Amir, what you are suggesting at this point is basically that it doesn't matter because that bug report was closed once and intended to remain closed (despite being reopened) with reason that the WordPress website isn't ready for public consumption yet was made public to replace the previous. If the intent was to test something, should have done so privately. All we are doing now is just dragging this on and blowing up simply because of communication failures.
Since someone insisted a couple messages ago, if this isn't a hobby project yet is donation funded then what exactly is this considered? Doubtful it counts as volunteer led if the foundation seems to insist on their way judging by level executives. WMF is funded by donations and grants, it's a non profit...not for commercial profit so there is a serious disconnect going on
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018, 3:42 PM wikitech-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
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Today's Topics:
- Re: [Wikimedia-l] C-team Statement on the Code of Conduct (Amir Ladsgroup)
- Re: [Wikimedia-l] C-team Statement on the Code of Conduct (Pine W)
- Re: [Wikimedia-l] C-team Statement on the Code of Conduct (Isarra Yos)
- Re: My Phabricator account has been disabled (Petr Bena)
- Re: My Phabricator account has been disabled (Amir Ladsgroup)
Message: 1 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 20:08:57 +0200 From: Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] [Wikimedia-l] C-team Statement on the Code of Conduct Message-ID: < CA+ttme0tKn3xEnw4ayaQ-VxHu5-jvPp30eHOqKG6vpOvSQMMmA@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Hey, As a member of Code of conduct committee I just wanted to express how much I appreciate your statement. The work we are doing is not fun, we are dealing with frustrations, harassments, trolling, and all sorts of the dark side of the Wikimedia movement but I genuinely believe that this type of work is vital to keep the movement moving forward, to make us more welcoming and foster a diverse environment.
All of the support I've received, private and public, online and offline is overwhelming. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
Best On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 7:46 PM Victoria Coleman vcoleman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello everyone,
The executive leadership team, on behalf of the Foundation, would like to issue a statement of unequivocal support for the Code of Conduct[1] and
the
community-led Code of Conduct Committee. We believe that the development and implementation of the Code are vital in ensuring the healthy functioning of our technical communities and spaces. The Code of Conduct was created to address obstacles and occasionally very problematic
personal
communications that limit participation and cause real harm to community members and staff. In engaging in this work we are setting the tone for
the
ways we collaborate in tech. We are saying that treating others badly is not welcome in our communities. And we are joining an important movement
in
the tech industry to address these problems in a way that supports self-governance consistent with our values.
This initiative is critical in continuing the amazing work of our
projects
and ensuring that they continue to flourish in delivering on the critical vision of being the essential infrastructure of free knowledge now and forever.
Toby, Maggie, Eileen, Heather, Lisa, Katherine, Jaime, Joady, and
Victoria
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct%3E
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Message: 2 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 18:17:00 +0000 From: Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org" wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] [Wikimedia-l] C-team Statement on the Code of Conduct Message-ID: <CAF=dyJhZHEM-2h= wMXh+cAWNOPqq8akg742dJE0kiP7Pp9Ys4g@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
James, let's stay on topic, please. If you want to talk about other issues then please start a new thread.
Victoria, I have mixed feelings about this statement.
I agree that we want to have civility in technical spaces, and a technical code of conduct is one important way of working toward that goal. I also agree that having ways to resolve disputes and deal with problematic behavior is important.
On the other hand, I think several aspects of your statement are less than ideal.
- This situation is being discussed civilly in a single thread on
Wikitech-l, and I see no reason to start a new thread.
- You added Wikimedia-l to this discussion, and Wikimedia-l is outside of
the scope of the TCoC. I think that adding Wikimedia-l to the discussion is an unnecessary escalation. Please refrain from unnecessary escalations.
- While the opinions of the WMF executives are somewhat influential, my
understanding is that WMF wants the Technical Code of Conduct and the committee that enforces it to have political legitimacy in the community. Involvement of the WMF C-levels works against that. I think that you should let the participants in the discussion (which I feel is now generally tense but constructive) work out this situation among themselves / ourselves without the intervention of WMF executives. Although there are situations in which the intervention of WMF executives would be helpful, I think that this isn't one of them.
- The statement that you made comes across to me as endorsing the status
quo. I am not sure that this was your intent. I feel that adjustments to policies and practices should be considered, partially based on the constructive portions of the discussions that are happening on Wikitech-l.
I agree that the TCoC Committee has a difficult job when the try to do it well, and I support the goal of having civility in technical spaces. I think that it would be possible, and appropriate, to express support for good-faith efforts of the Committee's members and those participating in the discussion in Wikitech-l, and for the goals of the CoC, without unnecessary escalation or intervention from WMF executives that may make a difficult situation more challenging. Sometimes less involvement is the better way to achieve one's goals.
Thank you for listening,
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
Message: 3 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 18:23:18 +0000 From: Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] [Wikimedia-l] C-team Statement on the Code of Conduct Message-ID: 80dea45d-9ffc-020e-7ef5-c3b85c01c511@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Sorry, I apparently replied to the wrong mailing list.
On 14/08/18 18:19, Isarra Yos wrote:
As a total random, I'd also like to second this - as much as I think the CoC and the committee in particular have room to improve in how things are handled, this will never happen without proper support for the work they're doing in the first place.
While some of us have been somewhat flabbergasted by specific events, these are after all the people we need to be working with to actually resolve the issues at hand, and indeed the events (and handling thereof) themselves have also highlighted the need for more clearer standards moving forward. I'm glad to see some steps have already been taken. Let's continue in this vein.
Thank you!
-I
On 14/08/18 18:08, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:
Hey, As a member of Code of conduct committee I just wanted to express how much I appreciate your statement. The work we are doing is not fun, we are dealing with frustrations, harassments, trolling, and all sorts of the dark side of the Wikimedia movement but I genuinely believe that this type of work is vital to keep the movement moving forward, to make us more welcoming and foster a diverse environment.
All of the support I've received, private and public, online and offline is overwhelming. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
Best On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 7:46 PM Victoria Coleman vcoleman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello everyone,
The executive leadership team, on behalf of the Foundation, would like to issue a statement of unequivocal support for the Code of Conduct[1] and the community-led Code of Conduct Committee. We believe that the development and implementation of the Code are vital in ensuring the healthy functioning of our technical communities and spaces. The Code of Conduct was created to address obstacles and occasionally very problematic personal communications that limit participation and cause real harm to community members and staff. In engaging in this work we are setting the tone for the ways we collaborate in tech. We are saying that treating others badly is not welcome in our communities. And we are joining an important movement in the tech industry to address these problems in a way that supports self-governance consistent with our values.
This initiative is critical in continuing the amazing work of our projects and ensuring that they continue to flourish in delivering on the critical vision of being the essential infrastructure of free knowledge now and forever.
Toby, Maggie, Eileen, Heather, Lisa, Katherine, Jaime, Joady, and Victoria
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct%3E
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Message: 4 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 21:29:42 +0200 From: Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled Message-ID: <CA+4EQ5eYsJ1FxEoyYukcXO9kVhN=zf_gzSs-1nAtH= mZ2_NoPQ@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context and backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would someone just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our community friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've been thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which doesn't handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct is mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty to speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this social space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm headed? Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is that what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of best experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to spend their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put into solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature) it would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was so desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: > The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
the
> majority.
This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like
just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
majority here?
> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as an
engineer
> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how technical
teams
do
> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for sure)
but
the
> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
for
> while.
This seems like the current argument - that it's not really about
the
use
of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What
this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought up
was
a
blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to say something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
lack of transparency here.
-Yaron _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Message: 5 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2018 21:41:35 +0200 From: Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] My Phabricator account has been disabled Message-ID: < CA+ttme3nYdXGbKG_esGovcaGGHEa4Yo6UGY07Qp9oScpn0W-BQ@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Hey Petr, We have discussed this before in the thread and I and several other people said it's a straw man.
The problem is not the WTF or "What the fuck" and as I said before the mere use of profanity is not forbidden by the CoC. What's forbidden is "Harming the discussion or community with methods such as sustained disruption, interruption, or blocking of community collaboration (i.e. trolling).". [1] When someone does something in phabricator and you *just* comment "WTF", you're not moving the discussion forward, you're not adding any value, you're not saying what exactly is wrong or try to reach a consensus. Compare this with later comments made, for example: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T200742#4502463
I hope all of this helps for understanding what's wrong here.
Best
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:29 PM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:
I am OK if people who are attacking others are somehow informed that this is not acceptable and taught how to properly behave, and if they continue that, maybe some "preventive" actions could be taken, but is that what really happened?
The comment by MZMcBride was censored, so almost nobody can really see what it was and from almost all mails mentioning the content here it appears he said "what the fuck" or WTF. I can't really think of any language construct where this is so offensive it merits instant ban + removal of content.
I don't think we need /any/ language policy in a bug tracker. If someone says "this bug sucks old donkey's ****" it may sounds a bit silly, but there isn't really any harm done. If you say "Jimbo, you are a f**** retard, and all your code stinks" then that's a problem, but I have serious doubts that's what happened. And the problem is not a language, but personal attack itself.
If someone is causing problems LET THEM KNOW and talk to them. Banning someone instantly is worst possible thing you can do. You may think our community is large enough already so that we can set up this kind of strict and annoying policies and rules, but I guarantee you, it's not. We have so many open bugs in phabricator that every user could take hundreds of them... We don't need to drive active developers away by giving them bans that are hardly justified.
P.S. if someone saying "WTF" is really giving you creeps, I seriously recommend you to try to develop a bit thicker skin, even if we build an "Utopia" as someone mentioned here, it's gonna be practical for interactions in real world, which is not always friendly and nice. And randomly banning people just for saying WTF, with some cryptic explanation, seems more 1984 style Dystopia to me...
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 4:08 PM, David Barratt dbarratt@wikimedia.org wrote:
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory.
That seems like really toxic behavior.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 6:27 AM George Herbert <
george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
I keep seeing "abusers" and I still haven't seen the evidence of the alleged long term abuse pattern.
Again, this isn't enwiki, but there would be a large mob gathering at
the
administrators' doorstep on enwiki for a block without that context
and
backstory. That's not exactly the standard here, but ... would
someone
just answer the question? What happened leading up to this to justify
the
block? If it's that well known, you can document it.
On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi Petr,
Nobody is language policing, this is about preventing abusive
behavior
and
creating an inviting environment where volunteers and staff don't
have to
waste time with emotional processing of traumatic interactions.
I think we're after the same thing, that we want to keep our
community
friendly and productive, so it's just a matter of agreeing on the
means
to
accomplish this. I see the Code of Conduct Committee standing up to
the
nonsense and you see them as being hostile, so our perspectives
diverge
at
that point. I also see lots of people on this list standing up for
what
they think is right, and I'd love if that energy could be organized
better
so that we're not sniping at each other, but instead refining our
shared
statements of social values and finding a way to encourage the good
while
more effectively addressing the worst in us.
This isn't coherent enough to share yet, but I'll try anyway—I've
been
thinking about how our high proportion of anarchic- and libertarian-oriented individuals helped shape a culture which
doesn't
handle "negative laws" [1] well. For example, the Code of Conduct
is
mostly focused on "unacceptable behaviors", but perhaps we could
rewrite
it
in the positive sense, as a set of shared responsibilities to
support
each
other and the less powerful person in any conflict. We have a duty
to
speak up, a duty to keep abusers from their target, we own this
social
space and have to maintain it together. If you see where I'm
headed?
Rewriting the CoC in a positive rights framework is a daunting
project,
but
it might be fun.
Regards, Adam
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:36 AM Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com
wrote:
I am a bit late to the party, but do we seriously spend days discussing someone being banned from a bug tracker just for saying "WTF", having their original comment completely censored, so that
the
community can't even make a decision how bad it really was? Is
that
what we turned into? From highly skilled developers and some of
best
experts in the field to a bunch of language nazis?
We have tens of thousands of open tasks to work on and instead of doing something useful we are wasting our time here. Really? Oh,
come
on...
We are open source developers. If you make Phabricator too hostile
to
use it by setting up some absolutely useless and annoying rules, people will just move to some other bug tracker, or decide to
spend
their free time on a different open source project. Most of us are volunteers, we don't get money for this.
P.S. if all the effort we put into this gigantic thread was put
into
solving the original bug instead (yes it's a bug, not a feature)
it
would be already resolved. Instead we are mocking someone who was
so
desperate with the situation to use some swear words.
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 12:06 AM, Yaron Koren yaron57@gmail.com
wrote:
> Nuria Ruiz nuria@wikimedia.org wrote: >> The CoC will prioritize the safety of the minority over the
comfort
of
the >> majority. > > This is an odd thing to say, in this context. I don't believe
anyone's
> safety is endangered by hearing the phrase in question, so it
seems
like
> just an issue of comfort on both sides. And who are the minority
and
> majority here? > >> The way the bug was closed might be incorrect (I personally as
an
engineer >> agree that closing it shows little understanding of how
technical
teams
do >> track bugs in phab, some improvements are in order here for
sure)
but
the >> harsh interaction is just one out of many that have been out of
line
for
>> while. > > This seems like the current argument - that it's not really
about
the
use
> of a phrase, it's about an alleged pattern of behavior by
MZMcBride.
What
> this pattern is I don't know - the one example that was brought
up
was
a
> blog post he wrote six years ago, which caused someone else to
say
> something mean in the comments. (!) As others have pointed out,
there's a
> lack of transparency here. > > -Yaron > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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