Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Thilo Borgmann]

Hi again,

> I'm very sorry that it took me so long to send this to the list, finally.
> Since this is an everlasting topic for years, I wanted to deal
> thoroughly with it to have a chance to actually influence the situation.
> 
> Like in many previous years/sessions about FFmpeg development, the topic of
> hostility at the ML and IRC channel was discussed yet another time. There
> have been several voices at this year's session that are still unhappy
> with the current hostility in the FFmpeg community. So this point has been
> discussed in the audience for a while. However, there has also been a voice
> claiming that the current situation and regulation by our CoC is ok and 
> working.
> 
> According to my experience, these discussions lead to two ends. First,
> is considering the FFmpeg community to be a hostile environment shared by a
> majority of the community so that any further thoughts to try to change this 
> are
> valid or not? Second, assuming it is a majority that dislikes current 
> hostility,
> what to do about it to improve the situation?
> 
> Long ago, JB made a proposal to overcome this by getting a community committee
> to act upon hostile behavior in our environment and sanction the respective
> authors. This proposal has been brought up again regarding the question of how
> to proceed and like in the previous years, this proposal raised no rejections
> from anybody present (this and in the previous years).
> 
> In the end, the outcome of this VDDs FFmpeg session has been that I bring this
> proposal to the mailing list, finally. Therefore, I took the time to talk to
> several people not only about the proposal itself but also about the 
> experience
> of other communities having such a committee driven mechanism of dealing with
> CoC conflicts. From that the idea emerged to get an overview of the actual 
> community
> opinion of things is to conduct a simple survey about this question. So this 
> is
> exactly what I'd like to do next to giving the mere proposal.
> 
> The proposal of a community committee summarized:
> 
> - A committee is to be created consisting of community members that are voted
> into it
> - This committee can (upon request) sanction violations of our CoC by its 
> given
> powers
> - The committee is object to reelection every year
> 
> A more detailed possible implementation of the proposal is attached as a 
> patch to
> our developers documentation. The survey is done to get an idea of what the 
> community
> thinks about that matter and its proposed solution.
> 
> The survey shall be conducted for everyone to participate freely, so a simple
> thread on the mailing list would hardly be suitable and will most likely end 
> in
> endless discussions. To help with that, we've set up a survey that can be 
> done completely
> anonymously by sending out private tokens to all possible participants. Even 
> the survey
> admins cannot map given survey answers to a person/token.
> 
> Please note that this survey is _not_ meant to be a vote about the proposal. 
> It is to
> determine if we should actually have a refinement/vote on instantiating such a
> community committee - depending on the community's point of view.
> 
> I will start this survey and sending out tokens directly to every subscriber 
> of
> the ffmpeg-devel mailing list on this Friday, Nov 23rd. If you don't want to
> participate in the survey, you can send me a private mail before that data to
> exclude your mail address from the participants lists. Afterwards you can 
> click
> the link in the mails to opt out of the survey yourself. The survey will end 
> on
> Mondday, Dez 3nd (a little more than a week). Afterwards, I will post the 
> results
> of the survey here in this thread. 
> 
> I'd really appreciate participation in the survey from everyone. I'd like to 
> ask to file
> just one survey for every mail address you might have registered here - you 
> can opt-out
> or just ignore additional mails. I'm sorry for spam for everyone not reading 
> this thread.
> Many thanks to the KDE community and Lydia in particular for discussion and 
> supporting us
> with the survey infrastructure.


the survey ended on Monday, results are given below.

It has been criticized that the survey does not cover more detailed questions 
about the folks who do not think that the community is currently hostile. 
Several people thought about the survey design and yet that part was not 
covered. We might go for another survey on that part if people really want it - 
I guess we can run another one on the KDE infrastructure. Not to perceive the 
community to be hostile does not mean to reject a community committee (or 
changes to the CoC or other related actions), though. Also, that Q2 to Q4 only 
appeared if the previous answer was yes (in the sense of a hostile environment) 
has been criticized. Well, the assumption was that if you feel no to be your 
answer to a question, all follow-ups would not fit into that - why to ask if 

Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Tobias Rapp]

On 24.11.2018 16:32, Tomas Härdin wrote:

[...]

While I'm in here I have a small suggestion: talking is better than
writing when it comes to interpersonal conflicts. Using Mumble or
Jingle or whatever and getting the relevant people to talk can be a
good way to avoid more drastic measures. Unless of course someone's
just being an ass to be an ass, but I haven't noticed that yet on here.


Seems like a good idea. And the talking could be moderated by a person 
neutral to the conflict.


Regards,
Tobias

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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Werner Robitza]

On Sat, Nov 24, 2018 at 2:23 PM René J.V. Bertin  wrote:
> I have had my ML subscriptions set to not receive emails for a few years now. 
> So when I got the invitation to vote (which I don't consider Spam btw) my 
> first reflex was to confirm that I do not have any current issues with 
> perceived hostility in the community.
>
> Then, when I checked the few replies to this thread before replying myself to 
> explain my vote (and suggest that maybe this survey shouldn't have gone out 
> to inactive members) I wondered if I shouldn't have voted yes...

To be honest, I was surprised the survey was a single yes/no
selection. I voted "no", but I'd have loved to be able to say "no, but
…" and provide some more context.

The way the survey is set up, I wouldn't be surprised if you get a lot
of "no" answers by people who had a first-hand experience with
hostility in this project, but would not want to generalize.

That being said, thanks for initiating the discussion, Thilo.

Werner
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Tomas Härdin]

tor 2018-11-22 klockan 21:58 + skrev Rostislav Pehlivanov:
> > On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 at 19:02, Thilo Borgmann  wrote:
> +The vote has to implement a direct, free, equal and secret election.
> > +The results are to be publicly available.
> > +The election should be completed not later than the end of the ongoing 
> > period.
> > +Any community member can call on itself or any other person to be a 
> > candidate for an election.
> 
> What if a majority of the committee is biased and bans everyone they
> disagree with to take over the project? They certainly could.
> What if the committee's decision is something the majority of the
> developers disagree with?
> 
> This is why I'm against formalizing such prodecures. They're too inflexible
> and absolute, and end up being abused or overused (like videolan's weekly
> temporary bannings I've heard of).
> Furthermore why do you bring this up now at all? We haven't had accidents
> of this nature in quite some time. In fact the last time it was the ML
> admin's random incorrect decision to block a discussion which ended up
> being a problem that everyone disagreed with. And that was 11 months ago.

The point of stuff like this is to have something in place *before*
nasty things happen. Coming from a country with a strong non-profit
organization culture (Sweden), it's actually quite striking how little
"everyday democracy" experience a lot of free software people seem to
have.

While I'm in here I have a small suggestion: talking is better than
writing when it comes to interpersonal conflicts. Using Mumble or
Jingle or whatever and getting the relevant people to talk can be a
good way to avoid more drastic measures. Unless of course someone's
just being an ass to be an ass, but I haven't noticed that yet on here.

/Tomas
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[René J . V . Bertin]

Hi,

I have had my ML subscriptions set to not receive emails for a few years now. 
So when I got the invitation to vote (which I don't consider Spam btw) my first 
reflex was to confirm that I do not have any current issues with perceived 
hostility in the community.

Then, when I checked the few replies to this thread before replying myself to 
explain my vote (and suggest that maybe this survey shouldn't have gone out to 
inactive members) I wondered if I shouldn't have voted yes...

R
(back to lurking in the shadows)
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2018, at 22:58, Rostislav Pehlivanov wrote:
> This is why I'm against formalizing such prodecures. They're too inflexible
> and absolute, 

Enforcement depends on who is enforcing it. Hence elections.

> and end up being abused or overused (like videolan's weekly
> temporary bannings I've heard of).



We banned 2 times 1 person from IRC 24hours, and banned someone once from the 
mailing-list, in the many years (7?) that our CoC existed. Please don't spread 
misinformation.

I don't see how that is abusing or overusing...

-- 
Jean-Baptiste Kempf -  President
+33 672 704 734
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Thilo Borgmann]

Am 22.11.18 um 22:58 schrieb Rostislav Pehlivanov:
> On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 at 19:02, Thilo Borgmann  wrote:
> 
>>
>> Please note that this survey is _not_ meant to be a vote about the
>> proposal. It is to
>> determine if we should actually have a refinement/vote on instantiating
>> such a
>> community committee - depending on the community's point of view.
>>
> 
> Spamming (which this would certainly be a textbook definition of) every
> subscriber ever (including those who forgot) is unacceptable.

All subscribers are per definition interested in FFmpeg development. 
I don't see how this should be spam in general to this audience.


> +Further on it is to impose any sanctions related to violations of the code of
>> +conduct only if these incidents are brought up to its attention from 
>> directly
>> +involved parties of such an incident.
>>
>> Violations should be limited to publicly logged IRC channels or the ML.
> Otherwise without proof this will end up as a "but they said" situation.

Agree.


> ++ at subheading 
> Committee members
>> +
>> +The community committee consists of three elected individuals. Committee 
>> members are
>> +elected for a period of one year and are automatically removed from the 
>> committee after
>> +that period. Reelection of committee members for the following period is 
>> possible.
>>
>> Three members is far too low and would be prone to bias. 5 or 7 would be
> better.

A question I discussed with many others. I don't have a strong opinion, 3/5/7 
have always been the options. Feel free to put that to discussion again.


>> +
>> +If for any reason a current member of the committee wishes to leave the 
>> committee, the
>> +whole committee is to be reelected. No former committee members having left 
>> the committee
>> +on their own wish can be a candidate for the successor committee.
>>
>> That last sentence is random.

Not quite. It prevents "blocking" attempts by stepping back and getting elected 
again. The whole committee is to be voted upon again to prevent biasing 
attempts within the committee. Or I might see why you think this could not 
happen.


> +The vote has to implement a direct, free, equal and secret election.
>> +The results are to be publicly available.
>> +The election should be completed not later than the end of the ongoing 
>> period.
>> +Any community member can call on itself or any other person to be a 
>> candidate for an election.
>>
>> What if a majority of the committee is biased and bans everyone they
> disagree with to take over the project? They certainly could.
> What if the committee's decision is something the majority of the
> developers disagree with?

Nothing prevents the community to release the committee it instantiated. A 
community vote on (this or whatever) is not object to the powers of the 
committee.


> This is why I'm against formalizing such prodecures. They're too inflexible
> and absolute, and end up being abused or overused (like videolan's weekly
> temporary bannings I've heard of).

Didn't heard of these by now. However, in discussing with people, it revealed 
there are two ways to go with that. Either, you give a set of rules and define 
everything in these and can't handle anything else. Or, you set one rule to be 
 and have each thing in relation to that.

Experience says, the first possibility comes with people navigating on the 
bleeding edge of the rules exploiting every grey zone there might be. The 
second comes with people having an other interpretation of the "one rule" in 
contrast to the committee.
Well, I prefer the second way. But this question you can also put to discussion 
again.



> Furthermore why do you bring this up now at all? We haven't had accidents
> of this nature in quite some time. In fact the last time it was the ML
> admin's random incorrect decision to block a discussion which ended up
> being a problem that everyone disagreed with. And that was 11 months ago.

You have been at VDD, Rostislav. We had this session, people made this a topic, 
I agreed on summing up and sending it to the list. I've not stumbled across 
such incidents lately, too. However, I by far do not read every mail here or do 
watch IRC at all - people still having this impression are a good enough reason 
for me.

Personally, even if these accidents would have ceased to happen - history tells 
us we might use a better way of dealing with it, since CoC violations are an 
ever repeating thing to happen.

-Thilo
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Kieran Kunhya]

>
> > What if a majority of the committee is biased and bans everyone they
> disagree with to take over the project? They certainly could.
> What if the committee's decision is something the majority of the
> developers disagree with?
>
> This is why I'm against formalizing such prodecures. They're too inflexible
> and absolute, and end up being abused or overused (like videolan's weekly
> temporary bannings I've heard of).
> Furthermore why do you bring this up now at all? We haven't had accidents
> of this nature in quite some time. In fact the last time it was the ML
> admin's random incorrect decision to block a discussion which ended up
> being a problem that everyone disagreed with. And that was 11 months ago


Thank you for confirming to the rest of the community why we need a
committee and proper Code of Conduct like other comparable Open Source
projects.

Kieran
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Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] VDD FFmpeg session and community survey

[Rostislav Pehlivanov]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 at 19:02, Thilo Borgmann  wrote:

>
> Please note that this survey is _not_ meant to be a vote about the
> proposal. It is to
> determine if we should actually have a refinement/vote on instantiating
> such a
> community committee - depending on the community's point of view.
>

Spamming (which this would certainly be a textbook definition of) every
subscriber ever (including those who forgot) is unacceptable.


+Further on it is to impose any sanctions related to violations of the code of
> +conduct only if these incidents are brought up to its attention from directly
> +involved parties of such an incident.
>
> Violations should be limited to publicly logged IRC channels or the ML.
Otherwise without proof this will end up as a "but they said" situation.

++ at subheading 
Committee members
> +
> +The community committee consists of three elected individuals. Committee 
> members are
> +elected for a period of one year and are automatically removed from the 
> committee after
> +that period. Reelection of committee members for the following period is 
> possible.
>
> Three members is far too low and would be prone to bias. 5 or 7 would be
better.


> +
> +If for any reason a current member of the committee wishes to leave the 
> committee, the
> +whole committee is to be reelected. No former committee members having left 
> the committee
> +on their own wish can be a candidate for the successor committee.
>
> That last sentence is random.

+The vote has to implement a direct, free, equal and secret election.
> +The results are to be publicly available.
> +The election should be completed not later than the end of the ongoing 
> period.
> +Any community member can call on itself or any other person to be a 
> candidate for an election.
>
> What if a majority of the committee is biased and bans everyone they
disagree with to take over the project? They certainly could.
What if the committee's decision is something the majority of the
developers disagree with?

This is why I'm against formalizing such prodecures. They're too inflexible
and absolute, and end up being abused or overused (like videolan's weekly
temporary bannings I've heard of).
Furthermore why do you bring this up now at all? We haven't had accidents
of this nature in quite some time. In fact the last time it was the ML
admin's random incorrect decision to block a discussion which ended up
being a problem that everyone disagreed with. And that was 11 months ago.
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