Conflict escalation and discipline

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

We desperately need:

 * Somewhere people can escalate a dispute involving ill-feeling,
   that isn't debian-devel[0] or the DPL[1].

 * An effective, reliable and unified[2] disciplinary mechanism that
   (i) promotes healing, apology and reconciliation where that is
   feasible (ii) failing that, limits the damage done by difficult
   people (iii) when inappropriate behaviour appears in public is able
   to authoritatively declare and demonstrate that it is not how we do
   things here.

[0] Doing this kind of thing in public is really poor.  d-devel is a
good place for escalation of a tricky technical problem.  It can also
work well for technical disagreement, if the participants still regard
each other as collaborators and remain friendly or, at least, polite.

[1] We must not pile this problem onto one person.

[2] That is, there should be a single set of decisionmakers who can
ultimate make disciplinary decisions[3] regardless of which communication
channel(s) and/or contributor status privileges are being (ab)used;
and regardless of whether the bad behaviour is said to be harassment
or rudeness or whatever.

[3] It would be OK if they made recommendations which DAM, TC, or
whoever, were expected to follow.

Ian.

-- 
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>   These opinions are my own.

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