Re: Process improvements when excluding attendees from DebConf
Hi Stefano,
thank you very much for the pointer to the discussion (I do not follow
-vote) and the thoughtful summary.
For me this boils down to: We don't have a pre-agreed, publicly
documented process on how to handle (alleged) violations of the CoC.
I do not think we should handle (alleged) violations differently whether
they concern a DebConf or not. The harassment that we want to prevent
can happen both online and in physical presence. And it can happen on
DebConf mailing lists and events or Debian communication platforms and
events. Handling just a subset or handling subsets differently is a
recipe for inconsistency and thus provoking feelings of arbitrariness.
We promise (in the DebConf CoC) "investigation and mediation" but do not
qualify that. The Debian CoC does not have any clause about due process.
Thus every case is handled in a "best effort" way heavily depending on
the people involved and external circumstances at the time.
CCC has an Arbitration board to escalate things to
(their Awareness team ~ our Community team is independent).
Structure: https://help.ccc.de/index.en.html
Arbitration team: https://help.ccc.de/arbitration/index.en.html
Process: https://help.ccc.de/arbitration/index.en.html
We could do something similar. But it is a lot of effort.
The CCC has events that are 30 times the size of our biggest DebConf
ever. So they have significantly more {need, resource, experience}.
We have something structurally similar with the Technical Committee
(CTTE). And we have DAM that are an arbitration team for issues
affecting membership.
If we look at the topics that are escalated to the CTTE or DAM, they
often include a component of interpersonal issues, too.
May be we should think about developing (one of?) these into a general
arbitration board? That board - of course - would need a pre-agreed,
publicly documented process by which they conduct their duties.
As I said above, I'd much prefer a process for any type of (serious)
allegation regardless of medium or venue. That's why I did not put the
DebConf Committee (DCC) in above. The DCC has a specific focus (for good
reasons) and the handling of CoC violations should ideally be generic.
Kind regards,
Daniel
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