Hi Ben,
I think the counterpoint to this is highlighting that most western
justice systems are based around intent (i.e. good-faith or bad-faith,
or "mens rea"). For example. the difference between murder and
homicide/manslaughter is solely intent and it is up to the system itself
to determine that intent.
As the famous old quote goes:
"Better that 10 guilty men go free than to convict a single innocent
man" - William Blackstone
Personally I'm not a fan of the Covenant; it has big subjective
loopholes and components that be used to retroactively change the rules.
@Maria - a concern with having this conversation on the CoC list is that
that's a self-selecting group and there's a non-zero chance it can end
up as an echo chamber. How many of the folks who have put forth an
opinion in this thread on /discuss are also on /CoC for instance?
Cheers,
Jonathan
On 2018-12-12 01:32, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
Rather than guilty until proven innocent, I think the covenant
proposes a neutral and evidence-based approach. Mandating good faith
as a starting point unfortunately enables bullies who provoke a
response and then hide behind "X can't take a joke" or other
minimisation to further harm their victim. I have not seen this in
OSGeo but I have seen it in several cases elsewhere and I hope we will
all be sufficiently alert to prevent it. I think that a proportionate
and sensitive response will encourage consideration of the feelings of
others without harming our collegial atmosphere.
As another cross-cultural example, several of our members have given
names that are masculine in Italian but feminine in English, resulting
in their occasional misgendering on mailing lists and pull requests.
While I found this amusing and assumed that it was unintentional, I
also knew that some might find such misgendering insulting or hurtful
and in any case it was not a good precedent, so I took the time to
gently point out the mistake in private (IIRC). In each case, the
mistake was not repeated. We can all take little actions that
contribute to a welcoming environment.
Kind regards,
Ben.
On 11/12/2018 13:44, Jonathan Moules wrote:
Hi Maria,
Just a thought, but I'm not sure getting rid of the assumption of
good faith is a good idea. To do so would be basically assuming
people are guilty until proven innocent which runs counter to how
these things should work.
To use a personal anecdote, many years ago I had a black flatmate who
I was joking around with and I made a comment that it turns out is a
negative racial epithet. Being young and unworldly, I didn't know
that at the time and certainly didn't mean it in that context, it
also has a perfectly innocent context - the only one I'd ever been
exposed to - which is how I was using it.
Now, reading your thebias.com link, I can see that the author there
would suggest I be pilloried for what was an honest mistake. They'd
say I was being "careless" or "ignorant" and stepping on their toes.
But I don't think either is fair because it's not reasonable to
expect people to know everything that could offend everyone,
especially somewhere as multicultural as the internet.
For example, consider this symbol: 👍a simple thumbs-up emoticon
that's commonly used to signify "it's all good" and "thanks". Well,
it turns out that it's "an obscene insult" in some cultures! I didn't
know that until a few seconds ago when I went searching for a simple
example.
I have learnt over the years from experiences in both directions that
it's best to always assume good faith if possible. Humans may be the
species with the most complex communication on the planet, but that
doesn't mean we don't fail often.
@Ben - Thanks for sharing World Human Rights day. I'm a long time fan
of the UNDHR!
Cheers,
Jonathan
On 2018-12-09 12:49, María Arias de Reyna wrote:
Dear OSGeo community,
As you may already know, I have been working for the last months in
improving our community procedures[1] to make it a safer space.
Recent events in the community have shown that we have a lot of work
ahead.
We all, as OSGeo, must remove the recent bullying and campaigning
mentality that is unfortunately gradually become a part of our
culture. Disclosing private data or hinting threats is not helpful
and can only make our community less comfortable for everyone. We
will work on improving actions on harmful behavior.
This has been a slow task, but there are some actions taking place:
CoC committee members have become inactive. I volunteered to pick up
the task and lead a new CoC committee. Right now I am the only CoC
member, but I am looking for more volunteers. If only, to make sure
that if I am involved in any CoC incident, someone else can take
care of it properly as mediator.
I want to change also the way incidents and violations of the CoC
are reported. I noticed there are reports being done on person and
on private email, but never through the official channels (which
right now is a mailing list).To improve this, I will ask the SAC to
replace the mailing list with an alias and a form on the website.
Also, there will be a public list of who receives those emails so
people reporting incidents will have a clear understanding of who is
receiving the information and decide to contact privately only a
subset of the team. Replacing the mailing list by an alias that
sends the data directly to the inbox of the CoC team is important,
as sometimes incidents are not reported just because the person
reporting is scared to leave a trace of the report or is not sure
who will be reading the report.
Another action I am going to propose is a change on the CoC itself.
Our community has grown a lot both in diversity and in numbers, and
we need a strict code of conduct that makes sure marginalized or
harrased people is always covered by it. We can't rely anymore on
just common sense and good faith.
Once the new board is settled, I am going to propose to change the
current CoC for another like the Contributor Covenant[2]. As it is a
CoC shared by many communities, this has the advantage of receiving
the upgrades and experience from other communities. As you can see,
it fixes some of the bugs from our CoC, like the assuming good
intent and good faith[3] part that made the current CoC useless on
most cases. I will propose to add some foreword to adapt to
specifities for our community, but in my opinion, the latest version
of the Contributor Covenant is easy to read, simple, and cover most
of what we need. My hope is that this new CoC can be adapted to all
OSGeo Projects and Events that don't already have a CoC, so we have
full OSGeo universe covered by default.
I hope this actions will prove useful in the medium term and we
don't have to see more members leaving the community. We should
remember to be empathic and kind. We are all seeking the same goals
and we should encourage cooperation, not hinder each other. I know
that developer communities are very used to these bad behaviours,
but I'm confident we can grow better.
Have a nice day!
María.
[1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2018-August/011640.html
[2] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/
[3]
https://thebias.com/2017/09/26/how-good-intent-undermines-diversity-and-inclusion/
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