Dear fellow Developers,
As we try to do quarterly, here is an update about the Community Team
activities.
* In February, the Team expanded with two new members: Jean-Philippe
Mengual and Pierre-Elliott Bécue (yep, I'm doing Cesar's thing by
speaking of me at the third person!). We both accepted to join as we
felt we could help at our own level and because we feel that the more
people we have in the team, the easier the job will be.
* The Community Team had been approached several times by the DPL about
a potential Delegation. We took a while to agree on the text and the
way things would be done, but with the help of the Delegation
Advisory Group, we were able to find the appropriate middle ground
that made both the DPL and us happy. As you'll have seen on April the
15th[1], the Team is now officially delegated. Although it doesn't
change that much regarding what we actually do, it creates a specific
and official point of contact for anyone who feels that they need
help or advice.
* On this specific matter, we are perfectly aware that the current
makeup of the team is not ideal : 5 white persons, one non-binary and
4 males is not exactly what one would want to represent the diversity
and preserve it in the project. We hope to get more people on board
soon, and have currently two opportunities to do so:
- Molly de Blanc accepted to join us again ;
- Another woman Developer (no name here, nothing is done yet!) is
considering the idea to join and help.
That would raise our numbers up to seven (!) which would probably
ease the hard part of the work, and also allow us to have more
plurality in our discussions which is clearly for the best!
* On a less good note, we were also involved multiple times in
connection with the events that occurred on the -project lists in
late December. However, there are positive points here too:
* 2 members of our team are part of the new moderation team for
the debian-project list, to help deal with harassment/spam there
* Also an important collaborative project was born between multiple
teams (DAM, CT, DPL, BTS owners, planet admins, etc.) to
establish a global strategy to fight future harassment issues
more quickly, efficiently and without burn out.
Now regarding our core activities. Since the last "bits" in January:
* We got 16 direct or indirect requests
* We acted upon 8 of these, by discussing with the initial party and
with other implicated parties when it felt useful. We realized in one
case that we failed at providing enough insights before acting about
what we would do and how we would do it. This led the initial querier
to feel in the dark and uncomfortable about our actions, which
shouldn't happen. We will try to do better and avoid such mistakes in
the future.
* We did not act more than sending an acknowledgement email in the
other cases.
Last, but not least, as always we are looking for more help in our team!
And Steve having put it better that I could, I'll quote him:
"While we strongly believe that making Debian a good and welcoming place
for collaboration is a responsibility of *all* members of our community,
there's also a need for dedicated people to assist when things are not
working so well. If you think you'd like to help, please contact us - we
promise not to bite! :-)"
And we may have post-confinment cookies for the next meetup.
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2020/04/msg00005.html
--
Pierre-Elliott Bécue
GPG: 9AE0 4D98 6400 E3B6 7528 F493 0D44 2664 1949 74E2
It's far easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
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