Code of Conduct

Thu Feb 9 19:57:30 UTC 2017

Yes, in trying not to confuse the conversation I did just that. Of course Fluid distinct from the IDRC — I shared the very drafty draft to show what I had gathered and been thinking from the perspective of events (or in this case an event) at the IDRC. It was meant as a YES, AND — not a replacement “perhaps it’s of help.”

And yes, starting with Fluid is useful!

In agreement,
Jess

> On Feb 9, 2017, at 2:50 PM, Colin Clark <colinbdclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Jess,
> 
> Thanks for sharing your document and links. I wonder if you could elaborate on what you mean by "community-wide" in this particular context? Michelle's proposal, I believe, was intended to specifically address contributors to the Fluid community, which is inclusive of people from many different organizations, employers, and overlapping communities. So here, I think the idea of a CoC was specific to the activities that happen on the Fluid mailing lists, chats, and code and design forums (wiki, Github, etc.). I think it's important to always make it clear that Fluid has a life that extends beyond the IDRC and OCADU from the perspective of organizational policy, employment, etc. 
> 
> That said, I think starting with Fluid is a useful way to develop some experience with this and perhaps adopt similar approaches in other contexts.
> 
> I think your document for DEEP is quite apt for a single organization-run conference. In the context of an open community, we probably need to be careful of appeals to centralized power in the form of "Sr. Management" and the like—this is one of the motivations for my suggestion of a new Fluid working group (one which is inclusive of people who don't, for example, work for OCAD) to address concerns that come up.
> 
> Although I don't have much invested in Contributor Covenant specifically, I think I'd generally prefer to avoid a bespoke CoC if at all possible. There's an advantage to the familiarity of codes and expectations that we share with other communities around the world.
> 
> Interestingly, it sounds like Contributor Covenant meets the values that you quite ably articulated: it provides specific descriptions of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, explicit acknowledgement that these values apply to both digital and in-person situations, and it's a living document that has had a number of versions released over the last several years.
> 
> One issue that I see could use some refinement is the list of artefacts and activities covered under "Our Responsibilities"—we may wish to specifically acknowledge resources, design artefacts and conversations as well.
> 
> By the way, I love this section in the Citizen Code of Conduct!
> 
> "Communities mirror the societies in which they exist and positive action is essential to counteract the many forms of inequality and abuses of power that exist in society."
> 
> Colin
> 
>> On Feb 9, 2017, at 2:23 PM, Jess Mitchell <jessmitchell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Michelle and all,
>> 
>> Is there an opportunity to have a community-wide CoC?
>> I put a draft together back in October for our DEEP conference and used this one
>> http://citizencodeofconduct.org/
>> 
>> I liked it for a few reasons:
>> 1. it is a living document and says so
>> 2. it has a section that is clear about expected behaviour
>> 3. it has a section that is clear about unacceptable behaviour
>> 4. it deals with both digital and physical interactions
>> 
>> I put together a first draft (with unfinished holes in it) that we didn’t quite have the time to implement with community feedback in time for DEEP. Perhaps it’s of help — attached below. It is largely the one above with bits and pieces from the others I looked at:
>> 
>> http://www.oreilly.com/conferences/code-of-conduct.html
>> http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/
>> https://jacobian.org/writing/codes-of-conduct/
>> https://www.isaac-online.org/english/conference-2016/code-of-conduct/
>> http://wunder.schoenaberselten.com/2016/02/17/should-my-tech-conference-community-have-a-code-of-conduct-recommended-resources/#tldr
>> http://www.catehuston.com/blog/2014/09/17/conferences-code-of-conducts-and-being-thatwoman/
>> https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/codes-of-conduct-when-being-excellent-is-not-enough
>> https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/so-you-want-to-put-on-a-diverse-inclusive-conference
>> https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/18/howto-design-a-code-of-conduct-for-your-community/
>> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
>> http://citizencodeofconduct.org
>> https://www.hope.net/codeofconduct.html
>> 
>> <Code of Conduct.docx>
>> 
>>> On Feb 9, 2017, at 11:50 AM, Colin Clark <colinbdclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi Tony,
>>> 
>>> Yes, you're entirely right. Most communities that implement the Contributor Covenant have a small working group who can respond to concerns from the community. We have some precedent in Fluid with this kind of confidential working group via our old security team, which involved a private list that anyone could post to, and then a confidential follow-up procedure. In this case, I think the working group can be selected from committers, contributors, and friends of Fluid who reflect the diversity of perspectives in our community. I have some ideas for who might be a good fit for this, but perhaps we can defer the specifics of establishing this group while we decide on implementing the covenant?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Colin
>>> 
>>>> On Feb 9, 2017, at 4:08 AM, Tony Atkins <tony at raisingthefloor.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hi, All:
>>>> 
>>>> This looks really promising, and I absolutely agree that our community should champion these ideals as an important part of working in open source.  To save everyone a couple of clicks, here's a direct link to the latest version in HTML format:
>>>> 
>>>> http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/
>>>> 
>>>> Before we can add this to our projects, we need at least some basic agreement around this section of the document:
>>>> 
>>>> Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting the project team at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The project team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident. Further details of specific enforcement policies may be posted separately.
>>>> 
>>>> The rest of our communication errs on the side of openness, in this case we need to give incident reporters a safe space to raise concerns.  This means that the group of incident responders needs to be small enough that it is effectively confidential.  The incident responders group also needs to be large enough that incidents are responded to in a timely fashion, and large enough that the handling of an incident itself reflects some kind of consensus.  We also need to have a clear process of managing that group over time, perhaps similar to how committers are nominated, but with an implicit term limit, rotation, voluntary retirement, or other means of keeping the group small.
>>>> 
>>>> All of that is my opinion, feedback is encouraged and appreciated.  However, before we can post the covenant in our projects, we do at least need an initial group and an email address.  As there is no core group at the moment to start the nomination process (as we do with committers), I propose an initial open nomination process within the community (i.e. on this mailing list).
>>>> 
>>>> I'd also propose setting up the email as a private mailing list to which anyone can post, but which only distributes to the responders.
>>>> 
>>>> Your thoughts welcome, very excited to see where this goes.
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Tony
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 11:23 PM, Michelle D'Souza <michelled33 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hey everyone,
>>>> 
>>>> Codes of conduct have started to show up in a lot of open source communities as a very unfortunately result of discriminatory behaviour. As they have become more common, people often use the existence (or lack of) a code of conduct to decide whether or not they will participate in a community.
>>>> 
>>>> Given that our community has always been open and welcoming and has inclusion at its core, it just makes sense to add a code of conduct to flag ourselves as such.
>>>> 
>>>> This seems like it will suit our community very well (thanks Colin):
>>>> 
>>>> http://contributor-covenant.org/
>>>> 
>>>> If you know of one that you think would be a better fit - please let us know! Otherwise, let’s aim to add this next week.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> 
>>>> Michelle
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>> 
> 