Add CoC and deescalation docs for Zulip #144
Conversation
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| ### We are respectful | ||
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| We value each others ideas and viewpoints. We are open to different possibilities and being wrong. We are aware of our *impact* and how interactions will affect others. We are direct, constructive, and positive. We take responsibility for our impact and our mistakes - if someone says that they have been harmed by our words or actions, we *stop*, *listen*, and then *apologize sincerely* and *change behavior.* |
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then apologize sincerely and change behavior.
I am willing to agree to listen to accusations of harm and evaluate them fairly. But I am not willing to commit ahead of time to apologizing and changing behavior unless I ultimately agree with the critique. Does that mean my conduct is unwelcome in this process?
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A fairly important part of interacting respectfully is to recognize that the important part is the impact that your behaviour has on others, rather than the intent; and to this end, it should be sufficient for the other party to specify that someone's behaviour has impacted them.
Convincing the party exhibiting that behaviour should not be necessary for this; it has impacted someone regardless of whether the person doing the impacting recognizes it, and should be treated accordingly (which is why the expectation is to sincerely apologize and change behaviour regardless of whether you personally agree).
If there is a disagreement about this, then that is honestly the job of a moderator or third-party mediator to sort out.
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I didn’t say anything about intent. If you do something wrong unintentionally, I agree that you should apologize and change your behavior.
My point is: The fact that someone claims to have been harmed, or even actually has been harmed, is not itself sufficient evidence that the behavior was wrong. So I reiterate my question (to the moderators of the governance process): If I am not willing to commit to apologizing for behavior unless I come to judge it as wrong, am I unwelcome in this process?
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My point is: The fact that someone claims to have been harmed, or even actually has been harmed, is not itself sufficient evidence that the behavior was wrong.
What I am trying to explain is that in the spirit of this code of conduct, yes, that is sufficient evidence that the behavior was "wrong", to the degree that it warrants apology and correction (although "wrong" is not the term I would use, as it implies intent). The harm is specifically what makes it "wrong", and it is not the place of the person doing the harm to judge whether the complaint is valid.
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(as the author of the conduct document): Yes, it is intended that we default to assuming that the injured party is correct here. Not doing so, excessively questioning why, and not taking on feedback is exclusionary behavior and unacceptable in this context.
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Yes, I am willing to apologize for harm caused, even unintentionally or even by action which I still hold to be legitimate. If I think that someone is disingenuous about a claim of harm, I will seek out support from the moderators.
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My point is: The fact that someone claims to have been harmed, or even actually has been harmed, is not itself sufficient evidence that the behavior was wrong.
What I am trying to explain is that in the spirit of this code of conduct, yes, that is sufficient evidence that the behavior was "wrong", to the degree that it warrants apology and correction (although "wrong" is not the term I would use, as it implies intent). The harm is specifically what makes it "wrong", and it is not the place of the person doing the harm to judge whether the complaint is valid.
So someone simply stating that they have been harmed is always enough to require an apology from the accused harmer? It just seems like such a policy would be very open to abuse to me.
Can we really not recognize that its possible for a person to feel harmed without the person they perceive as harming them having done something wrong?
What if, for example, someone were to strongly advocate for using some piece of technology in the governance system on its technical merits saying that it is "vastly superior and better architected" than some opposing technology, and it just so happened that a community member in the zulip was heavily involved in the development of the opposing technology, and felt harmed by this statement, and that the accused had denigrated their work. This feels like a sufficiently murky situation, where, on the one hand, the harmed person is probably, in some sense, justified in feeling harmed, while the accused is probably also justified in feeling that they do not owe them an apology.
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‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to criticize you personally. I probably could have phrased that more sensitively.’
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You are free not to commit to it, of course, but the corresponding consequence will be that you are unable to participate in the governance Zulip.
Also if your mindset is already in that kind of detail, it doesn't give me great confidence that your input will be productive in a collaborative sense of things.
@joepie91 By the way, I personally feel harmed by the way you state things like this with an air authority that I do not think that you have actually been given.
@shlevy is an important community member who has been around for over a decade, and the fact that you have jumped so quickly to questioning whether having him contribute in the Zulip would be valuable honestly kind of bothers me. If someone with such a long tenure's right to participate can be questioned over what I perceive to be a completely legitimate question that is similar in spirit to questions that I have, it makes me feel insecure about my own welcomeness in this discussion.
Legitimately asking this question (and the reason I write this is because I seriously worry that people are going to perceive what I'm saying here as some type of sophistry or concern trolling and it really is not):
Do you feel compelled to apologize to me?
Even though I really feel that you have legitimately harmed me (not just with these comments but also with your conduct elsewhere), I really do not wish to compel you to apologize to me, and I actually think this situation presents a good example in that, while I think that I can really fairly claim that I have been harmed, I would probably also be able to respect an argument on your part that you have not harmed me even if I would not necessarily agree with it.
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So someone simply stating that they have been harmed is always enough to require an apology from the accused harmer?
Yes.
It just seems like such a policy would be very open to abuse to me.
As stated above, if you feel that this is being abused, talk to a moderator about them and have them sort it out.
Can we really not recognize that its possible for a person to feel harmed without the person they perceive as harming them having done something wrong?
This was repeatedly explicitly recognized in the conversation with @shlevy, which is why this was considered resolved.
By the way, I personally feel harmed by the way you state things like this with an air authority that I do not think that you have actually been given.
I was involved in drafting this policy, and I am explaining its mechanics. Also, that second quote is not even mine.
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| Open Source doesn't work without the people who make the software happen. The governance project is putting people first and doing its best to recognize, appreciate, and respect the diversity of our global contributor base. We welcome contributions from all qualified (through contribution or prior experience) people who want to contribute in a healthy and constructive manner. | ||
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| These guidelines aim to support bootstrapping our governance structure, and as such *all* who can, should feel safe to participate regardless of background, family status, gender, gender identity and expression, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, plurality, native language, age, race/ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, geographic location, education, or other aspects of diversity. |
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I have trouble follow the first part grammatically. "X aim to support bootstrapping Y, and as such all who can, should ..." doesn't parse for me.
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| ### We are respectful | ||
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| We value each others ideas and viewpoints. We are open to different possibilities and being wrong. We are aware of our *impact* and how interactions will affect others. We are direct, constructive, and positive. We take responsibility for our impact and our mistakes - if someone says that they have been harmed by our words or actions, we *stop*, *listen*, and then *apologize sincerely* and *change behavior.* |
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| We value each others ideas and viewpoints. We are open to different possibilities and being wrong. We are aware of our *impact* and how interactions will affect others. We are direct, constructive, and positive. We take responsibility for our impact and our mistakes - if someone says that they have been harmed by our words or actions, we *stop*, *listen*, and then *apologize sincerely* and *change behavior.* | |
| We value each other's ideas and viewpoints. We are open to different possibilities and being wrong. We are aware of how our words and actions will affect others. We communicate in a direct, constructive, and positive way. We take responsibility for our impact and our mistakes - if someone says that they have been harmed by our behavior, we *stop*, *listen*, and then *apologize sincerely* and *change behavior.* |
Impact seems a bit vague, moving "words and actions forward".
Sentence per line formatting would help with reviews.
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others is correct here (not possesive). Impact is pretty well defined though, I'd like to avoid rewording that.
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| ### We are inclusive | ||
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| As an open source project we are building on the work of, and building for, other people. In governance we are building for the builders and for the users. We need to be mindful of the needs of those who will be impacted by our work, demonstrating patience, kindness, and understanding. We think about the impact of our decisions on others and ensure to bring in diverse perspectives and make inclusive choices. We understand that the emphasis is on ensuring that even minoritised groups feel safe in our spaces. |
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| As an open source project we are building on the work of, and building for, other people. In governance we are building for the builders and for the users. We need to be mindful of the needs of those who will be impacted by our work, demonstrating patience, kindness, and understanding. We think about the impact of our decisions on others and ensure to bring in diverse perspectives and make inclusive choices. We understand that the emphasis is on ensuring that even minoritised groups feel safe in our spaces. | |
| As an open source project we are building on the work of, and building for, other people. In governance we are building for the builders and for the users. We need to be mindful of the needs of those who will be impacted by our work, demonstrating patience, kindness, and understanding. We consider the consequences of our decisions for others and ensure to bring in diverse perspectives and make inclusive choices. We understand that the emphasis is on ensuring that even minority groups feel safe in our spaces. |
Minoritized seems not to be a common word. I suppose "marginalized" was deliberately avoided?
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minoritised is used specifically here (women for example are not a minority in society, but are minoritised in tech)
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I would be ok with accepting the consider the consequences.... bit, but would reject the replacement of minoritised
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| is not acceptable. This includes deliberately referring to someone by a gender that they do not identify with, and/or questioning the legitimacy of an individual’s gender identity. If you’re unsure if a word is derogatory, don’t use it. This also includes repeated subtle and/or indirect discrimination; when asked to stop, stop the behavior in question. |
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| is not acceptable. This includes deliberately referring to someone by a gender that they do not identify with, and/or questioning the legitimacy of an individual’s gender identity. If you’re unsure if a word is derogatory, don’t use it. This also includes repeated subtle and/or indirect discrimination; when asked to stop, stop the behavior in question. | |
| is not acceptable. This includes deliberately referring to someone by a gender that they do not identify with, and/or questioning the legitimacy of an individual’s gender identity. If you’re unsure if a word is derogatory, don’t use it. This also includes repeated subtle or indirect discrimination; when asked to stop, stop the behavior in question. |
Logical or seems appropriate.
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and/or works sliiiightly better in english here 😅 (without rewording the sentence completely anyway)
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| # How to de-escalate situations | |||
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| Governance is a complicated topic that often creates conflicts; some of them small, some of them not so small. Moderators are tasked with ensuring that the governance Zulip remains a constructive space for people to talk these things out, but there is a lot that you can do yourself to keep the discussion constructive; or even as a third party intervening in someone else's escalating discussion. | |||
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| Governance is a complicated topic that often creates conflicts; some of them small, some of them not so small. Moderators are tasked with ensuring that the governance Zulip remains a constructive space for people to talk these things out, but there is a lot that you can do yourself to keep the discussion constructive; or even as a third party intervening in someone else's escalating discussion. | |
| Governance is a complicated topic that often creates conflicts; some of them small, some of them not so small. Moderators are tasked with ensuring that the "Nix community governance Zulip" remains a constructive space for people to talk these things out, but there is a lot that you can do yourself to keep the discussion constructive; or even as a third party intervening in someone else's escalating discussion. |
A "governance Zulip" feels like quite out there in terms of well-definedness. Trying to make clear what this refers to.
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That seems like a reasonable change 👍
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| ## Assume good faith | ||
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| The people who participate in these governance conversations, are most likely here because they want the project governance to be improved, just like you. Try to assume that the other person is doing what they're doing in good faith. There are only very few people who genuinely seek to cause disruption, and if that is the case, it becomes a task for moderators to handle. |
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| The people who participate in these governance conversations, are most likely here because they want the project governance to be improved, just like you. Try to assume that the other person is doing what they're doing in good faith. There are only very few people who genuinely seek to cause disruption, and if that is the case, it becomes a task for moderators to handle. | |
| The people who participate in these governance conversations are most likely here because they want the project governance to be improved, as we expect you to be. Try to assume that the other person is doing what they're doing in good faith. There are only very few people who genuinely seek to cause disruption, and if that is the case, it is for moderators to handle. |
"Just like you" makes a strong, implicit assumption. Make it explicit that's an assumption.
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Latter part worsens legibility and grammar. First... I'd avoid that it's an assumption - by joining the space you agree that's your shared goal with the current construction.
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| Open Source doesn't work without the people who make the software happen. The governance project is putting people first and doing its best to recognize, appreciate, and respect the diversity of our global contributor base. We welcome contributions from all qualified (through contribution or prior experience) people who want to contribute in a healthy and constructive manner. | ||
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| These guidelines aim to support bootstrapping our governance structure, and as such *all* who can, should feel safe to participate regardless of background, family status, gender, gender identity and expression, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, plurality, native language, age, race/ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, geographic location, education, or other aspects of diversity. |
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When I saw this list, I felt that protections for:
- religion
- political beliefs
- beliefs in general
(Crucial detail: I'm not advocating that there should be protections for expressing any beliefs, just that individuals should not be excluded on this basis. I would welcome language that makes it explicit that protections of expression do not necessarily exist.)
were conspicuously absent. Notes:
- I'm a lifelong atheist that does not have warm feelings towards religion
- More consistent than not with the nix community politically
and therefore not motivated by self interest in pointing this out.
Also, chat gpt also agreed that these (along with veteran and disability status) were missing (and it was not prompted in a leading way):
https://chat.openai.com/share/5f30ffc2-94fd-41c2-8014-3b77393d3c79
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disability falls under other aspects of diversity here, but i'm not against also explicitly including it.
Religion and political beliefs in this case were mostly omitted because they shouldn't be discussed in this context (and reducing things to a country's political system are already called out as behavior that shouldn't occur).
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Political beliefs shouldn't be even really be protected, like that would lead to terrible consequences, like, do we just accept Nazis now in that case, since that's a 'political belief'?
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Religion and political beliefs in this case were mostly omitted because they shouldn't be discussed in this context
But many things are explicitly called out in this document that also probably shouldn't be discussed, other than in the specific context of protection. I'm not sure I understand the difference here.
I also do not see how any of these things reduce to "a countries political system".
do we just accept Nazis now in that case?
Not an ad hominem, but to me, this is a textbook example of a slippery slope fallacy.
I'd really be willing to go a few different routes in addressing this question though:
- Political beliefs that are regarded as within a the 90% overton window of global politics (If you want a more specific criteria, anything that every country/tv channel etc etc. in the world would disavow (like nazism) would not be protected)
- I also specifically mentioned that the protection of beliefs would not extend to expression of those beliefs, but that a person's participation could not be disallowed on a political basis. I hate nazis just as much as the next person, but if a nazi (or something allowed under the above rule, but still very radical) is following all of the other coc rules, I don't see how they could do too much damage, and personally I'd rather err on the side of inclusiveness.
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But many things are explicitly called out in this document that also probably shouldn't be discussed, other than in the specific context of protection. I'm not sure I understand the difference here.
(I would 👍 this, at least as far as religion is concerned. Seems just as worthy of mention as ‘family status’ and just as unlikely to be directly relevant, but still meaningful to people who are looking for safety vibes.)
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@rhendric so reading between the lines, you don't think a person's political beliefs should be protected even if we specifically stipulate:
- The expression of those beliefs in nix community forums is not always protected
- The beliefs must be within a reasonable range (the nazi clause, essentially)
I'm sure that based on my insistence on this issue, many are assuming the worst about me (that I want to protect some abhorrent bigoted political belief), but the truth is that this is just a really important principle to me.
Fairly or unfairly (and I understand that many do not agree with me on this point), I perceive that (perhaps just certain parts of) the community has demonstrated a worrying amount of insistence on ideological conformity from its members. On most of the points on which the community seems intolerant of dissent, I actually am in agreement with where the community is at, but there are some finer points where I do feel like I'm not 100% aligned and the community seems to feel very strongly (ex. all MIC is inherently evil).
I'm open to the possibility that I'm seeing ghosts and that all of my concerns are overblown, and that the protections I'm asking for may not actually be important. With that said, it genuinely surprises me that the same people that are so concerned about the protection of demographic minorities, and who despite any political differences I may have with them, seem to generally be very empathetic people (if we are going by the values that underpin their political philosophies), cannot make what feels like a simple, uncontroversial concession here.
I'm sure that many will see this as concern trolling, but I'm genuinely pleading that you make some gesture at protecting beliefs and politics. Let me reiterate that I really do not have any of the abhorrent beliefs that you are probably projecting on to me for writing this, and I really, genuinely, love nix and its community and maybe just see things a little bit differently than you do.
The state of discourse about this really actually causes anxiety, and addressing my concern, even if its just in a small, incomplete way, would go a really long way in ameliorating some of what I am feeling right now.
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@rhendric so reading between the lines, you don't think a person's political beliefs should be protected even if we specifically stipulate:
- The expression of those beliefs in nix community forums is not always protected
- The beliefs must be within a reasonable range (the nazi clause, essentially)
Actually I don't have a confident opinion either way, with those stipulations in place. Though I'll note that ‘must be within a reasonable range’ is a subjective call much like any other that a moderator would have to make, and ‘you are protected regardless of political beliefs, as long as we think your beliefs are reasonable’ is not much of a protection.
But in case you missed it, I'm not a moderator anymore, so my opinion has the same weight as yours.
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| Disrupting the proceedings will not be tolerated. This includes, but is not limited to: | ||
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| - Bad faith invitations to engage in debate, regardless of the pretense of civility. |
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Please do not regard this comment as being written in bad faith -- I totally understand the need to mention this and explicitly disallow it.
Nonetheless, I believe that the adjudication of bad faith is fraught with issues of subjectivity and something that absolutely has to be handled carefully. There have been cases, especially in the last two weeks, where accusations of bad faith/sealioning/concern trolling have been levied at others when they have asked questions that (in my view):
- I genuinely wanted to know the answer to
- I saw no reason to believe they were asked in bad faith
- Were not a case of asking a legitimate question repetitively or after it had already been answered
My opinion is that the moderation team should try not to impute bad intentions on community members. I think its especially important to specifically protect viewpoints as not falling under the category of sealioning if they do not obviously fulfill the "relentless" or "feigning ignorance" criteria mentioned in the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
and I think it might even be possible to write something to that effect here.
I also think that it might even be worthwhile to prohibit bad faith/incessant accusations of sealioning and regard that behavior itself as sealioning.
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Making subjective judgments is specifically the job of moderators. They are trusted to be familiar with patterns of abusive behaviour, and an ability to identify them and distinguish them from legitimate disagreement or misunderstanding. Many of these patterns of behaviour are not going to be obvious to you if you are not an experienced moderator, and/or are not frequently on the receiving end of them - this does not make moderation against them any less legitimate, regardless of whether the reasons are understood by third parties or onlookers.
We also already have a significant amount of de-escalation and conflict resolution guidance to prevent the situation from getting to a point of unintended conflict to begin with. Likewise, if you believe that accusations are made in bad faith, you can bring this to a moderator and have them decide; bad-faith accusations are in and of themselves already considered undesirable behaviour.
To emphasize: everybody is expected to assume good faith. This also means not questioning it when people tell you to stop something, regardless of whether you consider it to be a problem yourself. If you disagree with such a request, bring it to a moderator.
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This document is replete with specific protections for certain types of behavior. My comment was about adding additional specific protections that I care about to the document (since there seems to be a precedent for this).
Perhaps I should make them more specific:
- bad faith must be likely, not merely possible
- bans on the basis of sealioning/concern trolling must include the "relentlessness" or "feigning ignorance" criteria
At the end of the day, these things still have to be judged subjectively, and I don't think those additional criteria have any potential for abuse. I also think they are consistent with other things that are included in this document in terms of the level of their specificity.
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Those criteria do have significant potential for abuse, because historical experience within the NixOS community (and elsewhere, for that matter) has shown that specifying any 'minimum criteria for enforcement' has really only led to people trying to argue that they Technically(tm) are not violating a rule, while nobody was actually satisfied by them who otherwise wouldn't have been - the same people continued to look for other reasons to complain.
Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
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Ok that's good enough for the purpose.
Remember the goal here is to elect this assembly board. We don't have a lot of time, which is why moderation is important: to prevent disruptive behaviour from interfering with the process. The mod team is also not enough: we also expect participants to behave well and maintain a high level of discourse.
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| - Gender identity or expression | |
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| - Otherkin and/or Therian identity |
This would probably be good to add, signaling to people who identify with either of these identities that they're welcomed here :3
| Open Source doesn't work without the people who make the software happen. The governance project is putting people first and doing its best to recognize, appreciate, and respect the diversity of our global contributor base. We welcome contributions from all qualified (through contribution or prior experience) people who want to contribute in a healthy and constructive manner. | ||
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| These guidelines aim to support bootstrapping our governance structure, and as such *all* who can, should feel safe to participate regardless of background, family status, gender, gender identity and expression, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, plurality, native language, age, race/ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, geographic location, education, or other aspects of diversity. | ||
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The CoC and associated rules bind all further discussion. So it's not appropriate for the incumbent moderation team to decide this by themselves, before the community is even assembled. If they do, this can't be fully considered a community process.
The community, as defined by the inclusion criteria, is capable of deciding further ground rules. But that shouldn't be done until the community has been defined and assembled.
The Zulip rules of use policy is enough to start those discussions. And by using Zulip, we are bound by them implicitly.
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So it's not appropriate for the incumbent moderation team to decide this by themselves, before the community is even assembled
This hasn't been decided by an incumbent moderation team (although I wrote the document I have only been a moderator for approximately 10 minutes while writing this comment, and not yet even in all spaces). But through a day of discussions with the folks actively engaged in trying to get this process going (in an already time-bound process).
Defining a set of participation rules is fairly common for discussions that will inevitably involve a lot of feelings, and these are designed to help constructively guide us towards a set of ongoing policies and governance structures in a way where all (eligible) folks can participate safely.
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While the CoC affects the form of further discussion, it does not affect the contents of further discussion; that is, it is entirely possible to propose a new code of conduct that conflicts with the one that applies to the governance venue, as long as the way in which it is done is compliant with the one currently specified. Setting the current code of conduct is within the mandate of the existing governance structures, just like the rest of "organizing the governance talks" is; the code of conduct is just an implementation detail (and more a values statement than a legal or binding document, at that).
Extensive discussion has already been had about what is needed to make constructive governance discussions viable, and this is what was settled on as an outcome of that discussion. It should not be too much to ask for people to temporarily follow a set of rules to participate in making their voice heard.
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My object level preference is for something with a lighter touch, such as @squalus’s suggestion to start with the Zulip rules and only iterate if the discussion is not progressing.
That being said, it’s more important to just get the real discussion going, and no matter what is said in the document we ultimately have to either expect good faith from the shepherds of this process or separate from the process itself. I ask that the moderators of this process be very cautious about any action which might actually or even just be honestly perceived to undermine the legitimacy of the outcome.
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As a proposed Zulip moderator I pledge to act reasonably and in the best interest for establishing a great community-based governance! |
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This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-board-giving-power-to-the-community/44552/119 |
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As a (new) member of the moderation team I also pledge to act reasonably and in the best interest of establishing a great community-based governance. |
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As a proposed Zulip moderator, I pledge to act reasonably and in the best interest for establishing a great community-based governance. |
We worked out reasonable CoC (primary author @endocrimes) and deescalation docs (primary author @joepie91) together for the Zulip instance. Let's get this merged so we can link to it.
Feel free to add your signature with 👍!
Note that we're discussing this live in the Zulip setup coordination Matrix room.