> On 12 Jan 2017, at 15:44, Rich Bowen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On 2017-01-12 08:12 (-0500), Jan Lehnardt <[email protected]> wrote: >> CouchDB Dev list & Sharan, >> >> I would not recommend attending FOSDEM. >> >> Their Code of Conduct is not up to modern standards (despite numerous >> attempts asking for improvement) and their past yearâs incident handling >> has been sub-par to say the least. >> >> Your mileage my vary. > > > They've got a CoC this year - https://fosdem.org/2017/practical/conduct/ - > which is a step in the right direction. While I agree that FOSDEM has a LONG > way to go in terms of diversity, I think we should celebrate a step in the > right direction, while also encouraging more steps. > > I think they're trying to move in the right direction, and need our help.
This is the same CoC three years running, despite feedback. The handling of issues last and year before that was non-existant (I can’t share details, obviously), so I have little hope, let alone cause to celebrate. I’m not concerned about diversity, but people’s safety. The volunteer team is not equipped or even prepared to handle incidents concerning personal safety, and have in the past, exacerbated the problem even. We can talk diversity when we got safety done. Maslov’s hierarchy and all. > To be blunt, as a young white man with a long beard, I think that you are in > a pretty good position to help that process. I don't agree that boycotting > the event is what's helpful. I’ve spent my share the past three years trying to educate them to no avail. I personally don’t feel safe at their event. I just want to make sure people don’t go in without knowing this. > With a great deal of help from Sharan, there's a Community devroom this year, > and there's a Documentation track that has community-focused talks, and I > feel like the event is making a concerted effort to improve this particular > aspect. But they're at the point in the process where they can use a lot of > help. > > Having a CoC (even a well written one) is, as you are keenly aware, only part > of the larger picture. I'd love to see you (like, you, Jan, specifically) > stand up to volunteer to be part of the FOSDEM committee for 2018 to > specifically address this issue. I can't think of anyone better. I’d suggest the devroom adapts this: http://confcodeofconduct.com (which I help maintain), or similar, if that doesn’t exist already. Other devrooms have had better CoCs than FOSDEM in general in the past, so making sure the ASF one is up to snuff is the least we can do. This isn’t do distract from the hard work that goes into FOSDEM or the ASF devroom there, but this is the absolute minimum you need to do BEFORE you run an event these days. Best Jan -- > -- Professional Support for Apache CouchDB: https://neighbourhood.ie/couchdb-support/
