the time, because we, in my mind, are trying to make a safe space for technologists to interact, free of harassment. In my opinion, If you don't do this, noone will want to use the boards at all. Some boards have even gone so far as to be invite only, and we are much more relaxed and welcoming than that already.

Honest question: how many of the professional or aspiring technologists on the board "chill out" on Linked-in all the time? Linked-in has forums, and more features than we have, but why do most developers despise that place? Why do people get frustrated using a mobile app where they can't turn off the ads. why do people despise those websites where they jsut want to download a file, but they can't find the download button? Why do people even use ad blockers at all? Don't they want exposure to 'great opportunities'?

"#promotions may as well be named #spam so I see it being of limited use to the people who would want to promote anything,"

"There's also something to be said for allowing people who don't think they're in the market for a new job (and who aren't subscribed to #jobs-discussions) to be made aware of new opportunities in their field of specialty."

So, I'm going to address this worldview directly: Do you feel like users of the boards have a right to a spam-free /advertisement free experience, for the most part? Do you fee like they have the right to opt in, or do you feel that by using these boards its a reality of the ecosystem and they're going to get exposed to it whether or not they like it?

I am not talking about someone in the game channel finally finishing their game and announcing it, and it happens to be on sale. I don't think people care about that one way or the other. I am also not talking about you writing an article about javascript on your blog either, which wouldn't have been a problem under the proposed rules either (so i don't get why that was even mentioned). I am talking about actual ads, such as a product evangelist or recruiter coming in and posting product advertisements or jobs-interviews? I am referring to specifically folks whose full-time job is specifically to try and get into communities like this and "sell".

Is this, in your mind, something we should just allow? Is it in fact something we shouldn't allow, but you'd like to see a better rule for it? (can you compose a better rule if so?). Is advertisement and promotion something the folks should be able to decide if they want, or it kind of happens "to them" without consent? What is the default setting for our non-profit/volunteer run channels? (To me it should be allowed, but opt in.) It sounds like you're saying that if its not opt in, its not good for promoters. Well? So what? We are a nonprofit, and we're for the community. We have no allegiance to companies promoting products. If they sponsor us (and help the community) we can certainly mention they are a sponsor, but otherwise we're outside of that. I want to do whatever most people in the community actually want. If most people want the spam, that's fine- but I can tell you we've already at least gotten complaints before.

I also want to be clear that no matter what, we need sponsors to simply survive and keep going. You already know our sponsorship is not paying anyone's salary, its literally just being used to pay for pizza and stuff. Imagine you sponsored techlahoma, and then your competitor is just posting product/jobs for free in the slack channel. Would you feel slighted? Will you keep sponsoring Techlahoma? Even if you personally would, would everyone make that decision?

I also feel like the conversation has been simplified into this highly reductive argument about 'yes and../no but..' verbage. I feel like this is orthogonal to 'the point'. Let me pull this discussion back into material reality:

Imagine you are a moderator. A recruiter from New York is in the channels, and they are posting links to monster.com so they can get a bonus. They are not a sponsor, or a member. They've never attend an event, nor have they even changed the default plaid user-profile icon to a face. This isn't even good from a tech-hires perspective, because it is just moving work out of state. You asked them to "chill out" because you received multiple complaints from multiple community members. You're in chat and they are arguing with you. This is not a thought experiment, this is a real scenario for moderators. This is the scenario that finally made the moderators ask for a policy. Now what rule do you point to to enforce what the community wants -OR- do you go back to the folks complaining and say "he's allowed to do this". Which is most community-centric?

I am only interested in a policy that can account for how we address that very real situation and everyone in our organization knows exactly what the playbook is. "No Rule" is unacceptable. Ask anyone whose been in that situation, like @DevinClark , @seejessicacode , @amandaharlin , @blazedd or myself. I assure you the person spamming will be the first to point out 'its not against the rules' if we simply don't address it. I know that because it literally happened. I get that you have a vision where folks are super laid back, and just kind-of post that their company is hiring here and there. I also get the concern about how welcoming the boards are. I'm telling you its not only that.

Please compose that rule, if you are not happy with the existing proposal. We are not debating for the sake of debating. People have already blocked this thread for this reason (they feel like every proposal is simply met with negativity). If you've got a "yes, and" way to say it, that we can make the spamming stop when its out of hand..cool. Or at least make it clear that you don't see that as bad behavior, at all. (That is, You believe that fundamentally people must be subjected to non-sponsor ads and job postings whether they 'opt in' or not) Anything else at this point is a literal waste of time. And by literal, I mean we could be in deliberation another 3-6 months at the rate we are moving.

DevinClark commented 7 years ago

In an effort for a very clear, concise, and powerful policy, I propose the following. To keep things constructive, could any criticisms of this policy be in form of "making a PR" (to quote @the-simian)?

Follow the Techlahoma CoC.

Act in the best interest of the community.

This chat is actively moderated. Acts of questionable behavior will be dealt with at the discretion of two or more moderators.

Examples of "acts of questionable behavior" and how they were handled include (but are not limited to) the following:

The above sections should be treated as a living document.

rhoegg commented 7 years ago

I propose adding 2 things: a purpose and a procedure for complaining, which includes who to complain to:

(at the beginning) The Techlahoma community is made up of hobbyists, professionals, and volunteers who come together to advance Oklahoma's technology. Diversity is one of our biggest strengths, but it can also bring increased communication challenges at times. We've established a few rules in order to encourage respect, collaboration, and open discussion. We also provide a remediation process so that members feel welcome and safe.

(at the end, please replace with actual moderator info) Techlahoma moderators are well informed on how to deal with incidents. Report the incident (preferably in writing) to one of the moderators listed below.

This was inspired by the Chef Community Guidelines. There's some more good stuff there I didn't pull in so that we could stay concise.

On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 6:18 PM, Devin Clark notifications@github.com wrote:

In an effort for a very clear, concise, and powerful policy, I propose the following. To keep things constructive, could any criticisms of this policy be in form of "making a PR" (to quote @the-simian https://github.com/the-simian)?

Follow the Techlahoma CoC.

Act in the best interest of the community.

This chat is actively moderated. Acts of questionable behavior will be dealt with at the discretion of two or more moderators.

Examples of "acts of questionable behavior" and how they were handled include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Spam, politely asked to stop.
  • Harassing an/or threatening a fellow member, ban
  • Compromised accounts, temporarily disabling account.

The above sections should be treated as a living document.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/techlahoma/board_meetings/issues/31#issuecomment-268919320, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AACuD3WtQpxmRwXOk3BtdcjvLb6ipZ0oks5rKxNOgaJpZM4HbrBy .

energydev commented 7 years ago

I'm for all of what @rhoegg just recommended, except I would remove "All incident reports will be kept in a private repository that is shared with the Techlahoma board, and the Techlahoma slack moderators." Having any "incident" be available to 11 board members plus any non-board member moderators could be intimidating to both the reporter and the reported, especially, if something was just a misunderstanding. At this point, my recommendation is to remove that portion without a new wording.