Lars Wirzenius writes ("Re: Conflict escalation and discipline"):
> "Debian emotional support group", maybe.I find this suggestion very surprising, possibly even insulting. At the very least I need to be much clearer. > But maybe wait with the naming until there's a clear description of > what the group is reponsible for. This group would: * Receive reports of bad behaviour on the part of Debian contributors, in whatever forum or venue including in person. Bad behaviour includes but is not limited to: harassment; exceeding any form of authority (eg, package hijack); persistent or severe rudeness; blocking others' work without reasonable justification and adequate communication. * Handle matters in private (except in very exceptional cases). * Where appropriate, facilitate, mediate and/or conciliate, in the hope that the problem can be resolved by better communication. * Where appropriate, make judgements about the behaviour of relevant parties, and express those judgements to the parties in the hope of influencing them. * Where appropriate, recommend action to: DAM, TC, listmaster, IRC operators, DPL. Information about the situation would be provided by the disputes team to the gatekeeper team; but the gatekeeper team would not be expected to make its own enquiries and would normally be expected to follow the recommendation. * Write and publish guidelines for how to behave, how to complain, and write down its own processes. * Resolution might include simply informal discussions and reconciliation. It might involve formal apologies, usually private but perhaps public. It might involve preventative measures (intended to limit the damage done); punative disciplinary measures (intended to deter); and exclusionary disciplinary measures (intended to remove a problem from the community or part of it). It might involve a formal transfer of one or more forms of authority held by some of the disputants. * The new group would have a foundational document which would explicitly give it authority to do all of the above. * All of the above is without prejudice to the continuing rights of listmaster and other forum operators to take action when they think it appropriate. * Where the dispute includes a technical question about the behaviour of software, the dispute team would firstly try to get people to be able to discuss it constructively. If that failed to produce agreement, the disputes team would say who was the person whose decision it was. If the other side wish they may refer the technical question to the TC. The behaviour of the participants during the TC conversdation would be monitored by the disputes group and if necessary the disputes group would be able to have the discussion suspended or some participant(s) blocked. Ian.
