A little advice/help from the larger group on unacceptable behavior.

[Louis Landry]

Hi all,

The tone and level of conversation is always varied in online communities, in large part due to the different cultures and backgrounds that people bring to the table when addressing each other.  It has, however, gotten increasingly troubling in our development google groups in recent times.

I'd like to direct your attention to: http://goo.gl/BjHP

I would like to ask for help and/or advice from the CLT on how to best manage behavior like this which is obviously insulting and inappropriate for a considerable portion of people who view and might participate in our project.  I know many of you have publicly stated your desire for increased diversity and especially more involvement from women; so I ask:   Would that be tolerated on our discussion forums?  Or really anywhere else in our community?  What should we do about it?

I would be quite appalled to hear that anyone would consider that an appropriate comment in a global, diverse, and supposedly friendly community as ours.

As an aside, though strongly related... I would like to ask the CLT to help the PLT find and setup moderators for our developer mailing lists so that we can deal with things like this just as effectively as is handled on our forums.

Louis

--
Development Coordinator
Joomla! ... because open source matters.
http://www.joomla.org

[Peter Martin]

Hi Louis,

Thanks for your mail about this issue!
We shall discuss it within the CLT, and your question regarding moderation of the (developer) mailinglist(s) too...

Greetings,
Peter Martin

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[Brad Baker]

Google groups does have the option of moderating posts from individuals. It could be that certain repeat offenders might have to undergo a period of post moderation until they can behave in a more professional manner. Moderating all posts would be unfair to those who treat others well. 

The tools are there.

--

[Mark Dexter]

What is the etiquette regarding simply deleting posts. In the forums,
we can edit offending posts and say they have been removed. I think in
a google group the only option we have is to remove a post.

This this involves members of a team (JBS), we also have the option to
remove them from that team.

Mark

[Ron Severdia]

It actually should be quite simple. Violate the Code of Conduct once
and you get a warning and your post deleted. Violate it twice, your
get another warning and all your posts get moderated for 6 months.
Violate it three times, you're out.

http://docs.joomla.org/Code_of_conduct

[Jacques Rentzke]

I want to express caution that one might be reacting to an incident in a
certain way, based *not* on that incident, but based on larger
disagreements (about other issues), or based on personalities.

An unacceptable word was used. The person should be told it's not
acceptable on that list, and asked/warned not to use it again.

A short public post/sentence to that list should have been sufficient.

If someone then ignores the warning, then you can worry about other
sanctions like moderating posts.

Jacques Rentzke
Secretary
Open Source Matters, Inc.

[Ian MacLennan]

When JBS started, we had no list.  Everything happened in a Skype chat.  The challenge that we seem to be facing is that as we have moved to open things up, we have given all sides an opportunity to voice their opinions, thoughts and feelings.  I believe this is a very good thing.

This goes not just for JBS, but for the development lists as well.

I personally feel that with the current atmosphere on the lists it is very hard to get anything done.  I have put blood, sweat and tears into this project because it has historically been a fun place to hang out, work with great people, learn from top talent and work on something that gets used by countless numbers of people.

Lately I feel like everyday something happens that just gets me more and more discouraged.  I'm certainly not perfect in all of this and I find more and more that there are people around that really grate on me and get my blood boiling.  I try really hard to be objective in it all but it is very difficult when you see people making comments both on and off list that exhibit behaviour that may not be disgraceful on its own but in context of everything a person has said, in context of attitudes that have been exhibited here and in other places it is hard to not take things personally.

Louis brought up one example but IMO that example is not the point.  The point is that there are so many people involved in this not just with their work but with their hearts.  Many people around here have so much history with the project and with each other that it is nearly impossible not to take things personally.

IMO, we really need a way forward in all of this.  We are getting to the point where everybody is so jaded and things are so broken that we can't talk about what really matters, which is the code.

Any attempt we have made on list to deal with behaviour on list has not ended good.

If we are going to keep moving forward with open lists (the development lists have not always been open) then we really need to find a way to make them a safe place.  At this point the atmosphere is so poisonous that I don't think it is safe for anyone and I really don't know how to fix it.

Ian

[Brad Baker]

Just so we can all benefit from this recent effort from the PLT (as a result of this discussion) to foster a beter environment for development.. can we have some feedback a few months on please. 

How has the suspension of a few posting privileges worked out for the overall environment? Are there any other observations from this experience other areas of the project could benefit from?

From someone on the CLT, I have seen a few minor repercussions, but all in a days work, and overall I see positive results from this small action on the PLT's behalf to us as a CLT as well. 

What about individuals from OSM, has it been easy to support this decision, or have you found it a challenge? Any feedback from the OSM members?

BTW Nice to see us all doing a little more in public too (ie this public leadership list). We talk about openness and transparency, and now we can show we really do believe it.

Brad Baker
Twitter @xyzulu
The Joomla Community: community.joomla.org

[Steve]

Hi Brad

To be honest, I'm not comfortable discussing disciplinary actions in
public.

I know the situation isn't identical, but if this were one of my
employees, I wouldn't openly talk about disciplinary actions against
them with the other members of the company.

Steve

[Andrew Eddie]

Brad, the development lists are kept deliberately open and, short of
people posting inappropriate links to naughty sites, most people
behave themselves. It was unfortunate that we needed to take the
action you speak of, but in taking it I don't think there is anyone
who can't see or feel the difference - it's night and day. Things are
much happier and productive because we aren't wasting time dealing
with the distractions and the dramas. We fully support people having
their say, but not everyone get's their way and if individuals
continue to disrespect the culture and chemistry of the teams they are
privileged to work with, then they'll will be asked to take a holiday
for a time. We aim for a line of best fit, and, regrettably, some
people don't cope with that well.

While we are all exhausted, and it's fair to say there's a bit of
"beta cabin fever", we are back on track for a successful release soon
because of the actions taken. I personally think if we hadn't taken
the action, everyone in the JBS would have been so stressed out with
the nonsense it would have killed production completely.

Regards,
Andrew Eddie
http://www.theartofjoomla.com - the art of becoming a Joomla developer

[Brad Baker]

Steve, I have no issues with you not being comfortable discussing this in public.

Just for the record, I don't think discussing names and individuals is appropriate in this case now either. I was just trying to add some more openness and transparency to this situation and gather feedback on how this situation was handled and the feedback from OSM (as well as the CLT and PLT) on how it has worked out.

It appears to have been a successful way to diffuse a stressful and potentially long term damaging (to Joomla development) situation from what I can see. Is this how others feel as well?

________________

Sorry.. removed message and reposted due to me leaving my non-Joomla signature on the message.

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Brad Baker <br...@xyzulu.com> wrote:

Steve, I have no issues with you not being comfortable discussing this in public.

Just for the record, I don't think discussing names and individuals is appropriate in this case now either. I was just trying to add some more openness and transparency to this situation and gather feedback on how this situation was handled and the feedback from OSM (as well as the CLT and PLT) on how it has worked out.

It appears to have been a successful way to diffuse a stressful and potentially long term damaging (to Joomla development) situation from what I can see. Is this how others feel as well?

--

[Marijke Stuivenberg]

Brad,

I sure agree on Steve that it is inappropriate to discuss disciplinary actions in
public. So, that's not what I want to do.

However at the moment I don't share your feelings.
I'm eagerly looking for efforts on how we can find a way to work together again.
Accepting to a certain level that we have emotions, and trying to understand each others cultural differences and views.

If we could work on a way to put the white flag in the middle and focus on the code regardless of who it is coming from,
If at the final end of the story we could have a happy ending remembering the meaning of the word 'Joomla!'
Then I would agree that this was handled in a successful way.

I hope we can all 'work' on accomplishing that!

Thanks,
Marijke

2010/11/2 Brad Baker <br...@xyzulu.com>

[Andrew Eddie]

Hi Marijke

Please refer to a previous email I sent to this list about one option
is for people to work together "separately". I believe that was
certainly in the spirit of raising a white flag.

We can't please everyone all of the time, and most of us are very
experienced now with accounting for cultural differences. However,
when that displeasure turns into disruption, flaunting rules and
procedures and personal attack, even after 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th
chances or warnings have been given, that's when hard decisions have
to be made to preserve the stability of the whole project for the
benefit of the majority that are (and have been) happy to work
together cohesively.

Brad's question was valid and I did not sense he was asking to "name
and shame", simply an update. If nothing changed after taking
disciplinary action then we need to be asking some serious questions
of ourselves (because in that case we applied the wrong solution to
the wrong problem). That isn't the case and my personal impression is
that the mood has lifted from where we were a number of months ago.

Regards,
Andrew Eddie

On 2 November 2010 13:57, Marijke Stuivenberg

[Wendy Robinson]

Brad, thank you for opening this up again.

Andrew, Thank you for sharing your observations with us.

My thoughts for now overall,

Disciplinary action is not something anybody wants to do or enjoys. It's a difficult task to manage that requires a lot of vigilance, discussion and volunteer resources that could be spent on other valuable areas of the project. I'm glad to know that those efforts of the PLT did not go to waste and that there was indeed a positive outcome from the action that needed to be taken.

I think it's important to have these discussions. The good in our community far outweighs the negative, but there are always going to be situations where we need to make hard choices and enforce the rules. Getting this out in the open and having the opportunity to learn from the PLT's recent efforts can be valuable to all of us, if we're open to talking about it.

The only *people* these types of discussions should be about is us, the project leadership, and how well we've handled certain things, how poorly we've handled others and in what ways we can improve our process and communication so that in future there is as little ambiguity as possible about project rules and expectations and possible consequences for any violations.

I would also like to spend more time on finding ways for people to work together, and I've seen Leadership work very hard at this with numerous endeavours in the five years I've been involved in the project, though it is certainly an area we can always improve on. Getting the inevitable, difficult and "not fun" stuff out of the way first though, I think will make it easier to build teams and cohesive working relationships and generally a more peaceful community in the future.

Wendy

[Paul Orwig]

Brad,

My short version on this subject:
I don't think we should have a public post mortem about a specific situation (I'm not saying you do either), but I will say that I support a leadership team's right to enforce discipline in their working groups, when fair and sincere attempts have been made to address and resolve significant problems such as lack of productivity and poor morale, but they have not improved the situation.

My less short version on this subject:
My main hope is that when significant conflicts come up in any working group, that leaders will seek to respond with a spirit of tolerance and openness that  allows differing points of view to be heard and considered. In a volunteer environment, I think the important goal of team productivity sometimes needs to be balanced with the other important goal of allowing for free and open discussions, debates, and disagreements. Sometimes those goals are mutually exclusive, and in those situations it falls to the leaders how to decide how to strike a balance and try to keep the group moving together toward accomplishing whatever the task at hand is.

Where this gets even more complicated is that our project has a variety of different working groups, each with different styles and different imperatives due to the importance and urgency of their work. A level of interaction and openness for discussion and debate that may be successful in one working group may not be successful in another. Volunteers need to understand that different groups may function better with different levels of interaction, and leaders need to help the volunteer members of their teams by making their expectations for their groups clear and consistent.

We have the Volunteer Code of Conduct as an important reference that all contributors should understand and abide by, and all leaders should hold themselves and their team members accountable to. I think it would be helpful if all volunteers are asked to acknowledge their agreement to the Volunteer Code of Conduct before they join a working group team. I also think it would be helpful if all working groups made it a goal to develop some type of "group guidelines" document so that all team members will have a more specific reference for how each particular group works and functions.

I think it is disappointing whenever disciplinary actions are made in our community. It is an admission that something broke down somewhere. I hope that whenever this occurs, that everyone who was involved will take a strong honest look at what happened and what can be learned from the situation in case changes might be made for how similar situations could be handled in the future. None of us is perfect, but hopefully we are all always wanting to learn and grow and do better as individuals, and as members of this community.

Thanks,

paul

[Ryan Ozimek]

Hi Brad, et al,

I’ll keep it short:  I concur with Paul’s points.  I could have written more, but Paul’s points below rather eloquently sum up my thoughts on the matter as well.  Well done, Paul.

Best,
Ryan

----------------------------------------
Ryan Ozimek
President
Open Source Matters (Joomla's non-profit organization)
Email: ryan....@opensourcematters.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cozimek

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[Sandra Warren]

I don't think anyone in Leadership "enjoys" having to take disciplinary action.  It is actually quite painful to have to go through the process.  Seriously, it is not very pleasant for anyone involved.

That being said, it does occasionally happen.  It is terribly important that we learn from these situations and be better able to address future issues with more knowledge than before.

I think it is our responsibility to maintain a pleasant environment for each and every one of us to be productive in. 

Thank you Brad for posing this question.  It is absolutely needed to hone our processes. 
Sandra