Re: Community Team - where we want to go
[content summary: interpretation with delegation, role separation for
definition and enforcement of rules, distinction between guidance and
warning, timeliness.]
Hi Steve, Community team and everybody,
I think that the current changes in name and role of the A-H team go in
a good direction. Here are some comments that I hope are in line with
and will help your efforts.
Le Wed, Oct 09, 2019 at 10:26:39PM +0100, Steve McIntyre a écrit :
>
> The (CT) is the team responsible for interpreting the Code of Conduct
> (CoC) when necessary.
Like others and for the same reasons, I think that to be responsible for
interpretation it would necessitate a delegation. I would like to add
if you follow that direction, then it would be better that the team does
not take responsabilities such as judging the behaviour of others, that
would lead it to be both raising a question of interpretation and giving
an authoritative answer at the same time.
> Where desired, the team will work with contributors to help them
> express disagreement without violating the CoC.
I think that providing behavioural guidance is an excellent goal.
However I think that it will be more effective by addressing the
community in general. To be frank, I do not have the impression that
the people who usually express themselves "bluntly" will actively seek
your advice.
> When people do breach the CoC, the team will give guidance on better
> ways to interact in the future.
I also feel that it is important that people are being explained when
they hurt others. But I have one comment and one question:
- Given what happened in the past, I think that it is crucial that
there is a crystal clear difference between being given guidance and
being given a warning. For instance, it could be that any message
from the CT is not a warning unless stated otherwise.
- I think that it is bound to happen that one day, a message of
guidance will be badly received, and will lead the receiver to behave
worse than if they did not get a message. What is your plan in that
case ?
> * Responding in a timely manner to incidents reported by members of
> the Debian community and those interacting with the Debian project;
This timeliness is extremely important and I think that it is great that
you mentionned it. In case of overload, I think that timeliness should
be given priority over exhaustiveness. That is: drop the less grave
cases if there is no time to respond to all at the same time.
> * Where there might be a Conflict of Interest, individual members of
> the team will be expected to inform the rest of the team, about it
> and recuse themselves from relevant discussion.
Thanks for including that point.
> * Writing and providing reports to other teams concerning incidents
> or habitual behaviors; and
Given what happened in the past, I think that it would be important to
put a clear limit on how far in the past the behaviour of people will be
investigated, and how behavioural patterns will or will not be
aggregated. Timely and focused reaction will reduce contention.
> * Proactively writing emails to those who habitually make the
> community a hostile place, informing them that their behavior is
> harmful to the community, that action may be taken in the future,
> and that the Community team is a resource to provide explanation or
> guidance.
This implies that the CT will contact these people when it is available
to answer in a timely manner to their rebuttals, which is great,
Have a nice day, and thanks for your work on the reboot of the team !
Charles
--
Charles Plessy
Akano, Uruma, Okinawa, Japan
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