Hello everyone,
I am also putting off my hat as someone in the CoC committee and not speaking for the committee but for myself. There are a few points I would like you to consider. First of all, we are volunteers in the committee as well. I do this in my free time as much as most of the people enraged in this thread. And I would appreciate some consideration for this. I care for our community having a welcoming atmosphere for newcomers and long-time volunteers. That's the main reason I spend evenings reading and evaluating reports. Therefore, I do not appreciate the picking of people out of the committee. If Ladsgroup enacts the common decisions of the committee, there might be criticism on this decision, but not on the person.
I understand the wish for a more transparent process. (What a good thing there is the possibility to suggest amendments to the CoC!) But I would like you to consider the following: Someone, who was warned, or even blocked, might change their behavior. Should we still keep a public list of all people that ever had contact with the CoC committee? It seems to me that this could easily be used as a shaming and blaming list. If the block is over and the person wants to change their behavior, it might be hard for them to start with a clean sheet if we keep a backlog public of everyone. I'd see it not only as a privacy issue for the people reporting, but also the reported.
To the incident discussed in the thread, I would like to give to consider, that we should aim for a atmosphere where people speak freely- without being afraid of insult. Especially for the newcomer in the community. I think Ladsgroup summarized it quite well earlier.
On 9 August 2018 at 12:55, Aryeh Gregor ayg@aryeh.name wrote:
On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 2:13 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Are you sure about that? I think the Code of Conduct Committee _is_ arguing that it's the use of the word "fuck" that was problematic here.
If
I had written "Why did you do that?!" instead of "What the fuck.", do you think I would have had my Phabricator account disabled for a week?
As Alex asks on this mailing list: is using the abbreviated "wtf" form
now
considered a formal offense in tasks and commits? I genuinely do not
know.
The main problem here that needs to be solved is communicating what the problem was in a manner that is clear to the parties whom the CoC committee seeks to deter. A one-week ban is not going to help anything if the object of the ban doesn't understand what about his behavior elicited the ban.
From my experience in this type of thing, some people don't understand what is meant by non-constructive forms of communication, and don't know what types of statements will cause the person they're speaking to to be upset and angry, nor how to rephrase them in a constructive fashion. This is something that takes quite a lot of practice, and that fact might not be apparent to those who are naturally more sensitive. It's also something that comes naturally to someone who's in a good mood and favorably disposed to the one they're speaking to, and can be very difficult for the same person when he's angry.
Perhaps a member of the CoC committee should go over the scenario with MZMcBride and discuss with him what alternative ways he should have taken to address the problem, and what exactly the problem was with how he did it.
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