Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 04:40:29PM +0200, Benjamin Berg wrote:
> Codes of Conduct (CoC) and especially the policies surrounding them are
> a very political issue (which easily becomes emotional). Unfortunately,

I reviewed the latest CoC proposal. My feedback is below.



https://wiki.gnome.org/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup/DraftEventsCoC/DraftPhotographyPolicy

In summary: please choose if you want pictures to be taken or not. At
the moment the rules are written in a strange way. E.g. half of them
assume that by default picture taking is ok (need a badge to show you
don't want your picture to be taken). But there's also rules where
everyone's permission needs to be asked. So why the badge?

I think this policy needs to be much clearer. Currently most people are
fine with their pictures being taken. I'd suggest to make it easy to see
which ones don't want their pictures to be taken and keep the bits where
it's not complying with this preference means you're out of the
conference/ hackfest/ similar.

I am well aware that we have attendees which do not want their picture
to be taken plus do not want to have everyone know this.

| Guidelines for attendees
| 
| If you don't want to have your picture taken, please make this known to
| event organizers before or near the beginning of the event. During some
| events, you will be issued a special badge to indicate that your picture
| should not be taken. There may be a photo-free zone where you can sit
| during talks - feel free to ask event organizers about this.

This implies that most people are fine with their picture being taken.
It also implies that some people might not be.

| Photographers should ask your permission either before or after taking
| your picture.

If most people are fine with having their picture taken, why should
permission be asked? I think this is too much of a burden (asking and
being asked) and not practical.

|   If this doesn't happen, you should feel free to ask them
| to stop or to delete any pictures they have taken. If you don't feel
| comfortable doing this, just ask an event organizer and they will assist
| you.

The bit about being entirely comfortable and it being ok to ask for
deletion of a picture seems reasonable.

| There are some cases where all attendees should expect to have their
| picture taken. This includes if you participate in a group photograph,
| or if you give a talk.

This seems odd, either permission should be asked or it shouldn't be. I
think it's too much of a burden. But if you want permission to be asked
then it should be asked _every_single_time_. The exceptions are basically
the ones which are difficult for the organizers of an event. However,
it's also a heavy burden for all participants taking pictures.

It seems way easier to assume that by default picture taking is ok while
at the same time it's mandatory to adhere that some people do NOT want
their pictures to be taken. Much easier!

| Guidelines for photographers

I use my phone for taking pictures and I'm an attendee, not a
photographer I think.

| If you are taking photographs at a GNOME event, make yourself available
| to those you are taking pictures of. Ensure that you get permission from

I don't understand what's meant with 'make yourself available'. I could
imagine that after a picture I need to hang around for 5 minutes or
something? Usually people don't notice that I take their pictures. The
best pictures are when people are not noticing their picture being
taken.

| your subjects either before or after you have taken their picture.

That's not practical and I'm going to break that rule. I've been to
Germany last weekend and observed (at least in Cologne) that most people
actually wait for a traffic light. It's not practical nor reasonable
request to ask a hundred times/day if you can take someones picture.
Especially if you take a lot of pictures it'll be impossible. If someone
would actually follow these rules it's a huge burden.

Imagine coding where for every line someone interrupts you with a
question. You'll not be able to concentrate nor get anything done. While
taking pictures it's unreasonable to do a lot of red tape just for the
sake of it (IMO).

Another practical bit: I've taken pictures of a big group. E.g. in
Manchester where people were sitting on the stairs. You cannot really
make anyone out or anything. According to this rule I'd need to spend
time to track them around and ask permission? It seems impractical. Same
for e.g. the 20 year party even, I have various pictures with around 50
people on there.

| Permission from parents or guardians should be requested for all minors.

Is the "should be" like an RFC? Meaning I can just ignore it? If so, why
even have it in there?

| If someone asks you not to take their picture, don't. If someone asks
| you to delete or unpublish a picture you have taken of them, politely
| comply.

This seems great.

| Don't harass people by repeatedly taking their picture without
| 

Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 9:31 PM,   wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 8:15 AM Tobias Mueller  wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Mon, 2018-04-30 at 15:48 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
>> > The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
>> > make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
>> But it sounds like it was made sure that "everyone" was having the same
>> opinion rather than allowing dissent.
>
> Wow, there's really a lot of jumping to conclusions going on in this thread,
> isn't there?
>
> None of us know what went on except the participants, which as I've said
> before renders this entire discussion meaningless. But, Allan did
> specifically say earlier in the thread:
>
> "Large parts of the current draft were directly influenced by Ben's
> contributions, and we've expended a great deal of energy trying to
> accommodate his views."
>
> Doesn't sound like cracking down on dissent. Then again, I really have no
> idea. Please, can we stop the wild speculation and preferably just end this
> discussion? I don't see anything beneficial coming out of it.
>

I agree with Philip. From what I can tell, this thread has from the
beginning been rather vague about what it's trying to accomplish.
Seems like a we have a public conversation that should've been
private, and without any context attached which means it's just noise
to those of us who are not in the know.

It is obvious that there are some disagreements here, but I can think
of several productive ways to handle them and this thread is not one
of them.

Cheers,
Nirbheek
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[philip . chimento]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 8:15 AM Tobias Mueller  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 2018-04-30 at 15:48 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> > The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
> > make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
> But it sounds like it was made sure that "everyone" was having the same
> opinion rather than allowing dissent.
>

Wow, there's really a lot of jumping to conclusions going on in this
thread, isn't there?

None of us know what went on except the participants, which as I've said
before renders this entire discussion meaningless. But, Allan did
specifically say earlier in the thread:

"Large parts of the current draft were directly influenced by Ben's
contributions, and we've expended a great deal of energy trying to
accommodate his views."

Doesn't sound like cracking down on dissent. Then again, I really have no
idea. Please, can we stop the wild speculation and preferably just end this
discussion? I don't see anything beneficial coming out of it.

Regards,
Philip C
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Tobias Mueller]

Hi,

On Mon, 2018-04-30 at 15:48 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
> make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
But it sounds like it was made sure that "everyone" was having the same
opinion rather than allowing dissent.

Cheers,
  Tobi
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Allan Day]

Alexandre Franke  wrote:
...
> The WG is a group working on a document that invites people involved
> in a conflict to seek assistance from a third party. Yet it seems
> that, when a conflict arised, they didn’t call for external
> arbitration, and even went as far as issuing warnings to one of the
> parties involved on their own. I find this highly disturbing.

I don't think that this is a fair or accurate summary of events within
the working group, and I'd suggest not jumping to conclusions or
making inaccurate claims without knowing the facts.

The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
full and rigorous drafting process. Considering how much effort went
into this, a little appreciation for the work done by the working
group would be nice.

Allan
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Allan Day]

meg ford  wrote:
...
> On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Alexandre Franke  wrote:
>>
>> Did you mean to quote a specific part of Allan’s email? Because my
>> email was about what happened during the time when discussions were
>> still within the WG (and the conflict that emerged from it) and yours
>> is about what happened after that, so you replying to my email this
>> way is misleading.
>
>
> That's actually not true. Allan was saying (correct me if I'm wrong, Allan) 
> that he and Neil finishing the final draft without Ben was "direct response to
> repeated unacceptable behaviour on Ben's part." By that point in time Allan, 
> Ben and Neil were the only members of the group who were active. In my email 
> I was saying that most of us became inactive in response to the atmosphere in 
> the working group, before Ben was excluded from the final drafting.
>
> In addition, I was saying that I don't agree with Allan that Ben was the only 
> member of the working group who was not included in the final drafting (both 
> before and after the time that the discussions were still happening within 
> working group). I can't speak for other WG members, but I was not included in 
> the discussion surrounding the final drafting process that Neil and Allan 
> completed. The only time I have seen the final draft has been as a member of 
> the Board.

It's true that saying who was or wasn't included does get a bit tricky
due to the fact that not all members of the WG have been active all
the time. My view is that Ben, Neil, Nuritzi, Rosanna and myself were
the "active" members of the group at the point we published the draft
for community consultation, since these were the people who were still
attending meetings.

When I stated that the members of the WG were able to review the draft
as part of the board group, these were the people that I was referring
to.

Allan
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Benjamin Berg]

Hi,

On Sun, 2018-04-22 at 13:06 +, Carlos Soriano wrote:
> Another thing I want to mention is that I honestly cannot see this
> proposal to have happen if it was not done with a specific set of
> people that has invested so much into the big picture of what a CoC
> conveys. I don't think is realistic to try to create a document as
> difficult as this one with 200 people commenting around (or any other
> proposal for that matter).

An important reason for my Referendum proposal is exactly to avoid a
lot of people bickering over a single proposal. I do think that a
single proposal can work well if it is well designed so that a large
majority of the community will back it. However, I personally doubt
that the current proposal finds the right balances for this to be the
case. And if it doesn't, it could exactly trigger the described
situation with a lot of people commenting.

In contrast, by allowing multiple independent proposals to compete,
each can be edited on its own creating separate and productive working
environments. This would happen in small groups which can learn from
each other and most community members would not directly participate in
this process. Doing a Referendum is then a simple selection mechanism
that finds the proposal which best fits the community.

I do see disadvantages with a Referendum. But I do believe that it is a
reasonably sane solution. One which specifically avoids both endless
discussions and people ending up feeling ignored.

Benjamin

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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[meg ford]

Hi,
On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Alexandre Franke  wrote:
>
> Did you mean to quote a specific part of Allan’s email? Because my
> email was about what happened during the time when discussions were
> still within the WG (and the conflict that emerged from it) and yours
> is about what happened after that, so you replying to my email this
> way is misleading.
>

That's actually not true. Allan was saying (correct me if I'm wrong, Allan)
that he and Neil finishing the final draft without Ben was "direct response
to
repeated unacceptable behaviour on Ben's part." By that point in time
Allan, Ben and Neil were the only members of the group who were active. In
my email I was saying that most of us became inactive in response to the
atmosphere in the working group, before Ben was excluded from the final
drafting.

In addition, I was saying that I don't agree with Allan that Ben was the
only member of the working group who was not included in the final drafting
(both before and after the time that the discussions were still happening
within working group). I can't speak for other WG members, but I was not
included in the discussion surrounding the final drafting process that Neil
and Allan completed. The only time I have seen the final draft has been as
a member of the Board.

Does that clarify things?

Meg

>
> --
> Alexandre Franke
> GNOME Hacker & Foundation Director
>
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Alexandre Franke]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 10:54 PM, meg ford  wrote:
> I do not completely agree with Allan's explanation here. While I have been
> involved in the current discussions about the CoC proposal, it has been as a
> member of the Board, not as a member of the WG. I was not involved in the
> final draft of the document as a member of the WG. As Allan stated, many of
> us had stopped participating in the WG before the final draft was finished
> because Ben's behavior had become unacceptable.

Did you mean to quote a specific part of Allan’s email? Because my
email was about what happened during the time when discussions were
still within the WG (and the conflict that emerged from it) and yours
is about what happened after that, so you replying to my email this
way is misleading.

-- 
Alexandre Franke
GNOME Hacker & Foundation Director
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[meg ford]

Hi,

On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 3:38 PM, Alexandre Franke  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 6:30 PM, Allan Day  wrote:
> > because Ben's behaviour had become so unacceptable (despite multiple
> > warnings regarding basic behaviour) that it was difficult to get
> > anything done within the wider working group context.
>
> And on Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 10:45 AM, he added:
> > It should be noted that the board group includes every active member
> > of the code of conduct working group, with the exception of Ben. So
> > "without including the rest of the WG" translates to "without
> > including Ben".
>
> The WG is a group working on a document that invites people involved
> in a conflict to seek assistance from a third party. Yet it seems
> that, when a conflict arised, they didn’t call for external
> arbitration, and even went as far as issuing warnings to one of the
> parties involved on their own. I find this highly disturbing.
>

I do not completely agree with Allan's explanation here. While I have been
involved in the current discussions about the CoC proposal, it has been as
a member of the Board, not as a member of the WG. I was not involved in the
final draft of the document as a member of the WG. As Allan stated, many of
us had stopped participating in the WG before the final draft was finished
because Ben's behavior had become unacceptable.

Meg

>
> He then concludes:
> > As already stated, this was a direct response to
> > repeated unacceptable behaviour on Ben's part.
>
> Whether that was the appropriate behaviour is still an open question
> though.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Alexandre Franke
> GNOME Hacker & Foundation Director
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Alexandre Franke]

Hi,

On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 6:30 PM, Allan Day  wrote:
> because Ben's behaviour had become so unacceptable (despite multiple
> warnings regarding basic behaviour) that it was difficult to get
> anything done within the wider working group context.

And on Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 10:45 AM, he added:
> It should be noted that the board group includes every active member
> of the code of conduct working group, with the exception of Ben. So
> "without including the rest of the WG" translates to "without
> including Ben".

The WG is a group working on a document that invites people involved
in a conflict to seek assistance from a third party. Yet it seems
that, when a conflict arised, they didn’t call for external
arbitration, and even went as far as issuing warnings to one of the
parties involved on their own. I find this highly disturbing.

He then concludes:
> As already stated, this was a direct response to
> repeated unacceptable behaviour on Ben's part.

Whether that was the appropriate behaviour is still an open question though.

Cheers,

-- 
Alexandre Franke
GNOME Hacker & Foundation Director
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Carlos Soriano]

Hello all,

The board discussed in the last meeting the validity of the document and
has approved that the current proposal, including its last changes, is
legitimate, so its evaluation will be continued.


Best,
Carlos Soriano

On 24 April 2018 at 10:45, Allan Day  wrote:

> Benjamin Berg  wrote:
> ...
> > I think my stance is quite clear. As Allan stated quite literally, he
> > continued working on the Draft without including the rest of the WG in
> > this work. Regardless of whether Allan was acting as a board member or
> > chairman of the WG, he has overstepped his authority by doing so.
>
> Or, to put it another way - Neil and I made a small number of edits to
> a document which had previously been worked on for 14 months, which we
> then put to the board to review and vote on.
>
> It should be noted that the board group includes every active member
> of the code of conduct working group, with the exception of Ben. So
> "without including the rest of the WG" translates to "without
> including Ben". As already stated, this was a direct response to
> repeated unacceptable behaviour on Ben's part.
>
> There is no formal process for the code of conduct working group, so
> talk of "authority" and "legitimacy" is moot. However, I do believe
> that the proposal that has been sent to the board is a fair reflection
> of the group's work as a whole, and that's the important thing.
>
> > As
> > such, I do not consider the current documents to be a legitimate
> > proposal from the WG that the board could even start to consider.
>
> The proposal that has been sent to the board is the result of the
> entire group's work for 14 months. It is also the outcome of the
> community consultation that we ran. The vast majority of the working
> group will have the opportunity to review the proposal before it goes
> to a vote.
>
> Allan
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Allan Day]

Benjamin Berg  wrote:
...
> I think my stance is quite clear. As Allan stated quite literally, he
> continued working on the Draft without including the rest of the WG in
> this work. Regardless of whether Allan was acting as a board member or
> chairman of the WG, he has overstepped his authority by doing so.

Or, to put it another way - Neil and I made a small number of edits to
a document which had previously been worked on for 14 months, which we
then put to the board to review and vote on.

It should be noted that the board group includes every active member
of the code of conduct working group, with the exception of Ben. So
"without including the rest of the WG" translates to "without
including Ben". As already stated, this was a direct response to
repeated unacceptable behaviour on Ben's part.

There is no formal process for the code of conduct working group, so
talk of "authority" and "legitimacy" is moot. However, I do believe
that the proposal that has been sent to the board is a fair reflection
of the group's work as a whole, and that's the important thing.

> As
> such, I do not consider the current documents to be a legitimate
> proposal from the WG that the board could even start to consider.

The proposal that has been sent to the board is the result of the
entire group's work for 14 months. It is also the outcome of the
community consultation that we ran. The vast majority of the working
group will have the opportunity to review the proposal before it goes
to a vote.

Allan
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Benjamin Berg]

Hi Tobias,

On Sat, 2018-04-21 at 15:12 +0200, Tobias Mueller wrote:
> [SNIP]
> Am I right in assuming that you would not pursue a referendum if the
> board does not further decide on the current draft?

You are right that this would render many of my reasons to push for a
referendum (or an alternative) obsolete. However, I do not believe that
this is a feasible solution considering that there are good chunks of
the community who are strongly in favour of the Foundation regulating
events in this way.

> [SNIP]
> 
> You have another interesting mechanism at your disposal that we used in
> 2012: You can ask for amendment of the bylaws to include provisions that
> you desire, cf. Article XVII:
> https://people.gnome.org/~tobiasmue/bylaws2012/bylaws.html#amendments

While interesting, I am unsure as to how it applicable to this case.

Benjamin

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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Carlos Soriano]

Just a small clarification, the working group was/is not a committee,
rather a group of people that have done and helped on doing such document
instead of relying entirely on the board.

However, as you mention Phillip, is up to the board to decide to ammend,
edit and approve the proposal, always with the interest of the community as
a goal.

Another thing I want to mention is that I honestly cannot see this proposal
to have happen if it was not done with a specific set of people that has
invested so much into the big picture of what a CoC conveys. I don't think
is realistic to try to create a document as difficult as this one with 200
people commenting around (or any other proposal for that matter).

I sincerecily hope we can approve sooner rather than later the CoC with the
feedback from the community incorporated, and that the community empowers
this effort that has been done with so much investment, and so critical for
having a healthy and welcoming community.

And again, huge thanks to all members that have helped creating it.

Cheers

On Sun., 22 Apr. 2018, 08:01 ,  wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 4:36 AM Benjamin Berg 
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2018-04-17 at 19:09 -0700, Cosimo Cecchi wrote:
>> > We discussed the topic of Events Code of Conduct during today's board
>> > meeting.
>> >
>> > The board intends to consider your motion separately from the Code of
>> > Conduct that was proposed by the working group; we will soon proceed
>> > to seek membership consultation on the working group proposal.
>>
>> I think my stance is quite clear. As Allan stated quite literally, he
>> continued working on the Draft without including the rest of the WG in
>> this work. Regardless of whether Allan was acting as a board member or
>> chairman of the WG, he has overstepped his authority by doing so. As
>> such, I do not consider the current documents to be a legitimate
>> proposal from the WG that the board could even start to consider.
>>
>
> It seems to me that Allan and Neil are free to take the (public) draft and
> amend it any way they like without consulting the rest of the working
> group, as long as they don't misrepresent it as a product of the working
> group. As would you or I, for that matter, be free to do.
>
> And, although I'm not familiar enough with the bylaws to say for sure what
> applies in this case, it also seems to me that since the board can delegate
> responsibilities to committees, the board can also rescind them — for
> example, if they feel that a committee is no longer capable of fulfilling
> them, which seems to be the case here. I have no idea what the board
> intends to do, but as far as I can tell, they are not obligated to consider
> the working group's proposal.
>
> In the end, the board was elected by us, the working group was not, so
> it's up to the board to do what they feel best represents the foundation
> members' interests. I don't see any overstep of authority here. This
> particular foundation member's interest lies in adopting a code of conduct
> sooner rather than later, and not in voting in a referendum forced because
> of a never-explained personality conflict.
>
> Regards,
> Philip C
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[philip . chimento]

On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 4:36 AM Benjamin Berg 
wrote:

> On Tue, 2018-04-17 at 19:09 -0700, Cosimo Cecchi wrote:
> > We discussed the topic of Events Code of Conduct during today's board
> > meeting.
> >
> > The board intends to consider your motion separately from the Code of
> > Conduct that was proposed by the working group; we will soon proceed
> > to seek membership consultation on the working group proposal.
>
> I think my stance is quite clear. As Allan stated quite literally, he
> continued working on the Draft without including the rest of the WG in
> this work. Regardless of whether Allan was acting as a board member or
> chairman of the WG, he has overstepped his authority by doing so. As
> such, I do not consider the current documents to be a legitimate
> proposal from the WG that the board could even start to consider.
>

It seems to me that Allan and Neil are free to take the (public) draft and
amend it any way they like without consulting the rest of the working
group, as long as they don't misrepresent it as a product of the working
group. As would you or I, for that matter, be free to do.

And, although I'm not familiar enough with the bylaws to say for sure what
applies in this case, it also seems to me that since the board can delegate
responsibilities to committees, the board can also rescind them — for
example, if they feel that a committee is no longer capable of fulfilling
them, which seems to be the case here. I have no idea what the board
intends to do, but as far as I can tell, they are not obligated to consider
the working group's proposal.

In the end, the board was elected by us, the working group was not, so it's
up to the board to do what they feel best represents the foundation
members' interests. I don't see any overstep of authority here. This
particular foundation member's interest lies in adopting a code of conduct
sooner rather than later, and not in voting in a referendum forced because
of a never-explained personality conflict.

Regards,
Philip C
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[meg ford]

Hi,
On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 8:12 AM, Tobias Mueller  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Sat, 2018-04-21 at 13:35 +0200, Benjamin Berg wrote:
> > I do not think that this is just a technicality that can be taken
> > lightly. Should the Board continue to discuss the proposal as is, it
> > would legitimise the misconduct of some CoC WG members.
> >
> Based on what has been exchanged here in public, I feel the same way.
>
>
> > In contrast, my proposal for an open referendum allows the draft to be
> > resubmitted therefore avoiding the above taints.
> Yes.  It seems very desirable to me. Are there reasons against adopting
> a process that sparks confidence and trust in the result?
>
> I can image that it incurs much higher overhead than a working group
> meeting secretly and just throwing a document over the wall.
>

Honestly, I volunteered my lunch hour every Monday for over a year, plus
extra time outside of meetings to review existing CoCs, take and publish
notes, and participate in mailing list discussions. With the exception of
the mailing list, the resources and research we produced were made public
for the community to review:
Multi-page Review of Existing CoCs, Photo Policies, Incidents, Resources

https://wiki.gnome.org/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup/Resources
https://wiki.gnome.org/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup/Minutes

So the idea that we secretly met and 'threw a document over the wall' is
inaccurate. And in fact, there was quite a bit of overhead and almost two
years worth of work by me, Ben, Marina, Nuritizi, Rosanna, Neil, and Allan
that went into producing the current document.

If the question is whether the WG accepts Allan and Neil's proposal, then I
would be fine with participating in a vote of the WG members to either
accept or reject it as long as such a vote takes place in a timely fashion.
However, Allan and Neil's proposal has my full support whether or not such
a vote takes place, even though I was not involved in the last round of
changes.

Cheers,
Meg


That overhead might actually be a barrier for adopting any kind of CoC.
> But in case it has gone through the process you described, the support
> of the foundation can more easily be asserted.  From that point of view,
> it's very much desirable to follow a process similar to what you've
> outlined.  You might even consider requiring a minimum level of
> participation or a quorum of, say, 50% of the membership in order to
> successfully adopt the rights and restrictions set forth in such a
> document.
>
> Am I right in assuming that you would not pursue a referendum if the
> board does not further decide on the current draft?
>
>
> > > As per the section 7.10 of the Bylaws of the GNOME Foundation [1],
> > it
> > > is your right as a member to propose a referendum if you can gather
> > > support from at least 10% of the membership.
> >
> > Thanks for the short summary of the how a Referendum works when
> > initiated by a community member.
> There should not be a difference.
>
> You have another interesting mechanism at your disposal that we used in
> 2012: You can ask for amendment of the bylaws to include provisions that
> you desire, cf. Article XVII:
> https://people.gnome.org/~tobiasmue/bylaws2012/bylaws.html#amendments
>
> Cheers,
>   Tobi
> --
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/board-list
>
> From time to time confidential and sensitive information will be discussed
> on this mailing list. Please take care to mark confidential information as
> confidential, and do not redistribute this information without permission.
>
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Tobias Mueller]

Hi,

On Sat, 2018-04-21 at 13:35 +0200, Benjamin Berg wrote:
> I do not think that this is just a technicality that can be taken
> lightly. Should the Board continue to discuss the proposal as is, it
> would legitimise the misconduct of some CoC WG members.
> 
Based on what has been exchanged here in public, I feel the same way.


> In contrast, my proposal for an open referendum allows the draft to be
> resubmitted therefore avoiding the above taints.
Yes.  It seems very desirable to me. Are there reasons against adopting
a process that sparks confidence and trust in the result?

I can image that it incurs much higher overhead than a working group
meeting secretly and just throwing a document over the wall.
That overhead might actually be a barrier for adopting any kind of CoC.
But in case it has gone through the process you described, the support
of the foundation can more easily be asserted.  From that point of view,
it's very much desirable to follow a process similar to what you've
outlined.  You might even consider requiring a minimum level of
participation or a quorum of, say, 50% of the membership in order to
successfully adopt the rights and restrictions set forth in such a
document.

Am I right in assuming that you would not pursue a referendum if the
board does not further decide on the current draft?


> > As per the section 7.10 of the Bylaws of the GNOME Foundation [1],
> it
> > is your right as a member to propose a referendum if you can gather
> > support from at least 10% of the membership.
> 
> Thanks for the short summary of the how a Referendum works when
> initiated by a community member.
There should not be a difference.

You have another interesting mechanism at your disposal that we used in
2012: You can ask for amendment of the bylaws to include provisions that
you desire, cf. Article XVII:
https://people.gnome.org/~tobiasmue/bylaws2012/bylaws.html#amendments

Cheers,
  Tobi
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Benjamin Berg]

On Tue, 2018-04-17 at 19:09 -0700, Cosimo Cecchi wrote:
> We discussed the topic of Events Code of Conduct during today's board
> meeting.
> 
> The board intends to consider your motion separately from the Code of
> Conduct that was proposed by the working group; we will soon proceed
> to seek membership consultation on the working group proposal.

I think my stance is quite clear. As Allan stated quite literally, he
continued working on the Draft without including the rest of the WG in
this work. Regardless of whether Allan was acting as a board member or
chairman of the WG, he has overstepped his authority by doing so. As
such, I do not consider the current documents to be a legitimate
proposal from the WG that the board could even start to consider.

I do not think that this is just a technicality that can be taken
lightly. Should the Board continue to discuss the proposal as is, it
would legitimise the misconduct of some CoC WG members.

In contrast, my proposal for an open referendum allows the draft to be
resubmitted therefore avoiding the above taints.


> As per the section 7.10 of the Bylaws of the GNOME Foundation [1], it
> is your right as a member to propose a referendum if you can gather
> support from at least 10% of the membership.

Thanks for the short summary of the how a Referendum works when
initiated by a community member.

Benjamin

> Since such process should overall be carried out by the Membership
> and Election committee, I suggest that you get in touch with them for
> next steps, but as this would be a novel process for most of us,
> please let us know if you feel that you need any more support from
> the board to exercise this right.
> 
> [1] https://www.gnome.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/bylaws.pdf
> 
> Thanks,
> Cosimo

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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Allan Day]

Hi everyone,

This is a general response to Ben's email, in my capacity as chair of
the Code of Conduct Working Group. I'm only going to address the
issues that have been raised in response to the group, rather than the
referendum proposal, which is a question for the board.

As you all know, the code of conduct working group's work has been
mostly complete for some time, as we published the draft back in
December 2017.

The remaining part of the process was to review the feedback that we
received from the community, make amendments accordingly, and forward
the code to the board for consideration. Unfortunately, no one in the
group expressed any motivation or enthusiasm to push this forward, and
four months passed with no activity.

Neil McGovern and I therefore took it upon ourselves to do this final
phase ourselves, as Executive Director and as chair of the group. We
partly did this to expedite a process that had stalled, and partly
because Ben's behaviour had become so unacceptable (despite multiple
warnings regarding basic behaviour) that it was difficult to get
anything done within the wider working group context.

If you're interested, the changes that were made to the code of
conduct as a result of community feedback can be viewed on the wiki
[1]. More improvements are planned for the future.

I want to stress that Ben had the opportunity to fully participate in
the code of conduct drafting process, right up until the point where
the draft was published. We spent 14 months debating and drafting the
code, line by line. Large parts of the current draft were directly
influenced by Ben's contributions, and we've expended a great deal of
energy trying to accommodate his views.

I think it's appropriate that the next step in the decision-making
process be made by the elected Board of Directors. I think it's also
important to respect the time and effort put into this process by the
code of conduct working group.

Yours,

Allan
-- 
[1] 
https://wiki.gnome.org/action/diff/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup/DraftEventsCoC/DraftCoC?action=diff=12=13

On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 3:40 PM, Benjamin Berg
 wrote:
> Dear Board,
>
> Codes of Conduct (CoC) and especially the policies surrounding them are
> a very political issue (which easily becomes emotional). Unfortunately,
> in my view, the CoC Working Group (WG) was unable to set these politics
> aside enough to create a proposal that finds a balance in the wide
> spectrum of different viewpoints, legal consequences, required
> resources, rights, freedoms and the ability to deal with issues when
> they occur.
>
> I would have very much preferred if the WG had succeeded in this task.
> Unfortunately, it seems like it was too political and too biased
> (considering the political and regional spectrum that was represented)
> for the whole time. That compounded to inter-personal issues that could
> never be resolved as neither the session chair nor other members (or
> the ED for that matter) were able to create an environment where these
> issues could have been sufficiently addressed and a viable way to work
> together been developed. On top of this, it has recently come to my
> attention that members of the WG who are also on the Foundation Board
> have decided to continue working outside of the scope of the WG,
> thereby silently excluding me from the proceedings.
>
> At the current point in time, I believe that the proposal below is the
> best way forward. The idea to address it in a WG was good, but it turns
> out it was too political to be an adequate forum. This proposal however
> creates a forum that can legitimately resolve this political issue for
> years to come.
>
> I would like the board to adopt the proposal for a referendum below and
> I am happy to work on revising it. Failing to do so, I am intending to
> ask for support from foundation members to enforce this to be a
> referendum as per the bylaws.
>
> Should you have an alternative proposal on how to move forward, I am
> happy to hear about it.
>
> Regards,
> Benjamin
>
> -
>
> DRAFT: Event CoC and Policy Referendum
>
> Timeline (in weeks before vote):
>  * Announce referendum (13w)
>  * Proposal writing phase (6 weeks overall)
>  * Deadline for initial proposals (7w)
>  * Discussion phase (6 weeks overall)
>  * Last updates to proposals based on feedback (1w)
>  * Vote
>
> Proposals should generally include a main CoC document and important
> pieces of the policy. If a proposal e.g. requires creating a Committee
> then it may define policy parts that are intended to be created or
> proposed by this body after adoption and are therefore not part of the
> proposal.
>
> Proposals should include elaborations and take into consideration the
> impact that policies have on affected parties (e.g. GUADEC or hackfest
> organisers, the Foundation Board).
>
> Proposals should be endorsed by 3 foundation members to be considered,
> however a foundation member may endorse multiple proposals.

Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Benjamin Berg]

Hi Philip,

On Mon, 2018-04-16 at 05:37 +, philip.chime...@gmail.com wrote:
> Your email references vaguely some recent events. Reading between the
> lines, something must have happened in the WG to make the situation
> untenable for you, but I have no idea what. According to [1], the
> WG's mailing list is private, and there are only public minutes up
> until February 2017, so I'm assuming that these events are not
> documented anywhere that I can read.

There are some hints in the Minutes, as to where the differences
originally stem from (I am happy to look them up for anyone
interested). But I believe that this is not of primary relevance in the
current situation.

> I encourage you to continue to discuss your concerns with the board
> privately. With this little context, it sounds like public action
> runs a risk of making things even more "political," since you are
> effectively asking the subscribers of foundation-list to form their
> opinions without knowing what is going on. That will likely lead to
> assumptions, projection, and more misunderstandings.

You are obviously right with your concerns. And even if I may not have
fully considered these aspects, I still do not see another option for
me.

Please note that the aim of the mail is to ask the Board to adopt my
proposal for a referendum on their own accord. Including my motivations
and CC'ing foundation-list was unfortunately a requirement considering
the difficulty of the situation at this point.

I do hope that community members will form their own opinion on whether
a Referendum is a good solution rather than deciding solely based on
whether they think my motivations have merits.

Regards,
Benjamin

> [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup
> 
> Regards,
> Philip C 

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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[philip . chimento]

On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 7:40 AM Benjamin Berg 
wrote:

> Dear Board,
>
> Codes of Conduct (CoC) and especially the policies surrounding them are
> a very political issue (which easily becomes emotional). Unfortunately,
> in my view, the CoC Working Group (WG) was unable to set these politics
> aside enough to create a proposal that finds a balance in the wide
> spectrum of different viewpoints, legal consequences, required
> resources, rights, freedoms and the ability to deal with issues when
> they occur.
>
> I would have very much preferred if the WG had succeeded in this task.
> Unfortunately, it seems like it was too political and too biased
> (considering the political and regional spectrum that was represented)
> for the whole time. That compounded to inter-personal issues that could
> never be resolved as neither the session chair nor other members (or
> the ED for that matter) were able to create an environment where these
> issues could have been sufficiently addressed and a viable way to work
> together been developed. On top of this, it has recently come to my
> attention that members of the WG who are also on the Foundation Board
> have decided to continue working outside of the scope of the WG,
> thereby silently excluding me from the proceedings.
>
> At the current point in time, I believe that the proposal below is the
> best way forward. The idea to address it in a WG was good, but it turns
> out it was too political to be an adequate forum. This proposal however
> creates a forum that can legitimately resolve this political issue for
> years to come.
>
> I would like the board to adopt the proposal for a referendum below and
> I am happy to work on revising it. Failing to do so, I am intending to
> ask for support from foundation members to enforce this to be a
> referendum as per the bylaws.
>
> Should you have an alternative proposal on how to move forward, I am
> happy to hear about it.
>
> Regards,
> Benjamin
>
> -
>
> DRAFT: Event CoC and Policy Referendum
>
> Timeline (in weeks before vote):
>  * Announce referendum (13w)
>  * Proposal writing phase (6 weeks overall)
>  * Deadline for initial proposals (7w)
>  * Discussion phase (6 weeks overall)
>  * Last updates to proposals based on feedback (1w)
>  * Vote
>
> Proposals should generally include a main CoC document and important
> pieces of the policy. If a proposal e.g. requires creating a Committee
> then it may define policy parts that are intended to be created or
> proposed by this body after adoption and are therefore not part of the
> proposal.
>
> Proposals should include elaborations and take into consideration the
> impact that policies have on affected parties (e.g. GUADEC or hackfest
> organisers, the Foundation Board).
>
> Proposals should be endorsed by 3 foundation members to be considered,
> however a foundation member may endorse multiple proposals.
>
> Proposals should be kept in Git or another GNOME hosted system that
> easily allows any changes to be followed. This is in order to ensure
> that voters can easily check modifications done during the discussion
> phase.
>
> Foundation employees must remain neutral.
>
> The voting system is the single transferable vote (STV) system, which
> is also used for the board elections.
>

Hi Benjamin,

Your email references vaguely some recent events. Reading between the
lines, something must have happened in the WG to make the situation
untenable for you, but I have no idea what. According to [1], the WG's
mailing list is private, and there are only public minutes up until
February 2017, so I'm assuming that these events are not documented
anywhere that I can read.

I encourage you to continue to discuss your concerns with the board
privately. With this little context, it sounds like public action runs a
risk of making things even more "political," since you are effectively
asking the subscribers of foundation-list to form their opinions without
knowing what is going on. That will likely lead to assumptions, projection,
and more misunderstandings.

[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup

Regards,
Philip C
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I have two models to suggest that could be starting points.
One is the LibrePlanet code of conduct,
and one is the Abstractions code of conduct.
The former is general; the latter is a lot more concrete.
(Sorry, I don't have URLs.)

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.

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Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Benjamin Berg]

Dear Board,

Codes of Conduct (CoC) and especially the policies surrounding them are
a very political issue (which easily becomes emotional). Unfortunately,
in my view, the CoC Working Group (WG) was unable to set these politics
aside enough to create a proposal that finds a balance in the wide
spectrum of different viewpoints, legal consequences, required
resources, rights, freedoms and the ability to deal with issues when
they occur.

I would have very much preferred if the WG had succeeded in this task.
Unfortunately, it seems like it was too political and too biased
(considering the political and regional spectrum that was represented)
for the whole time. That compounded to inter-personal issues that could
never be resolved as neither the session chair nor other members (or
the ED for that matter) were able to create an environment where these
issues could have been sufficiently addressed and a viable way to work
together been developed. On top of this, it has recently come to my
attention that members of the WG who are also on the Foundation Board
have decided to continue working outside of the scope of the WG,
thereby silently excluding me from the proceedings.

At the current point in time, I believe that the proposal below is the
best way forward. The idea to address it in a WG was good, but it turns
out it was too political to be an adequate forum. This proposal however
creates a forum that can legitimately resolve this political issue for
years to come.

I would like the board to adopt the proposal for a referendum below and
I am happy to work on revising it. Failing to do so, I am intending to
ask for support from foundation members to enforce this to be a
referendum as per the bylaws.

Should you have an alternative proposal on how to move forward, I am
happy to hear about it.

Regards,
Benjamin

-

DRAFT: Event CoC and Policy Referendum

Timeline (in weeks before vote):
 * Announce referendum (13w)
 * Proposal writing phase (6 weeks overall)
 * Deadline for initial proposals (7w)
 * Discussion phase (6 weeks overall)
 * Last updates to proposals based on feedback (1w)
 * Vote

Proposals should generally include a main CoC document and important
pieces of the policy. If a proposal e.g. requires creating a Committee
then it may define policy parts that are intended to be created or
proposed by this body after adoption and are therefore not part of the
proposal.

Proposals should include elaborations and take into consideration the
impact that policies have on affected parties (e.g. GUADEC or hackfest
organisers, the Foundation Board).

Proposals should be endorsed by 3 foundation members to be considered,
however a foundation member may endorse multiple proposals.

Proposals should be kept in Git or another GNOME hosted system that
easily allows any changes to be followed. This is in order to ensure
that voters can easily check modifications done during the discussion
phase.

Foundation employees must remain neutral.

The voting system is the single transferable vote (STV) system, which
is also used for the board elections.

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