Hi,
On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:30 PM, rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
In general, Matt, I do experience that the wikimedia
movement is
criticized having too many rules and policies. Add another one does not
help.
Years ago I was among the ones that would strongly oppose to a Code of
Conduct for some of the reasons mentioned in this thread (there is proof
somewhere in the GNOME project archives). Basically, that a written policy
cannot help as much as common sense and community pressure. Since then, I
have learned several things:
* Turns out that statistically speaking my thoughts at the time fit very
well with my profile in terms of gender, age, geographical location,
ethnic/social/economic/academic background, fluency in written English,
individualism, extrovertism... This was/is the mainstream profile in free
software projects but is just one of the many profiles possible in a free
software project on a more diverse and global scale. The more we care about
growth and diversity, the more we need to care about feeling welcomed and
safe in terms different than what makes some of us feel welcomed and safe.
When discussing a CoC, we are also discussing for those that are not here
but might one day.
* I have seen very competent, productive and admirable volunteers,
professionals, and contributors combining both roles, taking a break or
leaving completely after saying to whoever wanted to listen something along
the lines of "I don't need to go through this; there are many other
interesting venues out there." If you don't know anyone perhaps it's
because you haven't been long or deep enough. When discussing a CoC, we
don't get the opinions of those that left already, but we can still
exercise our memory and reflect.
* I have learned about first time contributors and also about experienced
contributors talking about their first experiences lurking in our channels
or remembering their first impressions during their first steps in our
community. Some events that for me passed unnoticed or were normal/ok had
impressed these newcomers and had been found not normal and not ok by them.
Sometimes I would not even be sure whether a specific exchange had been
fair, understandable or not, again because communication styles and
offended feelings are very subjective, and there was no clear guideline to
check.
I still think that no piece of paper or wiki page will solve anything as
good as a solid social convention, but now I do think that in a context
like ours a wiki page can help solidifying a social convention. I also
believe that a percentage of harassment and abuse happens because of
personal bias or lack of awareness, sensitivity, or after-thought by those
creating such situations, and having such wiki page can help preventing
that percentage just by having a text written and approved by the
community. Finally, I'm also convinced that a number of offenses go
unreported and are swallowed by those suffering them just because we have
no clear guideline of how to recognize inappropriate behavior, what to do
when you see it or suffer it, and which guarantees does anyone have that a
complaint will be addressed by someone without causing more pain to the
people suffering.
So yes, even before starting to talk about the "bureaucracy" of how to
define, enforce, appeal, etc, I think a wiki page titled Code of Conduct
and approved by the Wikimedia tech community will be very useful to
acknowledge a real problem and to deal with it. It is also good to discuss
it now that it is quite peaceful, rather than in one of those stormy phases
that we allow to ourselves from time to time.
--
Quim Gil
Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil