1. From what I've seen, CoCs are used so silence or scare into silence people with differing political opinions (so much for tolerance). The language of this CoC, too, is too broad and allows for such misuse.
2. XEPs are not the place for such documents. If XSF wants to have a code of conduct, it can well publish it on it's website in a Code of Conduct section. Use of XEPs for such purposes is a sign of bureaucracy apparatus that had forgotten its original goal and is now a self-serving process. On Fri, 4 Feb 2022, 15:10 JC Brand, <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear list > > The community code of conduct (xep-0458) came up for an approval vote in a > recent board meeting. > > I've gone through the document and am writing down my thoughts and > feedback here. > > Quoted parts are directly from the document. > > > The examples in this document of what not to do are intended to be just > that - examples. They are not intended to be exhaustive. Many of these > examples have formal definitions, either in law or elsewhere - in general, > if you are reliant on such a definition to argue why your behaviour might > be acceptable, you have already lost the argument. > > I don't think it's in the purview of this document to pre-emptively decide > whether someone has "won" or "lost" an argument. Even phrasing it that way, > as a competition, is in my opinion problematic. > > > Ordinarily, the XMPP Standards Foundation welcomes and encourages > participation in XSF Activities, but this guiding principle allows the XSF > to partially or completely exclude anyone from any activity, for any reason. > > I think the phrasing "for any reason" is too harsh and leaves this > document open to abuse. It makes it sound as if the XSF claims the right to > be capricious. I would drop that last bit. > > > By explicitly stating that this Code of Conduct applies this allows the > XSF to sanction bad behaviour outside of XSF Activities should the need > arise. > > I'm against this statement as written. What someone does in their private > life, unrelated to the XSF and outside of XSF activities has no bearing on > the XSF and the XSF has no justifiable basis to sanction that person for it. > > Also "bad behaviour" is incredibly broad. What is "bad behaviour"? In some > societies things that are considered bad behaviour are celebrated in other > societies. Social norms change and a sentence such as this makes this > document and its related process open to abuse. > > This makes me think of Brendan Eich who got fired by Mozilla for donating > money to a campaign against gay marriage. With this kind of wording in the > document, I wouldn't be surprised if something similar could be attempted > in the XSF. I would be against that, particularly because it's outside the > purview of the XSF. The argument made in Mozilla at the time was that > Eich's act caused Mozilla employees to feel "excluded", a word that pops up > regularly in this document as well. > > Ideally politics is left outside of the XSF and I've made the argument > before that the XSF is apolitical and we should not get involved in > politics. One of my concerns of a document such as this is that it can be > used as a tool to start political fights and campaigns inside the XSF. > > > using sexualised language in your erotic fiction hobby is likely to be > irrelevant to this Code of Conduct. > > The use of "likely" here leaves the door open to sanction people for their > private endeavors. > > > It may also be in some cases people may prefer to report informally; > while reporting "properly" is preferred, the Conduct Team should strive to > handle informal reports in the same way if possible. > > To me this reads as encouraging gossip and for the Conduct Team to respond > to gossip. If someone doesn't report formally, I don't think the Conduct > Team should get involved in any dispute. > > > The Conduct Team may ask for further information from you, the person > accused of bad conduct, or others who were present > > This sentence and most of this section is written as if the reader is the > reporter. I find this biased. It might also be that the reader is being > reported, and I therefore think this should all be written in the 3rd > person, i.e. no use of "you". > > >Finally, the Conduct Team will make a decision on sanctions or other > action. > > This makes it sound like some action will be taken. In some cases, no > actions might be taken. > > Considering the "Security Considerations" section. > > > It is possible for almost any behaviour to have some argument why it is > not, in fact, exclusionary, and why it's just someone taking offence too > easily. It also is possible for the Code of Conduct to be weaponised for > exclusionary purposes, by using the complaints mechanism to stall or > silence valid debate. > > There are other ways to weaponise a CoC and not just to silence debate, > but also to exclude and create ideological conformity inside the XSF. > > There are of course situations where this might be valid, for example > someone openly expressing illegal speech (e.g. calling for genocide etc.), > but IMO the bar should be very high here. > > I see the terms "inclusion" and "exclusion" used a lot in this document, > but I don't see anything about tolerance. Tolerance means that while you > don't necessarily approve of someone's personal decisions, you tolerate it > in order to keep the peace and to not let the disagreement interfere with > goal or task at hand. > > > Regards > JC > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Standards mailing list > Info: https://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/standards > Unsubscribe: [email protected] > _______________________________________________ >
_______________________________________________ Standards mailing list Info: https://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/standards Unsubscribe: [email protected] _______________________________________________
