On 04.02.22 11:43, Andrew Nenakhov wrote:
Just agree to change a set of documents using
a "community-driven governance". Protocol extensions should contain
protocol extensions, and nothing but them. It is a technical
documentation, but such things turn it into a political manifest.
Ah yes, "just" set up an entirely different governance process than the
one we already have and which is already being used to manage procedural
issues.
On Fri, 4 Feb 2022, 15:39 JC Brand, <li...@opkode.com> wrote:
On 04.02.22 11:20, Andrew Nenakhov wrote:
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.
I think one argument in favour of using a XEP is that this allows
for a community-driven governance process of managing and changing
the document over time.
A CoC simply hosted as a webpage outside of the XEP process is
much more open to abuse since it can be changed at any time
without oversight.
- JC
On Fri, 4 Feb 2022, 15:10 JC Brand, <li...@opkode.com> 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
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