[Foundation-l] Two videos FYI: Handling difficult people

[Sue Gardner]

Many of us talk/think a lot about how to reduce conflict in our
projects. For those who're interested, I was recently pointed towards
two relevant videos -- I'm posting them here in hopes they might be
useful for others.

So, for whoever's interested, here is:

* Donnie Berkholz's recent talk at Open Source Bridge, titled
"Assholes are killing your project."  Donnie, a council member at
Gentoo Linux, advocates establishment of a friendly culture including
a code of conduct, and maintenance of that culture via simple
mechanisms for problem reporting and resolution, plus a clear focus on
mission.  Unfortunately the audio here isn't terrific, so it's not
super-easy to follow.  http://blip.tv/file/2444432

* Two open source engineers at Google, Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian
Fitzpatrick, with a talk called "How Open Source Projects Survive
Poisonous People"   Upshot: Preserve your project's attention and
focus, build a healthy community and fortify it with good community
practices, be on the lookout for problems, and disinfect where
necessary, including marginalization/ignoring of difficult people, and
booting them out if you need to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSFDm3UYkeE

Personally, I have also gotten some good value out of Bill Eddy's book
High-Conflict People in Legal Disputes.  Bill is a mediator, lawyer
and former social worker who found himself repeatedly encountering
destructive people in his work, and not knowing how to disarm them or
disengage from them. He wrote High Conflict People to help other
mental health and legal professionals recognize, understand and work
productively with various types of conflict-seeking personalities --
but IMO its usefulness extends way beyond the legal system; it's
relevant for our work too.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0981509053/ref=cm_li_v_cr_self?tag=linkedin-20

Thanks,
Sue


-- 
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate