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Re: Code of Conduct: picking up



Op 05-11-13 19:47, Ian Jackson schreef:
> Wouter Verhelst writes ("Code of Conduct: picking up"):
>> Anyway. The story so far:
>> - I posted a draft update of the code of conduct to this list in may[1],
>>   upon which a short discussion was started
>> - It was suggested that the draft wasn't ambitious enough, so I wrote a
>>   much more ambitious one during debcamp, and held a BoF[2] during
>>   debconf where much of it was discussed
>> - I posted the working document that we'd produced during that BoF to
>>   this list shortly after the BoF had finished[3], which did generate
>>   some comments, but not much progress.
> ....
>> # Debian Code of Conduct
> 
> Most of this is unobjectionable, although I would have preferred
> something much more
> 
>> ## Try to be concise.
> 
> concise :-).
> 
> 
> However, I think there are a couple of parts that need to be improved.
> 
> Firstly:
> 
>> ## In case of problems.
>>
>> While this code of conduct should be adhered to by participants, we
>> recognize that sometimes people may have a bad day, or be unaware of
>> some of the rules in this code of conduct. When that happens, you may
>> reply to them and point out this code of conduct. Such messages may be
>> in public or in private, whatever is most appropriate. However,
>> regardless of whether the message is public or not, it should still
>> adhere to the relevant parts of this code of conduct; in particular, it
>> should not be abusive or disrespectful. Assume good faith; it is more
>> likely that participants are unaware of their bad behaviour than that
>> they intentionally try to degrade the quality of the discussion.
>>
>> Repeated offenders may be temporarily or permanently banned from
>> communicating through Debian's systems, at the DPL's (or the DPL's
>> delegates') prerogative.
> 
> This is too weak in a number of ways.  I would:
> 
> * Replace "Repeated offenders may be..." with "Serious or persistent
>   offenders will be...".
> 
> * Replace "at the DPL's ... prerogative" with a new sentence
>   "Complaints should be made (in private) to the administrators
>    of the Debian communication forum in question."

Yes, I like that; I've updated my draft accordingly.

>> # Medium-specific codes
>>
>> This section contains some guidelines that are specific to one
>> particular communication medium. Note that the above general guidelines
>> still apply to each and every one of these medium-specific guidelines,
>> as well.
> 
> I think these should not be part of the CoC.  They should be
> promulgated (or not) by the administrators for each discussion forum.
> If we're planning to adopt the CoC via a GR then it is especially
> important that these fiddly details aren't in it.

Right.

As I said, I was inclined to remove it myself. You've just convinced me
to do so :-)

> Indeed, even if we need to do this via a GR to show widespread
> approval, I still think it would be good to allow the DPL to edit it
> later.  That would make it much easier to fix things.
> 
> I would suggest that the GR should explicitly say that the DPL is
> empowered to make changes to the Code of Conduct according to the
> usual process for a DPL decision.

Hmm. I'm leaning towards this, but I'm not 100% sure yet. It should be
safe (after all, the DPL is someone who, by definition, is supposed to
be trusted by the community), but it feels a bit irky.

> If we do that then it becomes easy to include a list of links to the
> forum-specific codes of conduct, and/or a list of complaint addresses.

Indeed.

>> ## More?
>>
>> # Further reading
>>
>> The links in this section do not refer to documents that are part of
>> this code of conduct, nor are they authoritative within Debian. However,
>> they do contain useful information on how to conduct oneself on our
> 
> "on our..." ?  Missing words.

... communication channels. Fixed, thanks for spotting.

>> - The [Debian Community Guidelines](http://people.debian.org/~enrico/dcg/)
>>   by Enrico Zini contain some advice on how to communicate effectively.
>> - <link to documentation on what to do in case of technical problems>
> 
> I guess this section is tolerable, particularly if the DPL is
> empowered to add more links and remove stale ones.

Indeed.

-- 
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space.

If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
will not go to space today.

  -- http://xkcd.com/1133/


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