Re: Community Team - where we want to go

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

Hi Steve,

On Wed, Oct 09, 2019 at 10:26:39PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote:
[...]
> Responsibilities include
> ========================
> 
>  * Interpreting the Code of Conduct;

I have to say that it was never my intention that there be one team that
would have the power to "interpret" the Code of Conduct. It was
carefully written to empower administrators of various systems in the
project (i.e., IRC, mailinglists, salsa, etc) to "temporarily or
permanently" ban people who use our systems in abusive ways, but with
the caveat that the reasons for which that clause could be invoked are
vague *on purpose*. The Code of Conduct tries to encourage good
behavior, rather than discourage bad behavior, which makes for an easier
way to detect that someone is breaking the rules set out in that
document. There is a whole spectrum of different behaviors between what
would be considered "good" and what would be considered "bad"; when
someone does something that is "almost bad", then it is very obviously
also "not good", so technically violating our Code of Conduct. With a
Code of Conduct that enumerates bad behavior instead, we would
(technically) have no reason to ban someone who is in the "almost bad"
location for Code of Conduct violations.

While I'm not arguing that we should take punitive action against
everyone who violates our current Code of Conduct in the "almost bad"
sense, there is a reason why it mentions "repeat offenders";
additionally, I also think that the current phrasing of the Code of
Conduct allows administrators the necessary leeway to take the correct
course of action as necessitated by individual situations.

If what you mean by "interpreting" is "eventually come up with a long
list of things not to do", then that would definitely be against the
spirit of the current Code of Conduct (at least as it was intended by
its primary author, i.e., me), and I would be disappointed if that were
to happen.

[...]
> Examples of things the team does *not* do
> =========================================
[...]
>  * Mediate communications or conversations between individuals; or

I also wonder why you exclude this as a responsibility. I think that a
team which does explicitly not have the power to take any punitive
action (but at the same time is involved in a lot of situations like
that) would often (though probably not always) be in an ideal position
to mediate between members. What am I missing?

-- 
To the thief who stole my anti-depressants: I hope you're happy

  -- seen somewhere on the Internet on a photo of a billboard