Fwd: Mozilla Code of Conduct: next steps

[Sheeri Cabral]

I was encouraged to forward my comments about the code of conduct draft:

----- Forwarded Message -----

I think this is a great first draft.

This discussion was sparked by one particular post to Planet Mozilla, and I don't see anything in the code of conduct that would necessarily make that post unacceptable. The Code of Conduct does state that Mozillians should respect Mozilla processes and principles, and says:

"Leaders do their best to reflect the values that Mozilla stands for and the behaviors that Mozilla holds as paramount."

And I guess "Values" includes the "diversity statement"....and the Code of Conduct does talk about leaders valuing the overall good vs. their own personal feelings...

I guess the questions for me, for those clamoring for a code of conduct, are:

0) What would having a Code of Conduct have changed, in the specific recent incident?
1) Does the Code of Conduct being proposed meet the requirements of 0)?

I don't feel that this Code of Conduct would have stopped that particular post from being made, nor would it give a lot of fodder for saying "this post violates the official Mozilla Code of Conduct".

Also? Let's say the Code of Conduct does make it clear that that particular post would have been a violation. What are the consequences of violating the Code of Conduct? A reprimand? Removal from Planet Mozilla? Removal from the Mozilla community? I don't see any particular accountability attached to the code of conduct.

-Sheeri


----- Original Message -----

Hi All, forwarding this from mozilla.governance in case you're not on that list:

Good morning,

Mozilla is going to explore developing a Code of Conduct for our
community and contributors, using the Ubuntu project Code of Conduct
and supporting documents as an initial template. We're looking to
create something aspirational rather than proscriptive, and the Ubuntu
documents provide a tried and proven starting point.

The next step, I believe, is to look at those documents and see what
we need to do to adapt them to work for the Mozilla project. For
this, I need your help.

As we cannot use the Ubuntu Code of Conduct verbatim [1], I have taken
the liberty of merging the three primary documents into a single wiki
page and have modified the text slightly so it talks about Mozilla
rather than Ubuntu.

The result is here:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Code_of_Conduct/Draft

You can see the changes I have made to the original text here:
http://mzl.la/GEAtl0

==========
Next Steps
==========

Step I: If you want to help, please closely and carefully read through
the draft and consider the following questions:

1) Is there anything that should be added? Is there anything we need
to add for the document to apply to all of the situations, people and
groups we want our Code of Conduct to address?

2) Is there anything that should be removed? Are there things in the
document that simply to not apply to Mozilla or that we do not want
our Code of Conduct to address?

3) Is there anything significant that should be changed? At this
point, please do not include grammar issues, nits, typos,
wordsmithing, etc. -- we can deal with any needed rewrites and tweaks
once we have all the raw content sorted out.

4) Is there anything should change in the document to make it more
"Mozilla" and more in keeping with our project's unique history,
community, and DNA?

Step II: Please post your thoughts about the draft as a public reply
to this thread. If you are not comfortable posting your thoughts
publicly, you can send them to me privately at this email address, and
I'll incorporate them into the summary I will put together later.

=========
A Request
=========

Please stay on topic -- strong disagreement is fine, but I would like
everyone to keep this discussion constructive, respectful, and civil.
This thread is about the development and content of a Code of Conduct
for the Mozilla community -- any side discussions should be taken off
thread.

===========
What's Next
===========

I am going to blog and tweet about this thread shortly so more of our
community is aware that this process is happening and how to take
part. If there are people you feel should be aware of and/or involved
in this process, please point them here.

In a week or so I will post a summary of the discussion that has taken
place and propose a new set of next steps at that stage. I'm hoping
we can have an agreed-upon draft ready for wider review by mid-April.

Thanks!

~ deb


Note: If you have issues with the process I have outlined here, or if
you believe we should be doing something differently, please let me
(or Mitchell) know either here or privately.

[1] I'm still not 100% sure whether we can use the Ubuntu text at all
since it doesn't appear to be released under an open source license.
We're trying to see if we can sort that out.

[Cédric Corazza]

Le 22/03/2012 20:33, Sheeri Cabral a écrit :
> I was encouraged to forward my comments about the code of conduct draft:
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>
> I think this is a great first draft.
>
> This discussion was sparked by one particular post to Planet Mozilla, and I don't see anything in the code of conduct that would necessarily make that post unacceptable. The Code of Conduct does state that Mozillians should respect Mozilla processes and principles, and says:
>
> "Leaders do their best to reflect the values that Mozilla stands for and the behaviors that Mozilla holds as paramount."
>
> And I guess "Values" includes the "diversity statement"....and the Code of Conduct does talk about leaders valuing the overall good vs. their own personal feelings...
>
> I guess the questions for me, for those clamoring for a code of conduct, are:
>
> 0) What would having a Code of Conduct have changed, in the specific recent incident?
> 1) Does the Code of Conduct being proposed meet the requirements of 0)?
>
> I don't feel that this Code of Conduct would have stopped that particular post from being made, nor would it give a lot of fodder for saying "this post violates the official Mozilla Code of Conduct".
>
> Also? Let's say the Code of Conduct does make it clear that that particular post would have been a violation. What are the consequences of violating the Code of Conduct? A reprimand? Removal from Planet Mozilla? Removal from the Mozilla community? I don't see any particular accountability attached to the code of conduct.
>
> -Sheeri

I agree there is not yet in the Code of Conduct any action to be done in
case of "violation" of it and fwiw, removal from the Mozilla Community
would be the worst thing to do imo.

On the other side, I have the growing feeling of US "politically
correctness" guidance in this draft that uneases me (and some other
Europeans --yes, cultural differences).

Most of this draft is common sense, and most of the not acceptable
things mentioned has never happened on any Mozilla public communication
channels as far as I am aware of, and adding more rules and constraints
might not be a good idea.

Reading all the thread on m.governance since the "issue" arised, I have
the feeling that most of the posters were employees (I may be wrong but
I don't know everyone) and that the malaise was more inside the
Corporation than inside the community. Whatever rules we can set, we
won't prevent people to be hurt, and imho, as long as people don't
infringe the law, we don't have to put other Mozilla "laws" on top of it.

The root of all this deployed energy and passionate posts was just in
the first place about what content should be posted or not on Planet
Mozilla and we end this up with a book of rules.

As a contributor, and I have to clarify this word, as it seems to be a
difference with this acceptation in America and in Europe (at least in
France), a contributor is a people who participates voluntarily to a
project. Well, as a contributor, I join daily my local IRC channel,
hosted on Mozilla servers, to know what's going on, to get informed of
personal things about my fellows, etc. We can kick, say stupid things
and bad jokes, troll and so on. These kind of things cement a local
community.
So, what would happen if someone complains about this kind of behaviour
in our local channel? Would I be reprimanded? Would I be banned of the
community?
As a contributor, I contribute to Mozilla because I think its mission
worths it. But if I can't have fun contributing, well, I have already my
daily job with its constraints, and I don't want to have another one,
not paid, with no fun.

Well, these are just some thoughts to be considered.

Cédric

[Dao]

On 22.03.2012 22:25, Cédric Corazza wrote:
> So, what would happen if someone complains about this kind of behaviour
> in our local channel? Would I be reprimanded? Would I be banned of the
> community?

If someone doesn't feel welcome in your channel, then maybe that's
something you should work on. Is this such an absurd idea?

If some responsible person decides that you did violate the code of
conduct *and* you refuse to work on it, I guess you should be reprimand.
Hopefully it would get farther than that.

[Tim Chevalier]

I would respectfully request that people avoid the term "political
correctness" in these discussions. The phrase "political correctness"
is a rhetorical device for dismissing, trivializing, and demeaning the
concerns and needs of people who are systematically oppressed. That
kind of dismissive and degrading behavior is exactly what a code of
conduct should combat, so it's not productive to engage in the same
behavior in a discussion of the code of conduct.

Please see http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Political_correctness
and http://web.archive.org/web/20080429124539/http://www.kaichang.net/2006/11/the_sloppy_prop.html
-- as Kai Chang, the author of the second essay, puts it:

'Simply put, the great "PC" cliché, as commonly deployed in mainstream
discourse, is cultural propaganda designed to befuddle and misdirect
while defending the current power structure. All politics deal with
power relations, and in the debate over America's alleged climate of
"political correctness", there's a stark asymmetry of power between
the defiant megaphone-wielders who complain of being constrained by
humorless hypersensitivity from below, and the under-represented
people of color, women, LGBT, handicapped, poor, and otherwise
marginalized or dispossessed people who have no choice but to absorb
the linguistic, cultural, and physical barbs of the ruling class. The
former feel psycho-emotionally oppressed by their inability to crack
puerile ethnic jokes without criticism; the latter simply are
oppressed.'

If we don't all agree on that, I simply can't see how a useful code of
conduct is possible.

Cheers,
Tim

[Dao]

On 22.03.2012 22:38, Dao wrote:
> If some responsible person decides that you did violate the code of
> conduct *and* you refuse to work on it, I guess you should be reprimand.
> Hopefully it would get farther than that.

Hopefully it would *not* get farther than that. Oops.

[Majken Connor]

Tim,

I think of "political correctness" in the same terms as "security
theatre." Yes some people do argue that it's putting them out and they
should be able to live their lives, but it also can go too far and still be
ineffective.

The problem is these aren't black and white issues. Lots of things about
someone's appearance are clues to their health. Sometimes they mean
something, sometimes they don't. There is no black and white when it comes
to feminism either. You have things that are clearly wrong, things that are
clearly ok, but then you have a grey area in the middle, not a line.

i think this is what we have to be aware of with the code of conduct as
well. We can't just establish some line that people can toe. I think other
factors come into play - how close is someone willing to get to the line?
Are they doing it for a good reason or simply to exercise their rights?
Are they in a position where they might keep going further and cross the
line?

You're right that the point is for people to think about how they make
people feel, and accept the consequences of their actions. If we have a
clear line then I think conflicts will devolve into a debate of whether or
not someone is on the right side of the line (like we saw).

People who think it's ok to make fun of overweight (or underweight!) even
though "physical appearance" is listed in the code are not welcome here.
Neither are people who would discriminate against transgender even though
"gender" is in the code. I think the code should make *that* explicit
rather than having a comprehensive list of all the possible exceptions
jerks might come up with to avoid resolving a conflict.

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Dao <d...@design-noir.de> wrote:

> On 22.03.2012 22:38, Dao wrote:
>

>> If some responsible person decides that you did violate the code of
>> conduct *and* you refuse to work on it, I guess you should be reprimand.
>> Hopefully it would get farther than that.
>>
>

> Hopefully it would *not* get farther than that. Oops.
>

> ______________________________**_________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>

[Tim Chevalier]

Majken:

Sorry, I just don't see how it's useful to compare the terms "security theater" and "political correctness". "Security theater" refers to a real infringement on freedom by a powerful group (various governments), whereas the term "political correctness" is an ideological term that obfuscates debate and contributes nothing useful. Saying something is politically correct is saying that you have the privilege to refuse to respect a certain group of people because they have less power than you do. That has no place in a respectful discussion.

I find it a useful exercise to substitute the word "respect" for "political correctness". When someone says that political correctness can go too far, they're saying that respect can go too far. Personally, I don't think it's possible to be *too* caring or respectful.

Cheers,
Tim

[Tim Chevalier]

[Mitchell Baker]

Hi Cedric

I think the desire for a Code of Conduct has existed for a good while
before the content in Planet a couple of weeks back. I've heard people
mention it for a while. So this is the trigger, but i don't think one
post caused it.

We created the Conductors module to work on communications. That
actually started out with me thinking about a Code of Conduct. I
decided instead to try the Conductors module, which is a set of
Mozillians who have volunteered to help people in the midst of difficult
communications. A code of conduct could be a good complement. It would
give guidelines for the kinds of communications we hope for. You're
right that a lot of it is common sense.

I think there are responses to "what would have changed" in the prior
thread -- i think I asked this question too and there were some good
answers.

I understand your point about rules and fun and contributing. Ideally
the Code of Conduct would let people know that if I am doing something
that is deeply disturbing to them they should talk to me about it if
they can, and raise it to specified people in the Mozilla community if
they need someone to act on their behalf.

If we all start using a Code of Conduct every time someone irritates us
it will be a tragedy.

It is a bit long though, maybe we don't need all the explanations,

mitchell

[Asa Dotzler]

On 3/22/2012 12:33 PM, Sheeri Cabral wrote:
> I was encouraged to forward my comments about the code of conduct draft:
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>
> I think this is a great first draft.
>
> This discussion was sparked by one particular post to Planet Mozilla, and I don't see anything in the code of conduct that would necessarily make that post unacceptable. The Code of Conduct does state that Mozillians should respect Mozilla processes and principles, and says:
>
> "Leaders do their best to reflect the values that Mozilla stands for and the behaviors that Mozilla holds as paramount."
>
> And I guess "Values" includes the "diversity statement"....and the Code of Conduct does talk about leaders valuing the overall good vs. their own personal feelings...
>
> I guess the questions for me, for those clamoring for a code of conduct, are:
>
> 0) What would having a Code of Conduct have changed, in the specific recent incident?
> 1) Does the Code of Conduct being proposed meet the requirements of 0)?

I do not believe that a code of conduct should be an editorial policy
for any or all Mozilla forums.

- A

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-03-22 10:52 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:

> I understand your point about rules and fun and contributing. Ideally
> the Code of Conduct would let people know that if I am doing something
> that is deeply disturbing to them they should talk to me about it if
> they can, and raise it to specified people in the Mozilla community if
> they need someone to act on their behalf.
>
> If we all start using a Code of Conduct every time someone irritates us
> it will be a tragedy.

Possibly, but I think this is a bit of a strawman. We're not discussing
_all_ types of irritation, just specific ones. I think Cédric's
description of some specific behavior -- "kick, say stupid things and
bad jokes, troll and so on" -- is worth considering in its own light. To
him these behaviors may be important for cementing the community; to
others they are behaviors that drive them out of the community. I think
that discussing and establishing some _specific_ behavioral norms is
exactly the task at hand. Both for existing participants to feel safe,
and newcomers to evaluate whether they want to participate in the first
place.

I think this exercise ought not shy away from specificity. Norms are
about specifics. We all agree with platitudes of "be good". We have
conflicts over specifics; I think those are worth exploring and spelling
out.

As an example, in the rust (sub)project we've articulated a relatively
clear position against "spamming, trolling, flaming, baiting or other
attention-stealing behaviour", in addition to our stance against forms
of directed insults, demeaning or harassing behavior. Likewise, I note
the proposed CoC does cover "flamewars, trolling, personal attacks, and
repetitive arguments". I think that's good.

These aren't that hard to enforce. Someone does it, you point to the
guidelines and ask them to stop. They don't stop, you ask them to leave.
The internet is a big place and there are plenty of places to go enjoy
trolling, flaming, insulting and demeaning people. I don't think this
has to be one of them.

I'd suggest that the CoC as posted is not quite specific enough in
matters related to harassment. Specificity matters; as in "lists of
terms". This has proven a point on which people need very explicit
guidelines. The citizen's code of conduct goes a bit further in spelling
things out, I think wisely:

"intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or
demeaning conduct"

"offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation,
race, religion, disability; inappropriate use of nudity and/or
sexual images in public spaces (including presentation slides);
deliberate intimidation, stalking or following; harassing
photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other
events; inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual
attention"

The benefit of being specific is not that it's guaranteed to be
exhaustive. Of course no list is ever exhaustive. The benefit is that
you don't get lost discussing platitudes (such as the "never be
offended" canard; nobody's suggesting that).

Someone seriously hurt by specific behavior X can say "look, X is really
not acceptable in my book, but I've seen it happen". Someone who thinks
X is perfectly acceptable can make some kind of case why. What's so
great about, say, trolling that we have to put up with it? Or stalking.
Or whatever. Specificity helps the conversation remain coherent.

-Graydon

[Majken Connor]

I think the types of behaviour are easier to quantify than the subjects of
bad behaviour. You can troll someone about anything, what makes it personal
is that they're the target. If we make a list of topics that are off
limits, then it leaves room for people to justify it. If you specify the
behaviour then there's no justifying it on grounds that it's not a
controversial topic. Someone might make the argument that they weren't
really trolling, ie they weren't purposely arguing just to get a response,
but the code will also cover the situation where someone is accidentally
upsetting someone and not stopping.

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 8:49 PM, Graydon Hoare <gra...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> On 12-03-22 10:52 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
>

> > I understand your point about rules and fun and contributing. Ideally
> > the Code of Conduct would let people know that if I am doing something
> > that is deeply disturbing to them they should talk to me about it if
> > they can, and raise it to specified people in the Mozilla community if
> > they need someone to act on their behalf.
> >
> > If we all start using a Code of Conduct every time someone irritates us
> > it will be a tragedy.
>

> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>

[Asa Dotzler]

On 3/23/2012 5:49 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> As an example, in the rust (sub)project we've articulated a
> relatively clear position against "spamming, trolling, flaming,
> baiting or other attention-stealing behaviour", in addition to our
> stance against forms of directed insults, demeaning or harassing
> behavior. Likewise, I note the proposed CoC does cover "flamewars,
> trolling, personal attacks, and repetitive arguments". I think that's
> good.

I suspect that you and I have different definitions of what constitutes
attention-stealing and when it is tolerable and not tolerable.

Maybe within a small project this kind of thing is easier. When you
scale up thousands, across hundreds of cultures, it's not so easy to
find agreement on what's acceptable and what's not.

This is why a "Don't be a jerk* and if you are the victim of a jerk, or
see someone else being victimized, here are the ways to deal with it"
guide and process feels to me like a lot better approach than trying to
precisely define "attention-stealing behavior" and the like.

That's why I really liked the idea of a guide to conflict resolution
that mitchell spoke about:

> Next Steps -- What to do when difficulties arise. Deb also suggested
> we have "A simple set of concrete actions that can be taken if
> someone finds themselves in a situation where they are hurt,
> offended, or feel that another community member is acting
> inappropriately. I don't know what these actions should be -- I am
> not an expert in conflict resolution or our HR rules -- but i
> strongly believe that these must include some way to escalate the
> issue to a higher level group whose role is to 6help mediate these
> situations when they arise. A couple people have suggested that the
> escalation path ends up with Brendan and / or me. I agree, but my
> hope is that we can build a broader set of people known for
> effectiveness and leadership here.

I'm not opposing a laundry list of unacceptable behaviors that cover the
entire community, but I also don't think that's as valuable as figuring
out what to do when someone feels like they've been victimized.

- A


* If profanity offends you, don't read any further.

I intended to use the word "asshole" there and would have but it
occurred to me that it might cause unnecessary distraction. I use the
word asshole with a very specific meaning taken from "The No Asshole
Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't" a
book written by a good friend of mine and Stanford professor Robert Sutton.

You can get the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446526568/bobsutton-20

If you want to know why Bob used such a loud and controversial word in
his Harvard Business Review and later book, and why I think the word
needs to be used more and more specifically, check out his HBR comments:
http://blogs.hbr.org/sutton/2007/03/why_i_wrote_the_no_asshole_rule.html

[Mike Connor]

On 2012-03-23, at 10:43 AM, Asa Dotzler wrote:

> On 3/22/2012 12:33 PM, Sheeri Cabral wrote:
>

>> I guess the questions for me, for those clamoring for a code of conduct, are:
>>
>> 0) What would having a Code of Conduct have changed, in the specific recent incident?
>> 1) Does the Code of Conduct being proposed meet the requirements of 0)?
>

> I do not believe that a code of conduct should be an editorial policy for any or all Mozilla forums.

That's not really an answer to the question. Unless you mean to say that only if it were an editorial policy would have altered anything about the recent event. I don't actually believe that to be true, if for no other reason than we will have a clear, unambiguous affirmation of Mozilla's respect and commitment to diversity. But I think it would have an even greater impact, if it were respected.

From the draft:

> If someone has been harmed or offended, it is our responsibility to listen carefully and respectfully, and do our best to right the wrong.

Perhaps this is a matter of opinion, but I am under the impression that the aggrieved parties in the most recent incident do not feel as if there was any attempt to listen respectfully, or to right the wrong. Having a clear and unambiguous responsibility for all community members to at least attempt to address the consequences of their actions feels like a significant, positive step up in terms of community health.

As for Planet and other forums, I believe that a code of conduct should apply to any official part of the Mozilla community. I would argue that in establishing a Code of Conduct for Mozilla, we are establishing an expectation of respectful and positive behaviour within the community. If an individual is unwilling to act in a manner consistent with the standards of the community, and refuses to work in good faith to address any fallout from their actions, whether intentional or not, I would find it difficult to imagine a scenario where we would want that person to continue posting on Planet or in other forums.

-- Mike

[Gervase Markham]

On 24/03/12 00:49, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On 12-03-22 10:52 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
>
>> I understand your point about rules and fun and contributing. Ideally
>> the Code of Conduct would let people know that if I am doing something
>> that is deeply disturbing to them they should talk to me about it if
>> they can, and raise it to specified people in the Mozilla community if
>> they need someone to act on their behalf.
>>
>> If we all start using a Code of Conduct every time someone irritates us
>> it will be a tragedy.
>
> Possibly, but I think this is a bit of a strawman. We're not discussing
> _all_ types of irritation, just specific ones. I think Cédric's
> description of some specific behavior -- "kick, say stupid things and
> bad jokes, troll and so on" -- is worth considering in its own light. To
> him these behaviors may be important for cementing the community; to
> others they are behaviors that drive them out of the community.

So how would you integrate the two?

Saying that Cedric's behaviour is unreasonable is one way, but then you
are denying his methods of cementing the community as he and those in it
with whom he speaks use them. Banning those methods may make that
community more welcoming to others, but it may make it less welcoming to
Cedric and other existing community members. That may be a trade-off you
personally are willing to make, but let us not both say that and also
claim we are aiming to make a community where everyone is welcome.

The larger question this raises is this: I suspect we will find that
there is variation across various Mozilla sub-communities as to what is
normal and reasonable behaviour. What allowance, if any, in the CoC do
we plan to make for such variations, which may be driven by or related
to characteristics the CoC claims to honour, such as race, culture,
national origin, etc.? If we are truly honouring such characteristics,
doesn't that make it difficult to write a "one size fits all" CoC which
proscribes specific behaviours?

> I'd suggest that the CoC as posted is not quite specific enough in
> matters related to harassment. Specificity matters; as in "lists of
> terms". This has proven a point on which people need very explicit
> guidelines. The citizen's code of conduct goes a bit further in spelling
> things out, I think wisely:
>
> "intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or
> demeaning conduct"

Are you saying these terms are specific? I would suggest that all of
them are open to a wide variety of interpretations.

Gerv

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-03-26 09:23 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 24/03/12 00:49, Graydon Hoare wrote:

>> Possibly, but I think this is a bit of a strawman. We're not discussing
>> _all_ types of irritation, just specific ones. I think Cédric's
>> description of some specific behavior -- "kick, say stupid things and
>> bad jokes, troll and so on" -- is worth considering in its own light. To
>> him these behaviors may be important for cementing the community; to
>> others they are behaviors that drive them out of the community.
>

> So how would you integrate the two?

Via the systems of social decision-making we have. That's why we're
having this discussion. "People disagree" is not the end of a
conversation; it's the beginning.

> That may be a trade-off you
> personally are willing to make, but let us not both say that and also
> claim we are aiming to make a community where everyone is welcome.

Ok. Proposed amendment: "where everyone _willing to live by this code_
is welcome". I'd have thought that obvious but sure, it's a fine
amendment to make.

(Note: we already exclude portions of the internet's conception of
"everyone" when we interpret their activities as violating our community
norms. This discussion is just about refining those norms, not
transitioning from "no norms" to "norms", as you keep painting it.)

> The larger question this raises is this: I suspect we will find that
> there is variation across various Mozilla sub-communities as to what is
> normal and reasonable behaviour. What allowance, if any, in the CoC do
> we plan to make for such variations, which may be driven by or related
> to characteristics the CoC claims to honour, such as race, culture,
> national origin, etc.? If we are truly honouring such characteristics,
> doesn't that make it difficult to write a "one size fits all" CoC which
> proscribes specific behaviours?

Nope. Though I am glad you've come to see the wisdom in various forms of
epistemic or moral relativism. Here's what that means in practice.
Useful relativism does not freeze up in the face of variation; it's an
understanding that the intrinsic variation of social reality demands
_social_ systems of decision-making. We have one here (governance).
Let's use it. Let's be specific and talk through the details. Let's
figure out which size(s) are approximately-fitting-enough to
sufficiently-many to codify in words we agree to abide by.

>> "intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or
>> demeaning conduct"
>

> Are you saying these terms are specific? I would suggest that all of
> them are open to a wide variety of interpretations.

Then suggest more specific terms so we can discuss _them_. Or explain
why variation-in-interpretation _of these terms_ would be uniquely hard
for our existing social decision-making systems to resolve. IMO these
are specific enough for individuals in our governance structure to
interpret, and for individual participants to evaluate the question "do
you prefer membership in a community that permits or excludes these?"
But if you feel they're not specific enough, refine further.

The response I _won't_ accept here is saying "some people can sometimes
disagree over various ill-defined things, so there can be no effective
system of decision-making on anything!" That's a diversionary tactic to
avoid addressing the specific terms at hand.

Life sometimes requires decision-making. We have a social system of
decision-making here to resolve disagreements. If you really take
exception to a prohibition against _intimidation and harassment_ (or
some other item on that list, or the other lists proposed so far),
explain _why_ and engage with the system of decision-making we have here
(the organizational governance structure). Don't just throw up your
hands due to the potential existence of disagreement. Mozilla as an
organization-and-community decides what stance it's going to take on all
sorts of stuff. This is no different.

-Graydon

[Gijs Kruitbosch]

On 26/03/2012 20:41 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
>>> "intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or
>>> demeaning conduct"
>>
>> Are you saying these terms are specific? I would suggest that all of
>> them are open to a wide variety of interpretations.
>
> Then suggest more specific terms so we can discuss _them_. Or explain
> why variation-in-interpretation _of these terms_ would be uniquely hard
> for our existing social decision-making systems to resolve. IMO these
> are specific enough for individuals in our governance structure to
> interpret, and for individual participants to evaluate the question "do
> you prefer membership in a community that permits or excludes these?"
> But if you feel they're not specific enough, refine further.
>
> The response I _won't_ accept here is saying "some people can sometimes
> disagree over various ill-defined things, so there can be no effective
> system of decision-making on anything!" That's a diversionary tactic to
> avoid addressing the specific terms at hand.

NB: This is the second time you're poisoning the well, in my opinion. It's not
sustainable to just refuse to discuss with people holding axioms different from
yours.

> Life sometimes requires decision-making. We have a social system of
> decision-making here to resolve disagreements. If you really take
> exception to a prohibition against _intimidation and harassment_ (or
> some other item on that list, or the other lists proposed so far),
> explain _why_ and engage with the system of decision-making we have here
> (the organizational governance structure). Don't just throw up your
> hands due to the potential existence of disagreement. Mozilla as an
> organization-and-community decides what stance it's going to take on all
> sorts of stuff. This is no different.

Please don't strawman people who argue that those words aren't specific into
saying that the things they're supposed to describe are OK. Those are not (at
all) the same opinions.

We can probably all agree that harassment is bad, we just all have a different
concept of *exactly* what it means (you said you are happy about moral
relativism, so I assume I don't need to defend this statement; please let me
know if I'm mistaken). And depending on our concepts, an action will or will not
qualify as such. Which is why it is debatable whether or not it helps to have
these terms in the CoC. If we're going to have a social decision making process,
then why not just defer everything to whatever group is making the decisions
post-facto about whether something is acceptable or not? That'll save us a lot
of bickering here about exact limits. Of course, then there are no described
limits whatsoever, and instead we leave it to people to 'be excellent to each
other', and the group to reach decisions when we are not.

Gijs

[Gervase Markham]

On 26/03/12 19:41, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On 12-03-26 09:23 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>> On 24/03/12 00:49, Graydon Hoare wrote:
>>> Possibly, but I think this is a bit of a strawman. We're not discussing
>>> _all_ types of irritation, just specific ones. I think Cédric's
>>> description of some specific behavior -- "kick, say stupid things and
>>> bad jokes, troll and so on" -- is worth considering in its own light. To
>>> him these behaviors may be important for cementing the community; to
>>> others they are behaviors that drive them out of the community.
>>
>> So how would you integrate the two?
>
> Via the systems of social decision-making we have. That's why we're
> having this discussion. "People disagree" is not the end of a
> conversation; it's the beginning.

The fact of disagreement between Cedric's idea of acceptable behaviour
and yours is clear :-) I am asking what your proposal is for resolving
it. Is your suggestion that we just pick your idea, and move on?

> (Note: we already exclude portions of the internet's conception of
> "everyone" when we interpret their activities as violating our community
> norms. This discussion is just about refining those norms, not
> transitioning from "no norms" to "norms", as you keep painting it.)

I don't think I'm painting it that way. But it's definitely a transition
from "unwritten and divergent norms" to "written and unified norms",
which (depending on the degree of divergence) can be a big change for some.

>> The larger question this raises is this: I suspect we will find that
>> there is variation across various Mozilla sub-communities as to what is
>> normal and reasonable behaviour. What allowance, if any, in the CoC do
>> we plan to make for such variations, which may be driven by or related
>> to characteristics the CoC claims to honour, such as race, culture,
>> national origin, etc.? If we are truly honouring such characteristics,
>> doesn't that make it difficult to write a "one size fits all" CoC which
>> proscribes specific behaviours?
>
> Nope. Though I am glad you've come to see the wisdom in various forms of
> epistemic or moral relativism.

Ha! :-) Actually, no. I think that claims to honour protected
characteristics are necessarily limited, and that no-one actually fully
honours diversity as such statements claim; I want us to be honest in
recognizing that.

> Useful relativism

(What is "useful relativism"? Is it relativism that pinches just enough
from absolutism that it can claim that its castles in the air actually
have some support? :-)

> does not freeze up in the face of variation; it's an
> understanding that the intrinsic variation of social reality demands
> _social_ systems of decision-making. We have one here (governance).
> Let's use it. Let's be specific and talk through the details. Let's
> figure out which size(s) are approximately-fitting-enough to
> sufficiently-many to codify in words we agree to abide by.

This is why I said that the constitution and make-up of the Community
Council, or whatever we end up with as the adjudicating body, is just as
important as the text of the Code.

>>> "intimidating, harassing, abusive, discriminatory, derogatory or
>>> demeaning conduct"
>>
>> Are you saying these terms are specific? I would suggest that all of
>> them are open to a wide variety of interpretations.
>
> Then suggest more specific terms so we can discuss _them_. Or explain
> why variation-in-interpretation _of these terms_ would be uniquely hard
> for our existing social decision-making systems to resolve.

I don't think it's hard to imagine a decision-making system which
resolves them. However, you were arguing for more specificity. I presume
(correct me if I'm wrong) that the point of greater specificity is to
leave less room for interpretation. My point is that it doesn't, really.

> The response I _won't_ accept here is saying "some people can sometimes
> disagree over various ill-defined things, so there can be no effective
> system of decision-making on anything!" That's a diversionary tactic to
> avoid addressing the specific terms at hand.

Well, it's good I'm not arguing that, then. :-)

> Life sometimes requires decision-making. We have a social system of
> decision-making here to resolve disagreements. If you really take
> exception to a prohibition against _intimidation and harassment_ (or
> some other item on that list, or the other lists proposed so far),
> explain _why_ and engage with the system of decision-making we have here
> (the organizational governance structure).

As Gijs has pointed out (and as I wrote to you privately), I have no
problem with a prohibition on intimidation and harassment - except that
I suspect my definition of what is harassing is quite different from
yours. The recent incident, which we are not going to get side-tracked
on, being a case in point. This is precisely why I brought up the point
that these words have a variety of interpretations. I'm surprised to
hear you deny it, given our strongly differing interpretations of
precisely the words in question! :-)

> Don't just throw up your
> hands due to the potential existence of disagreement. Mozilla as an
> organization-and-community decides what stance it's going to take on all
> sorts of stuff. This is no different.

I disagree that all decisions Mozilla takes about a particular stance on
something are equivalent. "Mozilla is against software patents" is very
different to "Mozilla is against affirmative action", which is very
different to "Mozilla is against the death penalty". As Mitchell has
said, if we try and force agreement on issues outside our shared
mission, we will disagree profoundly. I want to avoid seeing the Code of
Conduct used as a back-door to force, as a condition of participation in
our community, agreement with the majority or silence on issues outside
the scope of our mission.

Gerv

[Graydon Hoare]

On 27/03/2012 3:13 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:

>> Via the systems of social decision-making we have. That's why we're
>> having this discussion. "People disagree" is not the end of a
>> conversation; it's the beginning.
>
> The fact of disagreement between Cedric's idea of acceptable behaviour
> and yours is clear :-) I am asking what your proposal is for resolving
> it. Is your suggestion that we just pick your idea, and move on?

Of course not. I have no formal governance role that I'm aware of. The
formal process is, I think, that we discuss for a while, get as close as
we can to consensus (below, you agree on the principle of prohibiting
intimidation and harassment -- progress!) and then escalate remaining
disagreements through the module-ownership chain until we get to
Mitchell, who decides remaining disagreements unilaterally. That's fine
by me. If you want a more nuanced governance structure for this topic,
feel free to propose one.

I'm just suggesting that we not water down or make-vague the contents of
a CoC for the sake of reaching early "total" consensus. Excluding topics
due to the existence of disagreements over the entire community amounts
to the stance of acceptance of all behavior. Disagreement over whether
trolling is ok has mutual-exclusion effects at a community level.
Troll-tolerance welcomes some and rejects others. I'm suggesting we (the
org, its governance structure, the CoC it produces) take a position re:
trolls or anti-trolls. If we "do nothing" we're choosing trolls.

I'm certain some people here would like to abuse one another
indefinitely. I'd like the leadership or decision-making process of this
organization to arrive at an explicit position concerning that habit.

>> Useful relativism
>
> (What is "useful relativism"? Is it relativism that pinches just enough
> from absolutism that it can claim that its castles in the air actually
> have some support? :-)

The kind that doesn't freeze up when maligned by an absolutist.

> This is why I said that the constitution and make-up of the Community
> Council, or whatever we end up with as the adjudicating body, is just as
> important as the text of the Code.

I disagree. By analogy to law, you're saying the choice of justices is
more important than the text of the constitution and laws they're tasked
with interpreting. Nonsense. Of course the social make-up matters but
the text matters more. Culture is made of people _and_ memory-artifacts.
We write stuff down for a reason.

> I don't think it's hard to imagine a decision-making system which
> resolves them. However, you were arguing for more specificity. I presume
> (correct me if I'm wrong) that the point of greater specificity is to
> leave less room for interpretation. My point is that it doesn't, really.

It absolutely does. What you're doing is repeatedly injecting the
argument that "future disagreement over specifics undermines the ability
to choose usefully-specific terms in the present". Again, by analogy,
this would be like saying that "since all case law is not yet worked
out, we shall pass no bills". Nonsense, nonsense.

> As Gijs has pointed out (and as I wrote to you privately), I have no
> problem with a prohibition on intimidation and harassment - except that
> I suspect my definition of what is harassing is quite different from
> yours.

Then propose refining language. You say that you have no problem with a
prohibition on intimidation and harassment. So there's a putative kernel
of agreement. If you're worried about specific misinterpretations,
_state them_. Do not just wave hands about "maybe we disagree" without
specifics. You keep doing that, and it comes across as an attempt to
shut down the argument. I.e. an attempt to _not_ accept a prohibition on
intimidation and harassment. Even though you claim you do.

> I want to avoid seeing the Code of
> Conduct used as a back-door to force, as a condition of participation in
> our community, agreement with the majority or silence on issues outside
> the scope of our mission.

Not agreement. Merely restraint on action. I have never suggested any of
this will change your opinions one iota, and that's not my concern. I
simply want you to adopt the social norm of not acting in some specific
hurtful ways, and trying to make amends when told that you did. It's not
a high bar.

-Graydon

[Graydon Hoare]

On 26/03/2012 10:02 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
>> The response I _won't_ accept here is saying "some people can sometimes
>> disagree over various ill-defined things, so there can be no effective
>> system of decision-making on anything!" That's a diversionary tactic to
>> avoid addressing the specific terms at hand.
>
> NB: This is the second time you're poisoning the well, in my opinion.
> It's not sustainable to just refuse to discuss with people holding
> axioms different from yours.

I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are his attempts to dismiss
the topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other
words, I will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements
explicitly. If you think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.

> Please don't strawman people who argue that those words aren't specific
> into saying that the things they're supposed to describe are OK. Those
> are not (at all) the same opinions.

Ok. Describe some forms of behavior you're worried will be unfairly
deemed unacceptable by the phrase "intimidation and harassment". Maybe
there are useful qualifications that can be put on that phrase; I said I
thought it was specific enough, but if you have further refinements I'm
all ears. Maybe I agree with those qualifications too! I haven't heard
any, so it's hard to say.

> We can probably all agree that harassment is bad, we just all have a
> different concept of *exactly* what it means (you said you are happy
> about moral relativism, so I assume I don't need to defend this
> statement; please let me know if I'm mistaken). And depending on our
> concepts, an action will or will not qualify as such. Which is why it is
> debatable whether or not it helps to have these terms in the CoC.

Here you're doing what I said I wouldn't accept Gerv doing: using "the
potential for disagreement" as an excuse for shutting down the line of
normative inquiry ("it's debatable..") If we "all agree that harassment
is bad", let's say so. If there are exceptions to that agreement that we
can see from this early distance, let's find them and state them in
terms qualifying the agreement.

Being "happy about moral relativism" means I'm ok seeing moral
(social-normative) questions resolved through social processes, like
this discussion we're having here, and further escalation through the
mozilla governance system. Relativism is not a preemptive stance against
holding or constructing moral judgments. That's an absolutist canard.

-Graydon

[Majken Connor]

Here are some examples of grey area:

* Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.

* Someone says "omg that's great, I love you!" someone else replies with
"TWSS"

In many social systems, and certainly in workplaces, these would both be
filed under "harassment" even if no one has voiced an objection to this
kind of discussion or comment before. I think these are both examples where
"good faith" should be applied. However, I think it would be fine for
someone to say "hey, those jokes are annoying" or "could you discuss
religion in another channel please" and people could take the discussion
elsewhere. I don't think they're the kind of thing that need to escalate.
And if they do escalate it would be on the issue of disrespecting the other
person's feelings (refusing to discuss elsewhere) and not because the
comments were harassing or discriminatory.

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Graydon Hoare <gra...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> On 26/03/2012 10:02 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
>

>> The response I _won't_ accept here is saying "some people can sometimes
>>> disagree over various ill-defined things, so there can be no effective
>>> system of decision-making on anything!" That's a diversionary tactic to
>>> avoid addressing the specific terms at hand.
>>>
>>
>> NB: This is the second time you're poisoning the well, in my opinion.
>> It's not sustainable to just refuse to discuss with people holding
>> axioms different from yours.
>>
>

> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are his attempts to dismiss
> the topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other
> words, I will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements
> explicitly. If you think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
>
>

> Please don't strawman people who argue that those words aren't specific
>> into saying that the things they're supposed to describe are OK. Those
>> are not (at all) the same opinions.
>>
>

> Ok. Describe some forms of behavior you're worried will be unfairly deemed
> unacceptable by the phrase "intimidation and harassment". Maybe there are
> useful qualifications that can be put on that phrase; I said I thought it
> was specific enough, but if you have further refinements I'm all ears.
> Maybe I agree with those qualifications too! I haven't heard any, so it's
> hard to say.
>
>

> We can probably all agree that harassment is bad, we just all have a
>> different concept of *exactly* what it means (you said you are happy
>> about moral relativism, so I assume I don't need to defend this
>> statement; please let me know if I'm mistaken). And depending on our
>> concepts, an action will or will not qualify as such. Which is why it is
>> debatable whether or not it helps to have these terms in the CoC.
>>
>

> Here you're doing what I said I wouldn't accept Gerv doing: using "the
> potential for disagreement" as an excuse for shutting down the line of
> normative inquiry ("it's debatable..") If we "all agree that harassment is
> bad", let's say so. If there are exceptions to that agreement that we can
> see from this early distance, let's find them and state them in terms
> qualifying the agreement.
>
> Being "happy about moral relativism" means I'm ok seeing moral
> (social-normative) questions resolved through social processes, like this
> discussion we're having here, and further escalation through the mozilla
> governance system. Relativism is not a preemptive stance against holding or
> constructing moral judgments. That's an absolutist canard.
>
> -Graydon
>

> ______________________________**_________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>

[Graydon Hoare]

On 27/03/2012 9:50 AM, Majken Connor wrote:
> Here are some examples of grey area:
>
> * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
> Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
> explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
>
> * Someone says "omg that's great, I love you!" someone else replies with
> "TWSS"
>
> In many social systems, and certainly in workplaces, these would both be
> filed under "harassment" even if no one has voiced an objection to this
> kind of discussion or comment before. I think these are both examples
> where "good faith" should be applied. However, I think it would be fine
> for someone to say "hey, those jokes are annoying" or "could you discuss
> religion in another channel please" and people could take the discussion
> elsewhere. I don't think they're the kind of thing that need to
> escalate. And if they do escalate it would be on the issue of
> disrespecting the other person's feelings (refusing to discuss
> elsewhere) and not because the comments were harassing or discriminatory.

These are great examples! Thank you, it's much more productive this way!

So, perhaps it would be useful to add qualifying language along these lines:

- Respectful, solicited, private, consensual conversations exploring
cultural differences concerning protected groups shall not be
interpreted as discriminatory against those groups. Petitioning or
proselytizing against them in an unsolicited manner, and/or beyond
stated requests to end such conversations, shall be.

- Many mozilla forums (IRC, mailing lists, blogs) blur the boundary
between public and private. Seemingly "private" conversations
concerning protected groups, such as those in the last paragraph,
as well as casual and joking conversations, may "feel" much
more private than they actually are, and many passive participants
may feel hurt by them. In such cases, the hurt parties shall
request, in good faith, that the speaking parties adjourn
to a more-private sub-forum (secondary channel, private email, etc.)
When asked for such adjournment, given these causes, community
members shall apologize and oblige, in good faith and without
retaliation.

Would those qualifications help un-grey the area? My legalese isn't
terribly good, I'm just trying to sketch out the space you described.
IIRC Deb's doing the real wordsmithing.

-Graydon

[Deb Richardson]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Graydon Hoare <gra...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> IIRC Deb's
> doing the real wordsmithing.

I'll definitely help with that part of the process -- a bunch of stuff
came up last week that has totally gutted my schedule, so I'm a bit
busy right now unfortunately.

My current plan is to:

1) Go through the v2 of the Ubuntu CoC in detail and see what's up with that
2) Read through this thread in detail and post a summary of the
discussion (as I understand it) on Thurs or Fri this week
3) See what makes sense in terms of next steps at that point -- if we
need more time for more discussion (which is likely), I'll see if
specific questions or topics fall out of the summary that could
possibly be branched out into separate specific threads of their own.

Please keep the discussion going in the meantime. It's all really
interesting and incredibly useful :)

~ deb

[Majken Connor]

> terribly good, I'm just trying to sketch out the space you described. IIRC

> Deb's doing the real wordsmithing.
>
>

> -Graydon
> ______________________________**_________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>

I like the first paragraph for sure. The second paragraph may or may not be
the right idea. The reason I haven't brought up examples before is that
people really do differ on what is ok and when tolerance is promotion. I
know some women will feel that all TWSS jokes are misogynistic and
shouldn't be tolerated as they make it acceptable to think of women as sex
objects to be joked about. Certainly this is why many people don't like
religion, because it gives people "permission" to treat others poorly
(LGBT, abortion etc) I think this is Gerv's point (though I certainly agree
he makes his points poorly lately!)

So I hate dead baby jokes, always have and it got worse when I had kids. I
don't think there's anything funny about harming children. But they're
jokes, it's mostly about wordplay which I do appreciate in other contexts.
I don't want a system that allows me to ban dead baby jokes from everywhere
I hang out unless people are purposely telling them to me, or around me to
upset me.

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-03-27 10:51 AM, Majken Connor wrote:

> I like the first paragraph for sure. The second paragraph may or may not
> be the right idea. The reason I haven't brought up examples before is
> that people really do differ on what is ok and when tolerance is
> promotion. I know some women will feel that all TWSS jokes are
> misogynistic and shouldn't be tolerated as they make it acceptable to
> think of women as sex objects to be joked about.

Yeah, I agree 'joke' is a tricky one to speak clearly on. Humor thrives
on cultural peculiarities, ambiguity, context, juxtaposition,
personalities involved, even timing! But as it's used so commonly as a
cloak for abusive behavior -- "I was only joking with that hugely
offensive thing I just said" -- I think it's worth giving some text to.

The reason I think it's good to err on the side of a conduct guideline
that says "joke + hurt = inhibit-joke" is that it's relatively easy to
inhibit joking behavior -- you just apologize and stop making jokes --
whereas it's ... much, much harder to find something funny if you don't.

> So I hate dead baby jokes, always have and it got worse when I had kids.
> I don't think there's anything funny about harming children. But they're
> jokes, it's mostly about wordplay which I do appreciate in other
> contexts. I don't want a system that allows me to ban dead baby jokes
> from everywhere I hang out unless people are purposely telling them to
> me, or around me to upset me.

Ok. Those 'unless' clauses are valuable, and what I intended to capture
with the qualifications in the second para. Is there a way you'd be
comfortable framing them for inclusion in Deb's writing? If you say
"this is presently upsetting me, here and now, please stop", do you feel
that request should be respected? Or should "sorry, it's a joke so we're
going to keep telling them here" make it ok _even after you expressed
that upset_?

Of course, if you're not upset enough to mention it -- or if in the
spirit of appreciating human diversity you find overhearing those jokes
enriches your life more than it harms you -- you are under no obligation
to ask someone to stop. My concern is merely that you have a rhetorical
leg to stand on (in terms of "text of community norms") when and if you
have had enough of someone's jokes, after you've expressed that they're
hurting you.

-Graydon

[Majken Connor]

Yeah this is the complicated parts

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Graydon Hoare <gra...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> On 12-03-27 10:51 AM, Majken Connor wrote:
>
> > I like the first paragraph for sure. The second paragraph may or may not
> > be the right idea. The reason I haven't brought up examples before is
> > that people really do differ on what is ok and when tolerance is
> > promotion. I know some women will feel that all TWSS jokes are
> > misogynistic and shouldn't be tolerated as they make it acceptable to
> > think of women as sex objects to be joked about.
>
> Yeah, I agree 'joke' is a tricky one to speak clearly on. Humor thrives
> on cultural peculiarities, ambiguity, context, juxtaposition,
> personalities involved, even timing! But as it's used so commonly as a
> cloak for abusive behavior -- "I was only joking with that hugely
> offensive thing I just said" -- I think it's worth giving some text to.
>

I know this one, but it's pretty easy to tell when someone was really
joking and when they're just pleading defense. There is a difference
between a meanspirited joke and one that relies on shock for it's humor.
The real life examples I'm thinking of that your example brings up are easy
to categorize - the person couldn't tell it was "a joke." That's a
different category than "I don't think those kinds of jokes are funny."

>
> The reason I think it's good to err on the side of a conduct guideline
> that says "joke + hurt = inhibit-joke" is that it's relatively easy to
> inhibit joking behavior -- you just apologize and stop making jokes --
> whereas it's ... much, much harder to find something funny if you don't.
>

> No, and you don't have to find something offensive to not find it funny.
So I think this is the wrong measure. I think the problem is how to measure
"hurt." Was someone actually hurt by it, or are they against them on
principle? The problem is you can't usually tell from a joke whether or not
someone actually holds those beliefs. Another personal example. Here's an
offensive joke I find hilarious:

Q. What do you get when you cross a Mormon with an Indian [native american
in this case]? A. A basement full of stolen groceries.

I was raised mormon and a large part of my family is Native American. I
don't find it funny because I hate those groups and think it's an apt
description (in that case I'd nod in agreement, not laugh). I like the play
about the basement full of groceries (a true quirk) and the absurd idea
that they'd be stolen. If I did think Natives had an endemic problem with
theft I wouldn't find it funny, I'd find it insensitive. So one part of the
joke is funny cuz it's true, the other part is funny cuz it's ridiculous. I
think it's the combination of true + ridiculous that makes humour. In my
interpretation, this joke is making fun of the stereotype, and pointing out
that the stereotype is absurd - not condoning it.

> > So I hate dead baby jokes, always have and it got worse when I had kids.
> > I don't think there's anything funny about harming children. But they're
> > jokes, it's mostly about wordplay which I do appreciate in other
> > contexts. I don't want a system that allows me to ban dead baby jokes
> > from everywhere I hang out unless people are purposely telling them to
> > me, or around me to upset me.
>
> Ok. Those 'unless' clauses are valuable, and what I intended to capture
> with the qualifications in the second para. Is there a way you'd be
> comfortable framing them for inclusion in Deb's writing? If you say
> "this is presently upsetting me, here and now, please stop", do you feel
> that request should be respected? Or should "sorry, it's a joke so we're
> going to keep telling them here" make it ok _even after you expressed
> that upset_?
>

I think if it's genuinely upsetting people yes absolutely the joke should
move. I have a problem with the more extreme cases. Like if someone says
"all TWSS jokes are degrading to women and you're all sexist if you don't
stop" I wouldn't want to accommodate that attitude because it's arbitrary
and it also assigns intentions arbitrarily.

>
> Of course, if you're not upset enough to mention it -- or if in the
> spirit of appreciating human diversity you find overhearing those jokes
> enriches your life more than it harms you -- you are under no obligation
> to ask someone to stop. My concern is merely that you have a rhetorical
> leg to stand on (in terms of "text of community norms") when and if you
> have had enough of someone's jokes, after you've expressed that they're
> hurting you.
>
> -Graydon

> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>

I agree, a joke doesn't have to be offensive to be overdone or annoying.
Though I think in some channels the answer is for the annoyed person to
leave. So if people started a channel to tell obnoxious jokes, and someone
says "I love obnoxious jokes but not those ones" I think they need to put
up with it or leave that place.

[Gijs Kruitbosch]

On 27/03/2012 18:18 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On 26/03/2012 10:02 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
>>> The response I _won't_ accept here is saying "some people can sometimes
>>> disagree over various ill-defined things, so there can be no effective
>>> system of decision-making on anything!" That's a diversionary tactic to
>>> avoid addressing the specific terms at hand.
>>
>> NB: This is the second time you're poisoning the well, in my opinion.
>> It's not sustainable to just refuse to discuss with people holding
>> axioms different from yours.
>
> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are his attempts to dismiss the
> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other words, I
> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly. If you
> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.

I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will be
non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the list, rather
than responding to the belief that trying to make an exhaustive list is futile.
I will give it a shot further down, though. Anyway, please refrain from
name-calling, it doesn't further the discussion.

Generally, arguing that people disagree over these definitions doesn't imply a
belief that there can't be a(n effective) decision-making process. I disagree
with your attempt to standardize definitions. Instead, I think we should leave
whatever group of people (that ends up deciding when problems arise) to make
their own decisions. If the group ends up fairly representing the diversity in
our community (and I'm sure it will), then I would happily trust them with
making those decisions; much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively
formulate an entire para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.

>> Please don't strawman people who argue that those words aren't specific
>> into saying that the things they're supposed to describe are OK. Those
>> are not (at all) the same opinions.
>
> Ok. Describe some forms of behavior you're worried will be unfairly deemed
> unacceptable by the phrase "intimidation and harassment". Maybe there are useful
> qualifications that can be put on that phrase; I said I thought it was specific
> enough, but if you have further refinements I'm all ears. Maybe I agree with
> those qualifications too! I haven't heard any, so it's hard to say.

I'm saying that it's difficult to decide whether discrimination, intimidation or
harassment did happen, and 'how bad' it is. You didn't specify who decides and
on what basis. Things to take into account:
- the (previous) working as well as personal relationship between the (alleged)
victim and intimidator
- intent
- where on the public--private scale did this (these things) happen?
- to what extent did the victim try to engage with the attacker directly to
prevent reoccurence? (we should obviously not require this, but it would be
worse, say, if someone had already told someone else to stop, to no avail)
- in what forum did this happen? (eg. web forum, newsgroup/mailing list, IRC/IM,
phone (conference), casual chat, formal meeting, interview, ...)
- from what kind of cultural, national and personal background do the people
involved approach this problem?
- are there deeper medical/psychological issues at hand?

This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above. And already I don't really see
how you would intend to codify something like this. As just one example,
something happening blatantly in public (say, public humiliation at a
conference/meeting) can make things 'worse', and on the other hand, something
happening in a very private moment (say, an interview) can make something be
'worse'. I just don't see any point trying to write down general rules about this.

As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely fictitious)
one:
Let's suppose I had a daughter who was a girl scout and with her troop they went
out and sold cookies. The money will go to a project campaigning against
(female) circumcision/genital mutilation. Proud as I am of my daughter, I write
a blogpost about this that gets syndicated to planet, and link to various
charities so my international Mozillian friends can donate to this beautiful
cause even if they can't have my daughter's yummy cookies.

Is this OK? What about members of our community (should there be any) which are
from such a country and think that calling it genital mutilation is insulting,
and (supposing I didn't mince words in saying how awful I would have argued it
was) that I was actively discriminating against people born in such cultures?
How bad would it have to be to be considered discriminatory, harassing or
intimidating? Would I have to threaten physical violence if I ever met someone
who actively participated in it? Does it matter that it was really my daughter's
yummy cookies which made me post this, rather than some kind of intense and
grueling hatred of people from the respective cultures? Does it matter if it was
about male or female circumcision (about which Western cultures, as far as I can
tell, hold different opinions (something which I don't want to debate right now,
fwiw!)). Maybe I offended people of a particular faith (even if I didn't mention
religion). Does that make it worse? As she is a girl scout and they are (in some
countries) affiliated with Catholicism, does that make a difference? Does it
matter if I'm Catholic myself? What if English was my third language, or
generally worse than the English in this post (not that that's stellar, but...)?
What if you knew I was having marriage problems?

--
Note that some of the (rhetorical) questions imply 'mitigating circumstances' -
by which I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of what could happen, just
that 'punishment' might vary depending on such factors.
--

Again, I would prefer situations like this to be resolved on a case-by-case
basis. What do you think we gain by trying to pre-emptively construct a moral
framework of what is and isn't OK? What kind of leeway will whoever gets to
apply such a framework have in doing so?

>> We can probably all agree that harassment is bad, we just all have a
>> different concept of *exactly* what it means (you said you are happy
>> about moral relativism, so I assume I don't need to defend this
>> statement; please let me know if I'm mistaken). And depending on our
>> concepts, an action will or will not qualify as such. Which is why it is
>> debatable whether or not it helps to have these terms in the CoC.
>
> Here you're doing what I said I wouldn't accept Gerv doing: using "the potential
> for disagreement" as an excuse for shutting down the line of normative inquiry
> ("it's debatable..") If we "all agree that harassment is bad", let's say so. If
> there are exceptions to that agreement that we can see from this early distance,
> let's find them and state them in terms qualifying the agreement.

I am just too cautious. Let me attempt to be more blunt: I think including these
terms is a mistake because they are inherently vague and unclear, and would
prefer a CoC without them. Here are some arguments in link form:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HA#NOT

Then, regarding moral relativism:

> Being "happy about moral relativism" means I'm ok seeing moral
> (social-normative) questions resolved through social processes, like this
> discussion we're having here, and further escalation through the mozilla
> governance system. Relativism is not a preemptive stance against holding or
> constructing moral judgments. That's an absolutist canard.

Of course, you're very welcome to make moral judgments. But constructing a
single judgment is not the same as constructing a morality (ie moral framework)
in a community, and that is what is at issue here: whether fixing a complete,
community-agree definition of morality in this CoC is feasible, and I posit that
it is not. Our community and the issues at stake are too diverse. And that is a
feature, not a bug.

Again, I'm in favour of solving this by a social process - *on a case by case
basis* . This simplifies the decision as it will pertain to real issues and real
people with a real context, rather than hypotheticals.

~ Gijs

[Asa Dotzler]

Graydon, Gerv said "agreement or silence". What you're saying is "yes,
silence."

Am I wrong?

- A

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-03-27 01:26 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:

> I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will
> be non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the
> list, rather than responding to the belief that trying to make an
> exhaustive list is futile. I will give it a shot further down, though.
> Anyway, please refrain from name-calling, it doesn't further the
> discussion.

Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so. Trying to remain civil.

As I said before, I think non-exhaustiveness of textual policy is not a
sufficient excuse for avoiding its construction or substantially
curtailing obvious and predictable specifics it might address. I don't
understand why this case would be different from other policies.

It seems we're now having an ... unfortunate meta-disagreement about
whether (or how much) to try to modulate disagreements through _text_,
or merely chosen _people_ we grant community-governance authority to.
Given that the root of this thread was Mitchell's decision to task Deb
with writing (surveying, accumulating, editing) some text, I ... am
confused about which part (if any) you're addressing. Do you want to
have nothing written? Or merely cut it short?

> Instead, I think we should leave whatever group of people (that ends up
> deciding when problems arise) to make their own decisions.

Really? You'd prefer we establish a group of people and give them,
presumably, some kind of conflict-resolving authority, but have them
exercise that with _no_ written guidelines? Or no specific ones, only
vague ones?

> I would happily trust them with making those decisions;
> much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively formulate an entire
> para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.

Ok. Nothing we do or say here has force of law -- really at worst it's
probably just requests for apologies and/or requests to leave certain
forums -- but I (personally) prefer some clarity-in-writing about
standards. Written documents have a bit of dispassionate (not to mention
time-saving) force in conflict resolution. It's why we have laws in the
first place, not just judges.

> I'm saying that it's difficult to decide whether discrimination,
> intimidation or harassment did happen, and 'how bad' it is. You didn't
> specify who decides and on what basis. Things to take into account:
> - the (previous) working as well as personal relationship between the
> (alleged) victim and intimidator
> - intent
> - where on the public--private scale did this (these things) happen?
> - to what extent did the victim try to engage with the attacker directly
> to prevent reoccurence? (we should obviously not require this, but it
> would be worse, say, if someone had already told someone else to stop,
> to no avail)
> - in what forum did this happen? (eg. web forum, newsgroup/mailing list,
> IRC/IM, phone (conference), casual chat, formal meeting, interview, ...)
> - from what kind of cultural, national and personal background do the
> people involved approach this problem?
> - are there deeper medical/psychological issues at hand?

Ok. These are ... plausible dimensions to policy. Personally I think
these are _mostly_ orthogonal the problems at hand, but it's coherent to
suggest they have bearing. See below.

> This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above.

I believe it's not too long a list (7 qualifications?) to look at the
elements individually. You can throw a few more in and we won't drown in
complexity. I don't think most of them should apply -- which medical
issues have a bearing on harassment? -- but you can discuss that.
They're worth considering if you are concerned that they should really
influence policy.

> really see how you would intend to codify something like this.

We've been looking at a number of documents that do just that. Indeed,
you link into the middle of wikipedia's document-cluster on just this
matter. Do you not understand how those bodies-of-policy work?

> As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely
> fictitious) one:

Great! Let me answer equally concretely on how I think such a policy --
using the guidelines Deb has posted and the refinements I've proposed --
might apply. In the spirit of creative fiction. Naturally if you
disagree with any of the suggestions in anything Deb or I or anyone else
might have written on this, you'll disagree with the snap judgments I'm
making in response:

> Let's suppose I had a daughter who was a girl scout and with her troop
> they went out and sold cookies. The money will go to a project
> campaigning against (female) circumcision/genital mutilation. Proud as I
> am of my daughter, I write a blogpost about this that gets syndicated to
> planet, and link to various charities so my international Mozillian
> friends can donate to this beautiful cause even if they can't have my
> daughter's yummy cookies.
>
> Is this OK?

It's starting off on shaky footing. Reasonable for someone to take issue
with. It's public proselytizing against a "cause" that can easily be
read (apparently "is read", as your example shows) as an opposition to
an entire country's culture. I was suggesting in the previous post that
public, unsolicited proselytizing against protected groups is a
plausible place to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable
discussion of that group. "By-country" is a way we'd be protecting
groups from discrimination, so .. yeah. Problematic.

> What about members of our community (should there be any)
> which are from such a country and think that calling it genital
> mutilation is insulting, and (supposing I didn't mince words in saying
> how awful I would have argued it was) that I was actively discriminating
> against people born in such cultures?

They may have a valid complaint! Do you do anything to address it?
Apologize, take the thing down, de-syndicate it from planet, or do
anything to indicate that you accept that you've hurt them?

> How bad would it have to be to be
> considered discriminatory, harassing or intimidating?

Discriminatory against protected groups, it sounds like from the get-go.
I mean, you're saying they read it as such. So yes. Harassing I think
not; that usually requires you to be targeting an individual or
set-of-individuals (by identity) rather than by group-membership.
Intimidating is inducing fear of injury or harm. So we'd have to look at
the words of your post to see if it did anything like that.

> Would I have to
> threaten physical violence if I ever met someone who actively
> participated in it?

That'd make it intimidating too. Depends if you did that.

> Does it matter that it was really my daughter's
> yummy cookies which made me post this, rather than some kind of intense
> and grueling hatred of people from the respective cultures?

Plausible. I think no, but plausible. Would depend what status we gave
'intent' in the policy. Intent does not excuse everything. The degree to
which intent factors into moral considerations varies by moral
framework. In formal (legal) moral systems, intent usually _doesn't_
matter -- only action and relief matter -- and intent only kicks in as a
qualifier at severe-consequences (criminal) level. "Mens rea" and such.
Because it's hard to establish intent, and everyone will always claim
they didn't mean it.

In informal moral contexts -- talking among friends -- lack of intent
usually buys you +/- one exception to standards. That is: you get to
hear one piece of feedback "you are doing X, do you mean to?" and if you
say "yes" and carry on doing X, it is now clearly your intent to
continue with X, so you lose the "didn't mean to" excuse. How and when
this applies varies by topic.

If you think intent ought to factor into all or some CoC guidelines
(Majken suggests it ought to for jokes; the wikipedia page on harassment
includes the perception of intent) then that's possible. But keep in
mind that "I didn't mean to" usually only buys you a limited number of
retries.

> Does it
> matter if it was about male or female circumcision (about which Western
> cultures, as far as I can tell, hold different opinions (something which
> I don't want to debate right now, fwiw!)).

No, and I don't see how it could. In this putative blog post you didn't
say anything about male circumcision, so nobody who identifies with the
"cause" or culture of male circumcision has any words-of-yours to feel
hurt by.

> Maybe I offended people of a
> particular faith (even if I didn't mention religion). Does that make it
> worse?

"Offense" is a straw-man word that nobody has actually proposed we
provide policy restraints on. I ask that you stop using it.

If you insulted, intimidated, discriminated-against (in the public
proselytizing sense) that religion, then sure. That'd be problematic in
the same way it's problematic to do so against citizens of a country.

> As she is a girl scout and they are (in some countries)
> affiliated with Catholicism, does that make a difference?

No. Because while her religious identity is something she has every
right to, it does not imply your choice to proselytize against female
circumcision in mozilla spaces.

> Does it matter if I'm Catholic myself?

No. Because likewise, your religious identity does not imply your choice
to proselytize about this matter in mozilla spaces. You could choose to,
or not to, independent of your religious identity. As many other people
sharing your religious identity in this space are demonstrating.

> What if English was my third language, or
> generally worse than the English in this post (not that that's stellar,
> but...)?

No bearing in this case (your demonstrated skill; plus if you meant it
and the recipients heard it, language wasn't the issue). But plausible
in many cases. It's a good point! Maybe such a CoC should include
explicit textual allowance for it. Eg. "<problem-behaviors> are
unacceptable, with allowance given for cases where they arise from
linguistic unfamiliarity."

> What if you knew I was having marriage problems?

No bearing. Because your action was equally possible with or without the
marriage problems, and your responsibility for behaving well is not
generally excused by personal problems.

> --
> Note that some of the (rhetorical) questions imply 'mitigating
> circumstances' - by which I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of
> what could happen, just that 'punishment' might vary depending on such
> factors.
> --

Understood. And I think there's an additional dimension that's worth
considering, that you left out: _what did you do in response_.
Complaints are seldom about single actions, but sequences or patterns of
action-response-reaction. If you react in good faith to their complaint
("oh sorry, I didn't realize this was part of your national identity,
I'll re-tag that as personal and not involve the mozilla community with
it") it might well represent a suitable resolution, and the problem
would pass quickly. The hurtful reactions are more along the lines of
denial of hurt, changing the topic to first amendment rights, or telling
the hurt person to grow a thicker skin. Those reactions are often worse
than the initial acts, and are what wind up escalating.

> Again, I would prefer situations like this to be resolved on a
> case-by-case basis. What do you think we gain by trying to pre-emptively
> construct a moral framework of what is and isn't OK? What kind of leeway
> will whoever gets to apply such a framework have in doing so?

I don't think any of the yes/no/maybe responses I gave in the creative
fiction exercise above are difficult to derive from the bits of
proposed-policy we've been discussing so far. Nor from the bits of
policy other communities use to set such standards. If they are, please
point out where you see ambiguity.

As for leeway ... well, that's part of the topic at hand. I'm arguing
for narrower leeway (more specificity) than the thing Deb initially
posted. You seem to be arguing for wider?

> I am just too cautious. Let me attempt to be more blunt: I think
> including these terms is a mistake because they are inherently vague and
> unclear, and would prefer a CoC without them. Here are some arguments in
> link form:
>
> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HA#NOT

The former is good humor, but if you believe it in earnest I don't know
why you're even participating in this discussion. By its measure, all
text is hopeless.

The latter is a surprising link; I think ... it supports my view? It's
the middle of a page going to some length to parametrize the definition
of harassment, to preempt disagreement in case-by-case reasoning. I
think it's quite helpful for it to be highlighting both what-is and
what-is-not harassment in their eyes. It makes the line clear by
examples and criteria on both sides.

(Indeed, the wikipedia page-cluster that leads out of there is a very
useful mine of policy perspectives. Deb take note!)

> Of course, you're very welcome to make moral judgments. But constructing
> a single judgment is not the same as constructing a morality (ie moral
> framework) in a community, and that is what is at issue here: whether
> fixing a complete, community-agree definition of morality in this CoC is
> feasible, and I posit that it is not. Our community and the issues at
> stake are too diverse. And that is a feature, not a bug.

Not the morality of all things in all contexts. Merely the morality of a
specific list of behaviors, when enacted in specific contexts (places
and times) that this community and organization owns and moderates.
Morals in the sense of "community norms".

> Again, I'm in favour of solving this by a social process - *on a case by
> case basis* . This simplifies the decision as it will pertain to real
> issues and real people with a real context, rather than hypotheticals.

I'm opposed to "case-by-case" for a few reasons:

- It gives no insight into what future cases might be. For people who
are wavering on whether to stay or go -- whether they feel welcome
or excluded -- it leaves the issue up in the air. For people who are
wavering over the choice of whether to tag a post 'personal' or
'mozilla', it gives no guidelines about how to make that choice.

- It is costly. Written documents, once established, can be read and
re-read and re-re-read at everyone's leisure without bothering the
same few people to resolve all conflicts. Two people can look at the
rules and peacefully reach an agreement without escalating. Rules
scale better than judges.

- It is less prone to favoritism and other personal failings. Humans
asked to "adjudicate" disputes almost always come down on the side
of their friends. I'm doing it here! I'm friends with Tim and this
influences my willingness to support his claims. This sort of human
factor is something textual policies help counteract. Text is more
stable and dispassionate.

(There are numerous other human judgment-making flaws that come out
in such situations; the discriminatory biases of the people
involved, the time of day, level of hunger, etc. etc.)

-Graydon

[Asa Dotzler]

On 3/27/2012 5:10 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On 12-03-27 01:26 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
>
>> I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will
>> be non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the
>> list, rather than responding to the belief that trying to make an
>> exhaustive list is futile. I will give it a shot further down, though.
>> Anyway, please refrain from name-calling, it doesn't further the
>> discussion.
>
> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so.

Suggesting someone is a troll is on the border of name calling. Then
again, it's also a description of a specific kind of behavior that I
don't have much of a tolerance for.

I've called another Mozilla contributor an asshole because the
particular behavior he was engaged in fit one definition of asshole*
quite well. Later found out that many believed I had crossed a line.

Troll is similar, I think. It's tricky. It's an insult, and a
description of unacceptable behavior.

- A

*
http://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/0446526568

[Majken Connor]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Graydon Hoare <gra...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> On 12-03-27 01:26 PM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
>

> > I think the problem with giving an explicit list is that the list will
> > be non-exhaustive and you will respond to the individual points on the
> > list, rather than responding to the belief that trying to make an
> > exhaustive list is futile. I will give it a shot further down, though.
> > Anyway, please refrain from name-calling, it doesn't further the
> > discussion.
>

> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so. Trying to remain civil.
>
> As I said before, I think non-exhaustiveness of textual policy is not a
> sufficient excuse for avoiding its construction or substantially
> curtailing obvious and predictable specifics it might address. I don't
> understand why this case would be different from other policies.
>
> It seems we're now having an ... unfortunate meta-disagreement about
> whether (or how much) to try to modulate disagreements through _text_,
> or merely chosen _people_ we grant community-governance authority to.
> Given that the root of this thread was Mitchell's decision to task Deb
> with writing (surveying, accumulating, editing) some text, I ... am
> confused about which part (if any) you're addressing. Do you want to
> have nothing written? Or merely cut it short?
>

> > Instead, I think we should leave whatever group of people (that ends up
> > deciding when problems arise) to make their own decisions.
>

> Really? You'd prefer we establish a group of people and give them,
> presumably, some kind of conflict-resolving authority, but have them
> exercise that with _no_ written guidelines? Or no specific ones, only
> vague ones?
>

> > I would happily trust them with making those decisions;
> > much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively formulate an entire
> > para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.
>

> Ok. Nothing we do or say here has force of law -- really at worst it's
> probably just requests for apologies and/or requests to leave certain
> forums -- but I (personally) prefer some clarity-in-writing about
> standards. Written documents have a bit of dispassionate (not to mention
> time-saving) force in conflict resolution. It's why we have laws in the
> first place, not just judges.
>

> > I'm saying that it's difficult to decide whether discrimination,
> > intimidation or harassment did happen, and 'how bad' it is. You didn't
> > specify who decides and on what basis. Things to take into account:
> > - the (previous) working as well as personal relationship between the
> > (alleged) victim and intimidator
> > - intent
> > - where on the public--private scale did this (these things) happen?
> > - to what extent did the victim try to engage with the attacker directly
> > to prevent reoccurence? (we should obviously not require this, but it
> > would be worse, say, if someone had already told someone else to stop,
> > to no avail)
> > - in what forum did this happen? (eg. web forum, newsgroup/mailing list,
> > IRC/IM, phone (conference), casual chat, formal meeting, interview, ...)
> > - from what kind of cultural, national and personal background do the
> > people involved approach this problem?
> > - are there deeper medical/psychological issues at hand?
>

> Ok. These are ... plausible dimensions to policy. Personally I think
> these are _mostly_ orthogonal the problems at hand, but it's coherent to
> suggest they have bearing. See below.
>

> > This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above.
>

> I believe it's not too long a list (7 qualifications?) to look at the
> elements individually. You can throw a few more in and we won't drown in
> complexity. I don't think most of them should apply -- which medical
> issues have a bearing on harassment? -- but you can discuss that.
> They're worth considering if you are concerned that they should really
> influence policy.
>

> > really see how you would intend to codify something like this.
>

> We've been looking at a number of documents that do just that. Indeed,
> you link into the middle of wikipedia's document-cluster on just this
> matter. Do you not understand how those bodies-of-policy work?
>

> > As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely
> > fictitious) one:
>

> Great! Let me answer equally concretely on how I think such a policy --
> using the guidelines Deb has posted and the refinements I've proposed --
> might apply. In the spirit of creative fiction. Naturally if you
> disagree with any of the suggestions in anything Deb or I or anyone else
> might have written on this, you'll disagree with the snap judgments I'm
> making in response:
>

> > Let's suppose I had a daughter who was a girl scout and with her troop
> > they went out and sold cookies. The money will go to a project
> > campaigning against (female) circumcision/genital mutilation. Proud as I
> > am of my daughter, I write a blogpost about this that gets syndicated to
> > planet, and link to various charities so my international Mozillian
> > friends can donate to this beautiful cause even if they can't have my
> > daughter's yummy cookies.
> >
> > Is this OK?
>

> It's starting off on shaky footing. Reasonable for someone to take issue
> with. It's public proselytizing against a "cause" that can easily be
> read (apparently "is read", as your example shows) as an opposition to
> an entire country's culture. I was suggesting in the previous post that
> public, unsolicited proselytizing against protected groups is a
> plausible place to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable
> discussion of that group. "By-country" is a way we'd be protecting
> groups from discrimination, so .. yeah. Problematic.
>

> > What about members of our community (should there be any)
> > which are from such a country and think that calling it genital
> > mutilation is insulting, and (supposing I didn't mince words in saying
> > how awful I would have argued it was) that I was actively discriminating
> > against people born in such cultures?
>

> They may have a valid complaint! Do you do anything to address it?
> Apologize, take the thing down, de-syndicate it from planet, or do
> anything to indicate that you accept that you've hurt them?
>

> > How bad would it have to be to be
> > considered discriminatory, harassing or intimidating?
>

> Discriminatory against protected groups, it sounds like from the get-go.
> I mean, you're saying they read it as such. So yes. Harassing I think
> not; that usually requires you to be targeting an individual or
> set-of-individuals (by identity) rather than by group-membership.
> Intimidating is inducing fear of injury or harm. So we'd have to look at
> the words of your post to see if it did anything like that.
>

> > Would I have to
> > threaten physical violence if I ever met someone who actively
> > participated in it?
>

> That'd make it intimidating too. Depends if you did that.
>

> > Does it matter that it was really my daughter's
> > yummy cookies which made me post this, rather than some kind of intense
> > and grueling hatred of people from the respective cultures?
>

> Plausible. I think no, but plausible. Would depend what status we gave
> 'intent' in the policy. Intent does not excuse everything. The degree to
> which intent factors into moral considerations varies by moral
> framework. In formal (legal) moral systems, intent usually _doesn't_
> matter -- only action and relief matter -- and intent only kicks in as a
> qualifier at severe-consequences (criminal) level. "Mens rea" and such.
> Because it's hard to establish intent, and everyone will always claim
> they didn't mean it.
>
> In informal moral contexts -- talking among friends -- lack of intent
> usually buys you +/- one exception to standards. That is: you get to
> hear one piece of feedback "you are doing X, do you mean to?" and if you
> say "yes" and carry on doing X, it is now clearly your intent to
> continue with X, so you lose the "didn't mean to" excuse. How and when
> this applies varies by topic.
>
> If you think intent ought to factor into all or some CoC guidelines
> (Majken suggests it ought to for jokes; the wikipedia page on harassment
> includes the perception of intent) then that's possible. But keep in
> mind that "I didn't mean to" usually only buys you a limited number of
> retries.
>

> > Does it
> > matter if it was about male or female circumcision (about which Western
> > cultures, as far as I can tell, hold different opinions (something which
> > I don't want to debate right now, fwiw!)).
>

> No, and I don't see how it could. In this putative blog post you didn't
> say anything about male circumcision, so nobody who identifies with the
> "cause" or culture of male circumcision has any words-of-yours to feel
> hurt by.
>

> > Maybe I offended people of a
> > particular faith (even if I didn't mention religion). Does that make it
> > worse?
>

> "Offense" is a straw-man word that nobody has actually proposed we
> provide policy restraints on. I ask that you stop using it.
>
> If you insulted, intimidated, discriminated-against (in the public
> proselytizing sense) that religion, then sure. That'd be problematic in
> the same way it's problematic to do so against citizens of a country.
>

> > As she is a girl scout and they are (in some countries)
> > affiliated with Catholicism, does that make a difference?
>

> No. Because while her religious identity is something she has every
> right to, it does not imply your choice to proselytize against female
> circumcision in mozilla spaces.
>

> > Does it matter if I'm Catholic myself?
>

> No. Because likewise, your religious identity does not imply your choice
> to proselytize about this matter in mozilla spaces. You could choose to,
> or not to, independent of your religious identity. As many other people
> sharing your religious identity in this space are demonstrating.
>

> > What if English was my third language, or
> > generally worse than the English in this post (not that that's stellar,
> > but...)?
>

> No bearing in this case (your demonstrated skill; plus if you meant it
> and the recipients heard it, language wasn't the issue). But plausible
> in many cases. It's a good point! Maybe such a CoC should include
> explicit textual allowance for it. Eg. "<problem-behaviors> are
> unacceptable, with allowance given for cases where they arise from
> linguistic unfamiliarity."
>

> > What if you knew I was having marriage problems?
>

> No bearing. Because your action was equally possible with or without the
> marriage problems, and your responsibility for behaving well is not
> generally excused by personal problems.
>

> > --
> > Note that some of the (rhetorical) questions imply 'mitigating
> > circumstances' - by which I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of
> > what could happen, just that 'punishment' might vary depending on such
> > factors.
> > --
>

> Understood. And I think there's an additional dimension that's worth
> considering, that you left out: _what did you do in response_.
> Complaints are seldom about single actions, but sequences or patterns of
> action-response-reaction. If you react in good faith to their complaint
> ("oh sorry, I didn't realize this was part of your national identity,
> I'll re-tag that as personal and not involve the mozilla community with
> it") it might well represent a suitable resolution, and the problem
> would pass quickly. The hurtful reactions are more along the lines of
> denial of hurt, changing the topic to first amendment rights, or telling
> the hurt person to grow a thicker skin. Those reactions are often worse
> than the initial acts, and are what wind up escalating.
>

> > Again, I would prefer situations like this to be resolved on a
> > case-by-case basis. What do you think we gain by trying to pre-emptively
> > construct a moral framework of what is and isn't OK? What kind of leeway
> > will whoever gets to apply such a framework have in doing so?
>

> I don't think any of the yes/no/maybe responses I gave in the creative
> fiction exercise above are difficult to derive from the bits of
> proposed-policy we've been discussing so far. Nor from the bits of
> policy other communities use to set such standards. If they are, please
> point out where you see ambiguity.
>
> As for leeway ... well, that's part of the topic at hand. I'm arguing
> for narrower leeway (more specificity) than the thing Deb initially
> posted. You seem to be arguing for wider?
>

> > I am just too cautious. Let me attempt to be more blunt: I think
> > including these terms is a mistake because they are inherently vague and
> > unclear, and would prefer a CoC without them. Here are some arguments in
> > link form:
> >
> > http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HA#NOT
>

> The former is good humor, but if you believe it in earnest I don't know
> why you're even participating in this discussion. By its measure, all
> text is hopeless.
>
> The latter is a surprising link; I think ... it supports my view? It's
> the middle of a page going to some length to parametrize the definition
> of harassment, to preempt disagreement in case-by-case reasoning. I
> think it's quite helpful for it to be highlighting both what-is and
> what-is-not harassment in their eyes. It makes the line clear by
> examples and criteria on both sides.
>
> (Indeed, the wikipedia page-cluster that leads out of there is a very
> useful mine of policy perspectives. Deb take note!)
>

> > Of course, you're very welcome to make moral judgments. But constructing
> > a single judgment is not the same as constructing a morality (ie moral
> > framework) in a community, and that is what is at issue here: whether
> > fixing a complete, community-agree definition of morality in this CoC is
> > feasible, and I posit that it is not. Our community and the issues at
> > stake are too diverse. And that is a feature, not a bug.
>

> Not the morality of all things in all contexts. Merely the morality of a
> specific list of behaviors, when enacted in specific contexts (places
> and times) that this community and organization owns and moderates.
> Morals in the sense of "community norms".
>

> > Again, I'm in favour of solving this by a social process - *on a case by
> > case basis* . This simplifies the decision as it will pertain to real
> > issues and real people with a real context, rather than hypotheticals.
>

> I'm opposed to "case-by-case" for a few reasons:
>
> - It gives no insight into what future cases might be. For people who
> are wavering on whether to stay or go -- whether they feel welcome
> or excluded -- it leaves the issue up in the air. For people who are
> wavering over the choice of whether to tag a post 'personal' or
> 'mozilla', it gives no guidelines about how to make that choice.
>
> - It is costly. Written documents, once established, can be read and
> re-read and re-re-read at everyone's leisure without bothering the
> same few people to resolve all conflicts. Two people can look at the
> rules and peacefully reach an agreement without escalating. Rules
> scale better than judges.
>
> - It is less prone to favoritism and other personal failings. Humans
> asked to "adjudicate" disputes almost always come down on the side
> of their friends. I'm doing it here! I'm friends with Tim and this
> influences my willingness to support his claims. This sort of human
> factor is something textual policies help counteract. Text is more
> stable and dispassionate.
>
> (There are numerous other human judgment-making flaws that come out
> in such situations; the discriminatory biases of the people
> involved, the time of day, level of hunger, etc. etc.)
>
> -Graydon

> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>

Two things!

1. I think we all agree the code of conduct itself has no direct influence
on conflict. It's a guide, something to read to help you make up your mind
on whether you should say something, either the original content, or
whether you're deciding to speak up against content. Mitchell and others
have expressed support for a guide about how Mozilla deals with conflict,
so let's assume we're going to have both, and stop worrying about the
practical power the code of conduct will have.

2. I want intent to matter. When someone upsets you it is the mature and
respectful thing to do to stop and make sure you're not overreacting or
misinterpreting. I have been upset by something someone said and on
checking with others I was the only one who interpreted their words in the
upsetting way. The right thing to do in that case is for me to ask them to
clarify, not force them to make amends off the bat.

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-03-27 05:09 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:

> Graydon, Gerv said "agreement or silence". What you're saying is "yes,
> silence."
>
> Am I wrong?

Yes. I said restraint, not silence. This is about differentiating
informative self-expression (ok) from more hurtful acts (not ok). I
don't care if he agrees with the majority. I don't even know what the
majority thinks about most marginalized groups, because they exercise
some restraint in action, by not proselytizing about them.

-Graydon

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-03-27 05:20 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> On 3/27/2012 5:10 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
>> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so.
>
> Suggesting someone is a troll is on the border of name calling. Then
> again, it's also a description of a specific kind of behavior that I
> don't have much of a tolerance for.

Sure. But uh .. I didn't call anyone a troll, did I? I've called a few
arguments disingenuous or straw-man, but I think the only time I talked
about trolling was in reference to whether or not the CoC ought to
mention the (self-chosen) behavioral description "troll" that Cedric
mentioned. I think it'd be good to explicitly prohibit, but I don't
think anyone's trolling in this thread, and certainly didn't wish to
cast that insult. Sorry if I did anywhere.

-Graydon

[Asa Dotzler]

You said,

> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are [Gerv's] attempts to dismiss the

> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other words, I
> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly. If you
> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.

It seemed like you called Gerv's behavior trolling or possibly called
Gerv a troll. That's how I read it, anyway. I think that's how Gijs
read it too.

- A

[Asa Dotzler]

On 3/27/2012 5:28 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On 12-03-27 05:09 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
>
>> Graydon, Gerv said "agreement or silence". What you're saying is "yes,
>> silence."
>>
>> Am I wrong?
>
> Yes. I said restraint, not silence. This is about differentiating
> informative self-expression (ok) from more hurtful acts (not ok).
>

> -Graydon
>

I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between restraint and silence
here. Can you help me understand?

I read Gerv's post as informative self-expression and not as a hurtful
act. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Others read it as a hurtful act.

What do we tell Gerv in this case? You suggest "use restraint" but I
cannot see how that translates to anything other than "shut up about it"
in this case -- especially given on the many calls for the Planet team
to silence Gerv.

I thought Gerv's post was actually quite restrained. He didn't say "Some
people don't deserve rights" or "I disapprove of certain people" or
anything like that. He said something like "We all have equal rights
under the current law. It's separate but equal. If you agree with me
that the current law is good and should not be changed, sign this
petition to keep the current law in place."

I think we're kidding ourselves if we think there is some more
restrained way raise the issue Gerv raised. IMO, that was a restrained
as you could get raising the issue at all. If that's not restrained
enough, then the only interpretation I can possibly make of your kind of
"restraint" is "keep it to yourself."

And so what we're really talking about here is outlawing certain topics
in the Mozilla community and I think we should be honest about that.

- A

[Graydon Hoare]

On 27/03/2012 5:54 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:

> You said,
>
>> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are [Gerv's] attempts to
>> dismiss the
>> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other
>> words, I
>> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly.
>> If you
>> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
>
> It seemed like you called Gerv's behavior trolling or possibly called
> Gerv a troll. That's how I read it, anyway. I think that's how Gijs read
> it too.

Wow. Ok, that's surprising to me. I'm sorry I conveyed that. I didn't
think Gerv was being a troll there, not at all. I criticized his
dismissive stance, and asked him to say why he might think (or might not
think) that _other people trolling_ is something the CoC should have
language about. But there was nothing trollish about his behavior in
this thread. I'm sorry for implying such.

-Graydon

[JoeS]

On 3/27/2012 9:42 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between restraint and silence
> here. Can you help me understand?
>
> I read Gerv's post as informative self-expression and not as a hurtful
> act. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Others read it as a hurtful act.
>

Well, I've been quiet about this topic as it has raged on,
What has happened to our ability to tolerate dissenting opinions?
I'm not going to go into a Catholic church and preach atheism. Nor would
I expect to see that philosophy espoused in a blog entitled
"Hacking for Christ" Agree to disagree, and just walk away.
(tempted to go into womaz chat and say "Hello ladies, whats for dinner")
Nah bad idea

> What do we tell Gerv in this case? You suggest "use restraint" but I
> cannot see how that translates to anything other than "shut up about
> it" in this case -- especially given on the many calls for the Planet
> team to silence Gerv.
>
> I thought Gerv's post was actually quite restrained. He didn't say
> "Some people don't deserve rights" or "I disapprove of certain people"
> or anything like that. He said something like "We all have equal
> rights under the current law. It's separate but equal. If you agree
> with me that the current law is good and should not be changed, sign
> this petition to keep the current law in place."
>
> I think we're kidding ourselves if we think there is some more
> restrained way raise the issue Gerv raised. IMO, that was a restrained
> as you could get raising the issue at all. If that's not restrained
> enough, then the only interpretation I can possibly make of your kind
> of "restraint" is "keep it to yourself."
>
> And so what we're really talking about here is outlawing certain
> topics in the Mozilla community and I think we should be honest about
> that.

I guess you might categorize me as a "fringe" member of the Mozilla
community, having worked in Thunderbird bug triage for many years.
But this is shaping up as a battle of the disenfranchised and not one of
Community togetherness.

FWIW one of the past "possibly contentious posts" (By Bsmedberg) I
considered heartwarming and welcoming, and took me back to my
religious roots.(some have alluded that that Easter post crossed the line)

So diversity..yes
An exclusionary club (with specifically named exclusions) ..no
That is not the meaning of "Community" IMO


--
JoeS

[Asa Dotzler]

Happy that I misunderstood.

- A

[Graydon Hoare]

On 27/03/2012 6:42 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:

> I'm sorry. I don't see the difference between restraint and silence
> here. Can you help me understand?

Sure. I thought I elaborated this up-thread but will reiterate.
Meaningful distinctions can (and imo ought to be) drawn between:

- in private vs. public (and various shades thereof)
- in response to solicitation of opinion vs. unprovoked
- stating a difference of opinion vs. proselytizing / petitioning
- curtailing vs. expanding behavior in response to complaint
- apologizing for hurt vs. refusing to acknowledge it

Some combination of the "more restrained" stances in these dimensions
might have made Gerv's recent writing less problematic. The combination
of the "less restrained" stances in all of them simultaneously made it
bad. These are things that I mean when I say "it's not a high bar".

> What do we tell Gerv in this case? You suggest "use restraint" but I
> cannot see how that translates to anything other than "shut up about it"
> in this case -- especially given on the many calls for the Planet team
> to silence Gerv.

If you read any of the "more restrained" suggestions I make above as
"silencing", then maybe so. I believe there's a spectrum to forms of
self-expression, and I'm only asking that we codify a norm of "staying
on the restrained side" of those distinctions _when in mozilla spaces_.

> And so what we're really talking about here is outlawing certain topics
> in the Mozilla community and I think we should be honest about that.

This is certainly not my stance. As an example, I think it's quite
important that we _not_ adopt a code that discourages formation of
voluntary sub-groups around particular nationalities, genders, sexual
orientations, religions, etc. within the community. I think that's quite
useful and healthy, nothing to interfere with, and completely orthogonal
to the question of exercising suitable restraint.

(And as an illustrative counter-example: a person who just swears
constantly and vigorously at everyone -- but has no particular focus on
any marginalized group -- is also failing to exercise restraint.
"Exercising restraint" is orthogonal to "marginalized groups", it only
just happens to intersect at a few points, like "petitioning against
them in public".)

-Graydon

[Gijs Kruitbosch]

On 28/03/2012 02:10 AM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> Have I called you names so far? I'm sorry if so. Trying to remain civil.

Asa covered this. Thank you for apologizing; sorry for misunderstanding you!

> As I said before, I think non-exhaustiveness of textual policy is not a
> sufficient excuse for avoiding its construction or substantially
> curtailing obvious and predictable specifics it might address.

You gave some arguments against case-by-case judging at the end, I'll respond
there (my post was, upon rereading in the clear light of morning, somewhat
repetitive. Sorry!).

> I don't
> understand why [our CoC] would be different from other policies.

I'm unclear what you mean here, however: which other policies? Those of other
communities, or other policies we have? I presume the latter, in which case:
because it purely and only concerns human interactions and resulting emotions
(and ones orthogonal to our mission at that!), which I believe is much harder to
capture in rules and guidelines than say, data retention and privacy policies.

> Given that the root of this thread was Mitchell's decision to task Deb
> with writing (surveying, accumulating, editing) some text, I ... am
> confused about which part (if any) you're addressing. Do you want to
> have nothing written? Or merely cut it short?

The root of this part of the thread, however, was your idea to put more specific
terms in the CoC which Deb had drafted earlier. In particular, you actually
disagreed with Mitchell and said:

> I think
> that discussing and establishing some _specific_ behavioral norms is
> exactly the task at hand.

So I do not want to have nothing written, or even 'merely to cut it short'. I
would want it written without reference to specifics you mentioned, like
discrimination, harassment and so on. I'd rather cast the net wide and have the
committee be judicious in cases where it is invoked. I will elaborate at the
bottom, so we don't spread this argument across the entire message. :-)

>> Instead, I think we should leave whatever group of people (that ends up
>> deciding when problems arise) to make their own decisions.
>
> Really? You'd prefer we establish a group of people and give them,
> presumably, some kind of conflict-resolving authority, but have them
> exercise that with _no_ written guidelines? Or no specific ones, only
> vague ones?

Yes, only vague ones. Again, see the bottom. :-)

>> I would happily trust them with making those decisions;
>> much more than I would trust us to pre-emptively formulate an entire
>> para-legal process detailing what is and isn't OK.
>
> Ok. Nothing we do or say here has force of law -- really at worst it's
> probably just requests for apologies and/or requests to leave certain
> forums -- but I (personally) prefer some clarity-in-writing about
> standards. Written documents have a bit of dispassionate (not to mention
> time-saving) force in conflict resolution. It's why we have laws in the
> first place, not just judges.

This is an interesting remark, particularly as the recent debate saw calls for
resignations and banning/removing people from forums, rather than requests to
leave or separate content (those are distinct, at least in the way you
formulated it here; if they are not, I think your description of 'request to
leave' is a bit too euphemistic and in that sense a tad unfair).
The current document has no text about consequences. Out of interest, would you
like to specify those as well?

>> This list is not exhaustive, as I warned above.
>
> I believe it's not too long a list (7 qualifications?) to look at the
> elements individually. You can throw a few more in and we won't drown in
> complexity.

This is exactly what I said I was afraid of earlier in my message: you're
responding to the specifics, and then saying: look, it's not too bad!
The list being non-exhaustive, I don't think it is feasible to make it so.
To use a mathematical analogy: it's as if I said you couldn't enumerate all
primes, and you said "I don't believe that, and will only discuss individual
primes which you believe are missing or wrong". Now I gave you some primes,
notwithstanding that there are many more. Sadly, one can prove there is an
infinite number of primes, but because there are no logical connections between
different facets of human behaviour, I can't prove that the number of things to
take into account is 'large' (or 'too large'). :-(

> I don't think most of them should apply -- which medical
> issues have a bearing on harassment? -- but you can discuss that.
> They're worth considering if you are concerned that they should really
> influence policy.

Stress, insomnia, etc. I think there is often overlap between medical and
psychological issues, and attempted to be inclusive. This goes in the
'mitigating factor' box, as discussed elsewhere.

>> really see how you would intend to codify something like this.
>
> We've been looking at a number of documents that do just that. Indeed,
> you link into the middle of wikipedia's document-cluster on just this
> matter. Do you not understand how those bodies-of-policy work?

I do (at least, I think so!), I just disagree that ours should work the same
way. Wikipedia is a different type of community than we are, even if there are
also many similarities. By nature they are open to (semi-)anonymous
contributions, people can have multiple identities, ties between contributors
are much more loose, there is less credit, there is almost no employment and
therefore less of a mix of paid/unpaid contributions, etc. etc. So the stakes of
contributors are lower, and without more stringent policies, it is easier to
engage in destructive behaviour as people have less to lose.

>> As you asked for examples, here's a very concrete (albeit completely
>> fictitious) one:
>
> Great! Let me answer equally concretely on how I think such a policy --
> using the guidelines Deb has posted and the refinements I've proposed --
> might apply. In the spirit of creative fiction. Naturally if you
> disagree with any of the suggestions in anything Deb or I or anyone else
> might have written on this, you'll disagree with the snap judgments I'm
> making in response:

Just some notes here:

>> Does it
>> matter if it was about male or female circumcision (about which Western
>> cultures, as far as I can tell, hold different opinions (something which
>> I don't want to debate right now, fwiw!)).
>
> No, and I don't see how it could. In this putative blog post you didn't
> say anything about male circumcision, so nobody who identifies with the
> "cause" or culture of male circumcision has any words-of-yours to feel
> hurt by.

Ah, the brackets around 'female' were meant to annotate that it could be about
either (hypothetically!). The outcome may or may not be different.

>> Maybe I offended people of a
>> particular faith (even if I didn't mention religion). Does that make it
>> worse?
>
> "Offense" is a straw-man word that nobody has actually proposed we
> provide policy restraints on. I ask that you stop using it.
>

OK. The reason I used 'offense' is that from my perspective, cause for invoking
the CoC is found by the aggrieved, not the perpetrator, and this seemed like a
reasonable catch-all phrase. Put another way, I do not believe of anyone in this
community that they would purposefully harass, intimidate, ..., or discriminate
against others in it. Robert Kaiser also made this point: I trust the people in
this community. Without evidence to the contrary, I will presume hurt to be
accidental. That doesn't make it OK, nor does it mean that we can't discipline
people who do it repeatedly or disregard warnings about it, but it should effect
(sic!) how we deal with it.

> If you insulted, intimidated, discriminated-against (in the public
> proselytizing sense) that religion, then sure. That'd be problematic in
> the same way it's problematic to do so against citizens of a country.

Ah, but religion often has (or is argued to have) a stake in other parts of
life. As just one example from the US, the recent controversy about Catholic
hospitals and offering insurance policies that cover contraceptives.

(NB: let's not discuss about whether or not discrimination against Catholics did
happen there, but it's clear that some people felt this way, even though the
bill itself obviously didn't single out Catholic institutions specifically)

> And I think there's an additional dimension that's worth
> considering, that you left out: _what did you do in response_.
> Complaints are seldom about single actions, but sequences or patterns of
> action-response-reaction. If you react in good faith to their complaint
> ("oh sorry, I didn't realize this was part of your national identity,
> I'll re-tag that as personal and not involve the mozilla community with
> it") it might well represent a suitable resolution, and the problem
> would pass quickly. The hurtful reactions are more along the lines of
> denial of hurt, changing the topic to first amendment rights, or telling
> the hurt person to grow a thicker skin. Those reactions are often worse
> than the initial acts, and are what wind up escalating.

I think this is an extremely important point. It also hints at something else
which I think is important, namely that the CoC should be a kind of 'last
resort'. It would be preferable if people resolved their issues privately and/or
immediately, in the same forum, on a personal level, without invoking a third
party to mediate. In some cases that isn't possible, or the situation gets worse
(as you described), and then we can allow for mediation.

Regarding responding to a complaint: I also think we should allow room for
people to say "I did not (intend to) say what you're reading into it". This
happened in this thread, funnily enough: I and Asa thought you were calling Gerv
a troll, and you weren't. It should be OK to say what you said, even without the
apology: you didn't intend to insult anyone, you clarified what you meant, it is
clear in hindsight that this was the case, and that's it. It's honorable that
you apologized for it, I would hopefully do the same, but that's arguably a
personality thing. There are other people in our community who would argue that
it's not their fault that they were misinterpreted, and they have a point. I'd
rather not 'enforce' that they apologize, if they can plausibly point out that
there was miscommunication. But, again, yes, we should consider responses to
attempts to solve the matter on a personal level.

>> Again, I would prefer situations like this to be resolved on a
>> case-by-case basis. What do you think we gain by trying to pre-emptively
>> construct a moral framework of what is and isn't OK? What kind of leeway
>> will whoever gets to apply such a framework have in doing so?
>
> I don't think any of the yes/no/maybe responses I gave in the creative
> fiction exercise above are difficult to derive from the bits of
> proposed-policy we've been discussing so far. Nor from the bits of
> policy other communities use to set such standards. If they are, please
> point out where you see ambiguity.

I think people could disagree, given an actual blogpost and responses to
criticism, about whether such a post was discriminatory. If I had adjusted my
post and removed the advocacy / links to charity, but linked to the UN
describing the problem (which also campaigns against this, I believe? Writing
this without internet connectivity, so I can't check), it would (depending on
word choices etc.) be (even) more borderline.

More generally, I think the snap judgments you made are not difficult to derive
without your proposed amendments. However, I also think that people could derive
otherwise (with or without your amendments). Some people in the community will
agree with you, some won't. This certainly showed in the previous incident with
Gerv's blogpost. There was disagreement, sometimes very vehement disagreement. I
do not think a CoC *by itself* should be designed to resolve this disagreement.
I fully expect to need a group of real people to look at problems and decide
what to do. Perhaps this is my Dutch background, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poldermodel .

> As for leeway [for the adjudicators of the CoC]... well, that's part of the topic at hand. I'm arguing

> for narrower leeway (more specificity) than the thing Deb initially
> posted. You seem to be arguing for wider?

Yes.

>> I am just too cautious. Let me attempt to be more blunt: I think
>> including these terms is a mistake because they are inherently vague and
>> unclear, and would prefer a CoC without them. Here are some arguments in
>> link form:
>>
>> http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HA#NOT
>
> The former is good humor, but if you believe it in earnest I don't know
> why you're even participating in this discussion. By its measure, all
> text is hopeless.

All good humor has a basis in reality, otherwise it wouldn't be funny.
Of course I do not literally believe all communication is pointless. I do
however believe that all (human) communication is lossy (see also Shannon's
model of communication), and that as a consequence, claims that communication is
open to one interpretation only are misguided; an example was present in this
thread (re: trolling). I think the CoC should respect this.

> The latter is a surprising link; I think ... it supports my view? It's
> the middle of a page going to some length to parametrize the definition
> of harassment, to preempt disagreement in case-by-case reasoning. I
> think it's quite helpful for it to be highlighting both what-is and
> what-is-not harassment in their eyes. It makes the line clear by
> examples and criteria on both sides.

The link actually specifically points to what is *not* harassment, which gives
some examples of policy abuses, which illustrates a few of the dangers of trying
to specify this kind of thing. Regardless of whether you attempt to clarify the
definition in the document, apparently you need to separately warn against the
abuses, and even then they still happen (or the section would have been removed,
presumably).

> Not the morality of all things in all contexts. Merely the morality of a
> specific list of behaviors, when enacted in specific contexts (places
> and times) that this community and organization owns and moderates.
> Morals in the sense of "community norms".

The context is often not 'just Mozilla', though, because of how open we are.
Blog posts which are syndicated to PMO aren't *just* read by PMO readers, and
when reading through PMO, people may read content with a different hat than just
"Oh, a post from some dude(tte) in the Mozilla community". Similarly, the
context from which people come is much more diverse, too. See eg. the recent
post from Gary Kovacs (IIRC?) who had to ask what webkit was, and the other post
by someone (I forget who) who had spent a lot of time at Microsoft and now had
to learn how different Mozilla was. All of this is part of a diversity which is
awesome about Mozilla, and I don't think that the context and so on is
constrained enough to provide all necessary and sufficient qualifiers to
separate OK behaviour from non-OK behaviour in all cases.

>> Again, I'm in favour of solving this by a social process - *on a case by
>> case basis* . This simplifies the decision as it will pertain to real
>> issues and real people with a real context, rather than hypotheticals.
>
> I'm opposed to "case-by-case" for a few reasons:
>
> - It gives no insight into what future cases might be. For people who
> are wavering on whether to stay or go -- whether they feel welcome
> or excluded -- it leaves the issue up in the air. For people who are
> wavering over the choice of whether to tag a post 'personal' or
> 'mozilla', it gives no guidelines about how to make that choice.

The first point surprises me. The original CoC which you argued was not explicit
enough gives explicit acknowledgement (in all proposed reformulations from Gerv
and others, too!) about how we welcome (or honour, respect, etc.) very diverse
individuals. People disagreed about exactly how to do this, but it seems clear
that clarifying our openness is a main goal. I don't dispute that; I do dispute
we need your proposed specificity in terms of harassment, discrimination etc.,
to do so.

For the second, I would expect (the result of) 'judgments' of such a group based
on a CoC to be somewhat public. This should offer some idea. More importantly,
again, I trust our community. Given the massive number of posts to planet, to
the newsgroups, mailing lists, conversations on IRC, conference calls, meetings
and so on, the number of incidents is actually surprisingly low.

In the reverse sense, having such guidelines beforehand also has a chilling
effect. Given the relative success of operating without a CoC altogether (by
which I do not mean to marginalize incidents, which are serious and should be
considered), I do not believe that a more proactive approach is warranted.
Instead, I think it is fine for the CoC to have a more reactive, "last resort"
(where the first one should, where possible, be direct engagement with the
problem), usecase.

> - It is costly. Written documents, once established, can be read and
> re-read and re-re-read at everyone's leisure without bothering the
> same few people to resolve all conflicts. Two people can look at the
> rules and peacefully reach an agreement without escalating. Rules
> scale better than judges.

This is true iff the rules help people reach an agreement without escalating,
and there is an overwhelming number of problems. I believe neither to be the
case: that is, I think that people are mostly able to reach agreements already,
and that where they are not, the CoC by itself would not help them - they would
simply end up with a second conflict about their interpretation of the CoC
(whether something qualifies as harassment, whether it was intentional, whether
it was 'a joke' and so on). In fact, they would most likely already end up with
these debates without a CoC, as one of the participants would make claims using
similar words, and the other would deny them (in the case where they don't
manage to resolve the issue, anyway). We in fact saw some of this in the recent
blogpost issue too (I don't want to rehash that problem or take a position on it
at all, but it seems clear there was disagreement among various people about
whether by itself, it was discriminatory and/or various other things).

> - It is less prone to favoritism and other personal failings. Humans
> asked to "adjudicate" disputes almost always come down on the side
> of their friends. I'm doing it here! I'm friends with Tim and this
> influences my willingness to support his claims. This sort of human
> factor is something textual policies help counteract. Text is more
> stable and dispassionate.
>
> (There are numerous other human judgment-making flaws that come out
> in such situations; the discriminatory biases of the people
> involved, the time of day, level of hunger, etc. etc.)

Right. And all those human flaws also affect the original problem. And they
affect us now as we are drafting the CoC, as you pointed out (and for full
disclosure, to put it euphemistically, I cannot claim to be unbiased in my
evaluation of Gerv, even if we don't always agree :-) ).

I do not believe shifting these problems into the writing of this text helps.
Rather, the problems are muddled further by hypothetical rather than real
issues, recent history, and the limited and unbalanced selection of participants.

Instead, I would argue that the group of people doing adjudication should be
balanced, to counter 'favoritism and other personal failings'. Pick people with
various characters, backgrounds, functions within the community, and experience
in this community (ie people who came here recently vs. people who are basically
part of the furniture ;-) ). Make it 5 or 7 people. It's not going to be
perfect, but that's something I expect we'll have to live with regardless.

Regarding your point that non-exhaustiveness shouldn't prevent specificity: I
see why you feel that way (I think), but I disagree. If the list is
non-exhaustive and omits factors, reasons or behaviours which should play a role
in the decision making process, it unfairly biases people against such things,
irrespective of their legitimacy ("that's not in the CoC!").

About those vague guidelines: yes, I think human interpretation and evaluation
is useful, necessary and even sufficient, in combination with a very basic
aspirational document. If we strive to respect other people, and it's clear that
(in an intentional way, I would say) no respect was shown, then there should be
consequences (TBD). Harassment, insults, discrimination and so on all violate
the 'be excellent to each other' and 'respect each other' (however we formulate
it) dicta.

Hope that clarifies.

Cheers,
Gijs

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-03-28 09:20 AM, Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:

> So I do not want to have nothing written, or even 'merely to cut it
> short'. I would want it written without reference to specifics you
> mentioned, like discrimination, harassment and so on. I'd rather cast
> the net wide and have the committee be judicious in cases where it is
> invoked.

Ok. I disagree but think we've run around in circles on that topic
enough by now. Apologies for all the verbosity.

> The current document has no text about consequences. Out of interest,
> would you like to specify those as well?

I'd suggest something similar to what I did in the Rust conduct
guidelines. I was careful with words there. The terms of consequence I
chose there were "We will exclude you from interaction if...", and I
like these because they're:

- general enough to adapt to differing interaction-contexts
- specific enough to picture what it means in each context
- couched in terms of what the community will do, as actors,
not claiming a specific authority or jurisdiction.

> This is exactly what I said I was afraid of earlier in my message:
> you're responding to the specifics, and then saying: look, it's not too
> bad!

Sorry for following your fears; I really _don't_ think it's too bad, and
I don't think the analogy with "prime numbers" is playing fair. I
accept, as a fact, that any list of specifics is non-exhaustive. I just
think that partial (non-exhaustive) lists are _useful_. Incidentally, I
have lots of programs with a hard-wired list of "small primes" that
serve quite usefully, without enumerating all of them.

Again, the analogy I'd draw your attention to is the legal system, which
works just fine with partial lists and an evolving body of case law.
They add to it as new cases arise. Most cases hit existing rules.

> Ah, but religion often has (or is argued to have) a stake in other parts
> of life. As just one example from the US, the recent controversy about
> Catholic hospitals and offering insurance policies that cover
> contraceptives.

Sure. But the stake ends in a truce: we live in a secular society where
religions _don't_ get to call the shots. I am not going to accept
mozilla as a vehicle for forcing more religious considerations from
others into my life than the secular society I live in. That way leads
to religious war. Don't do it.

> I think this is an extremely important point. It also hints at something
> else which I think is important, namely that the CoC should be a kind of
> 'last resort'.

Agreed, vigorously!

> Regarding responding to a complaint: I also think we should allow room
> for people to say "I did not (intend to) say what you're reading into
> it". This happened in this thread, funnily enough: I and Asa thought you
> were calling Gerv a troll, and you weren't.

Yes, but I apologized anyways. Because I know that my intent doesn't
excuse what you, Asa, Gerv and others felt, if it was a response to
things I did, and as a measure of goodwill I wanted to demonstrate my
consideration of that hurt.

> There
> are other people in our community who would argue that it's not their
> fault that they were misinterpreted, and they have a point.

A limited one. Arguing to someone that you don't need to apologize to
them for the way you just hurt their feelings is a bit like arguing for
someone to find a particular joke funny rather than tasteless (or sexual
conduct interesting rather than unwanted). I'm arguing (in this thread,
right here) that it's terribly rude behavior. The right thing is to
apologize, desist, and move on.

> I'd rather not 'enforce' that they apologize,

There's no force that can provoke an honest apology. But there's a
suggestion that people learn how. I'm making that suggestion, and I
think our community could stand some practice in it.

> I do not think a CoC
> *by itself* should be designed to resolve this disagreement. I fully
> expect to need a group of real people to look at problems and decide
> what to do. Perhaps this is my Dutch background, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poldermodel .

I agree a CoC cannot resolve such a conflict, only give suggestions
about how to think about it. I think a willingness to apologize for hurt
might go a long way.

> All of this is part of a diversity which is awesome about
> Mozilla, and I don't think that the context and so on is constrained
> enough to provide all necessary and sufficient qualifiers to separate OK
> behaviour from non-OK behaviour in all cases.

I'm not arguing against diversity in the least. Quite the opposite; I
think we do a poor job of accommodating diversity. I think that
diversity comes with the price of learning some manners, and we've yet
to fully learn them.

> The first point surprises me. The original CoC which you argued was not
> explicit enough gives explicit acknowledgement (in all proposed
> reformulations from Gerv and others, too!) about how we welcome (or
> honour, respect, etc.) very diverse individuals. People disagreed about
> exactly how to do this, but it seems clear that clarifying our openness
> is a main goal. I don't dispute that; I do dispute we need your proposed
> specificity in terms of harassment, discrimination etc., to do so.

I was objecting to *platitudes* about inclusiveness and requesting some
specificity of protections because, for people coming from a background
of social marginalization, empty platitudes are a familiar problem. A
community that says "we welcome marginalized group X!" but does nothing
in practice to protect group X from systemic intra-community
discrimination, harassment or threats is not any more comfortable or
welcoming than a community that doesn't present the platitude.

> For the second, I would expect (the result of) 'judgments' of such a
> group based on a CoC to be somewhat public. This should offer some idea.
> More importantly, again, I trust our community. Given the massive number
> of posts to planet, to the newsgroups, mailing lists, conversations on
> IRC, conference calls, meetings and so on, the number of incidents is
> actually surprisingly low.

You're discounting the number of people who gave up in disgust and
quietly left, or never engaged in the first place. I'll grant, I can't
count them either, but I suggest (due to the demographic imbalances, if
nothing else) that this number is not zero.

> In the reverse sense, having such guidelines beforehand also has a
> chilling effect.

Then we're getting pretty vague and discussing the relative strengths of
two chilling effects. I know which one I think is more important. I
think repelling marginalized groups is a more serious problem. I'll
leave that tradeoff to others actually drafting and adopting the CoC to
compare and decide.

> Hope that clarifies.

It does, thanks. I appreciate that we've managed to keep the discussion
civil and apologize, again, for my verbosity these past days. I'll try
to speak less. Got software to write!

-Graydon

[Deb Richardson]

Afternoon, all...

Quick update about progress: I'm actively working on developing a
summary of the discussions so far and have looked through the Ubuntu
code of conduct v2 draft.

I'm almost done going through things, and i have a whole batch of
notes, but I might not have a summary & next steps ready to post until
tomorrow. I will absolutely get something posted before the weekend,
however. Promise.

If there are other questions or points of discussion that you think
are important but haven't been brought up yet, please take the time to
share your thoughts. It's really important and valuable. That goes
for all the lurkers out there, too :)

Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed to the discussion so far.

~ d

[Gervase Markham]

On 28/03/12 01:54, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> You said,
>
>> I am happy to discuss. What I won't _accept_ are [Gerv's] attempts to
>> dismiss the
>> topic by alluding to "disagreements" without stating them. In other
>> words, I
>> will continue to ask for him to present the disagreements explicitly.
>> If you
>> think we should be fine with trolls, _say why_.
>
> It seemed like you called Gerv's behavior trolling or possibly called
> Gerv a troll. That's how I read it, anyway. I think that's how Gijs
> read it too.

FWIW, I didn't read it that way :-) I read it as Graydon giving an
example of something I should be concrete about. (It's not quite clear
whether he thinks I am fine with trolls and need to justify it, or
whether it's an example of something someone might be fine with.) Either
way, I didn't read him as calling me a troll. :-)

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 27/03/12 17:50, Majken Connor wrote:
> * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
> Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
> explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.

[Sidenote: I have no objection to being used in a hypothetical, as long
as it's clear to everyone that views attributed to me in a hypothetical
are also hypothetical, and so may either be incorrect, or may be
potentially-misleading summaries of a more complex and nuanced opinion.
:-) If people want to know my actual opinion on any subject, private
email would be the place to start.]

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 28/03/12 04:47, JoeS wrote:
> Well, I've been quiet about this topic as it has raged on,
> What has happened to our ability to tolerate dissenting opinions?

What happened is that the word "tolerance" got redefined.

> I'm not going to go into a Catholic church and preach atheism. Nor would
> I expect to see that philosophy espoused in a blog entitled
> "Hacking for Christ" Agree to disagree, and just walk away.
> (tempted to go into womaz chat and say "Hello ladies, whats for dinner")
> Nah bad idea

Indeed. A very bad idea. There is a line between "informative
self-expression", to use Asa's words, and going out of your way to upset
people. It may be hard to draw in some difficult cases, but I'd say that
this action would be clearly on the upsetting side, and so would deny an
analogy between it and what I did.

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 27/03/12 16:43, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> On 27/03/2012 3:13 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>

>>> Via the systems of social decision-making we have. That's why we're
>>> having this discussion. "People disagree" is not the end of a
>>> conversation; it's the beginning.
>>
>> The fact of disagreement between Cedric's idea of acceptable behaviour
>> and yours is clear :-) I am asking what your proposal is for resolving
>> it. Is your suggestion that we just pick your idea, and move on?
>
> Of course not. I have no formal governance role that I'm aware of.

Sure :-) But we are all suggesting how we think the CoC should be put
together and how the rules should be defined; I was just asking for your
opinion about what to do in this case.

> I'm just suggesting that we not water down or make-vague the contents of
> a CoC for the sake of reaching early "total" consensus. Excluding topics
> due to the existence of disagreements over the entire community amounts
> to the stance of acceptance of all behavior.

Does it? Is there really nothing we can all agree on?

> I'm certain some people here would like to abuse one another
> indefinitely.

Wow, that's a pretty strong statement. Got anyone in mind?

>>> Useful relativism
>>
>> (What is "useful relativism"? Is it relativism that pinches just enough
>> from absolutism that it can claim that its castles in the air actually
>> have some support? :-)
>
> The kind that doesn't freeze up when maligned by an absolutist.

Not sure that sort exists. :-)

"Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or
validity, having only relative, subjective value according to
differences in perception and consideration." (Wikipedia)

If you believe that, then to be consistent, I suggest you must also
believe that coming to an agreement on a community-wide Code of Conduct
for the worldwide Mozilla community is almost certainly impossible, that
whenever anyone expresses an opinion on what it should be there is no
reason for anyone else to accept it (because they may perceive things
differently), and that to define a CoC would be to imperialistically
impose your (or a subset of the group's) moral and social principles on
others against their will - which means you get to behave in accordance
with your relativism, but they don't.

Relativism means exactly that - what's true for you is not necessarily
true for me. And if that's so, how come you (or your majority) get to
force your principles on me? And how is that respecting diversity, anyway?

I don't think you are actually a relativist; my evidence is that you are
engaged in this debate with the aim of achieving consensus on an
absolute truth about how community behaviour should be, which we will
then write down :-)

>> This is why I said that the constitution and make-up of the Community
>> Council, or whatever we end up with as the adjudicating body, is just as
>> important as the text of the Code.
>
> I disagree. By analogy to law, you're saying the choice of justices is
> more important than the text of the constitution and laws they're tasked
> with interpreting.

I said "just as" not "more". And I think that the history of Supreme
Court decisions in the US, and the perpetual battle between the two
'wings' of the court, and the fight about who gets to appoint and who
gets appointed, bears this out. :-)

We should define how the Community Council is formed, works and decides
things at the same time as developing the CoC. The two go hand in hand.

>> I don't think it's hard to imagine a decision-making system which
>> resolves them. However, you were arguing for more specificity. I presume
>> (correct me if I'm wrong) that the point of greater specificity is to
>> leave less room for interpretation. My point is that it doesn't, really.
>
> It absolutely does. What you're doing is repeatedly injecting the
> argument that "future disagreement over specifics undermines the ability
> to choose usefully-specific terms in the present". Again, by analogy,
> this would be like saying that "since all case law is not yet worked
> out, we shall pass no bills". Nonsense, nonsense.

Actually, I think I'm arguing that _current_ disagreement over specifics
means that if we used a particular word, it would mean different things
to different people. While this tactic is often used to produce
seeming-agreement between actually-disagreeing parties (often
theologically! :-), I don't believe it's an honest way to proceed.

We could write "no intimidation or harassment" into the CoC, but that
would not resolve the fact that you read those words very differently
from I, and therefore a 3rd party, without knowing who gets to
adjudicate, would have great difficulty determining what was and wasn't
prohibited. Hence my point about defining the Council too.

>> As Gijs has pointed out (and as I wrote to you privately), I have no
>> problem with a prohibition on intimidation and harassment - except that
>> I suspect my definition of what is harassing is quite different from
>> yours.
>
> Then propose refining language. You say that you have no problem with a
> prohibition on intimidation and harassment. So there's a putative kernel
> of agreement. If you're worried about specific misinterpretations,
> _state them_. Do not just wave hands about "maybe we disagree" without
> specifics. You keep doing that, and it comes across as an attempt to
> shut down the argument. I.e. an attempt to _not_ accept a prohibition on
> intimidation and harassment. Even though you claim you do.

As Gijs tried to explain, my point is that it's not possible (within a
document of reasonable length) to be specific enough to do what you hope
to do.

I'm not trying to shut down the debate, but I confess that I'm not sure
how to proceed. The differences between the worldviews and viewpoints
expressed here run very deep.

>> I want to avoid seeing the Code of
>> Conduct used as a back-door to force, as a condition of participation in
>> our community, agreement with the majority or silence on issues outside
>> the scope of our mission.
>
> Not agreement. Merely restraint on action.

I endorse Asa's critique of this position.

Gerv

[Graydon Hoare]

On 30/03/2012 7:06 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 27/03/12 16:43, Graydon Hoare wrote:
>> The kind that doesn't freeze up when maligned by an absolutist.
>
> Not sure that sort exists. :-)

You're speaking to one presently.

> If you believe that, then to be consistent, I suggest you must also
> believe that coming to an agreement on a community-wide Code of Conduct
> for the worldwide Mozilla community is almost certainly impossible

I believe the premise, not the conclusion. You're mistaken. This is the
wrong place to discuss in detail, but I have to at least note this
mistake. "Relativism" does not imply "solely individual frame of
reference". That's a caricature. The mozilla community is the moral
frame of reference we're discussing here. Comparative moral reasoning
within that frame (and between enclosing and enclosed frames) is
entirely possible without being grounded in universals or absolutes.

(I discuss in more detail elsewhere[1] and wikipedia offers some
clarification[2] too. But I really don't think "argument on moral
philosophy" is a useful way of proceeding in this conversation. Move it
to private email if you want to fuss over details.)

-Graydon

[1] http://graydon.livejournal.com/162007.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism#Meta-ethical

[Majken Connor]

I used this example because I recall you saying so in the comments on your
blog. I wouldn't have used it if I thought you hadn't.

[Gervase Markham]

On 30/03/12 18:58, Majken Connor wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 9:01 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>
>> On 27/03/12 17:50, Majken Connor wrote:
>>> * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
>>> Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
>>> explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.

....

> I used this example because I recall you saying so in the comments on your
> blog. I wouldn't have used it if I thought you hadn't.

I just checked, and Google tells me the phrase "homosexuality is a sin"
occurs only once on my blog, in a comment written by someone else in
August 2006. I also looked through the recent post for similar phrases
which might be said to be me saying the same thing in different words,
and didn't find any.

Anyway, like I said, no problem with hypotheticals, but people should
ask me directly if they want to know my actual thoughts on something.

Gerv

[Majken Connor]

Thanks for looking that up, sorry for the mistake!

On 4/2/12, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> On 30/03/12 18:58, Majken Connor wrote:

>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 9:01 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On 27/03/12 17:50, Majken Connor wrote:
>>>> * Gerv is exchanging information on religious beliefs with fellow
>>>> Mozillians (ie everyone is explaining their points of view) and Gerv
>>>> explains how he thinks homosexuality is a sin.
>

> ....

>
>> I used this example because I recall you saying so in the comments on your
>> blog. I wouldn't have used it if I thought you hadn't.
>

> I just checked, and Google tells me the phrase "homosexuality is a sin"
> occurs only once on my blog, in a comment written by someone else in
> August 2006. I also looked through the recent post for similar phrases
> which might be said to be me saying the same thing in different words,
> and didn't find any.
>
> Anyway, like I said, no problem with hypotheticals, but people should

> ask me directly if they want to know my actual thoughts on something.
>
> Gerv

>
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>

--
Sent from my mobile device

[Gervase Markham]

On 02/04/12 19:12, Majken Connor wrote:
> Thanks for looking that up, sorry for the mistake!

No malice implied or assumed :-)

Gerv

[fantasai]

On 03/22/2012 03:37 PM, Tim Chevalier wrote:
> Majken:
>
> Sorry, I just don't see how it's useful to compare the terms "security theater" and "political correctness". "Security theater" refers to a real infringement on freedom by a powerful group (various governments), whereas the term "political correctness" is an ideological term that obfuscates debate and contributes nothing useful. Saying something is politically correct is saying that you have the privilege to refuse to respect a certain group of people because they have less power than you do. That has no place in a respectful discussion.
>
> I find it a useful exercise to substitute the word "respect" for "political correctness". When someone says that political correctness can go too far, they're saying that respect can go too far. Personally, I don't think it's possible to be *too* caring or respectful.

Political correctness is the obfuscation of communication
in the name of respect. It is not the same thing as respect.

~fantasai

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 4, 12:59 am, fantasai <fantasai.li...@inkedblade.net> wrote:

> Political correctness is the obfuscation of communication
> in the name of respect. It is not the same thing as respect.

Could not agree more with that. I love so much that assertion I am
going to quote it elsewhere in another discussion, Elika. Thanks,
seriously.

Please note last time I used the expression "political correctness" on
my blog speaking of our current mozilla issue, people told me not to
use it because it's politically connoted in the US. Probably the
height of political correctness itself...

</Daniel>

[sid...@gmail.com]

On Friday, March 23, 2012 2:55:11 AM UTC+5:30, Cédric wrote:
> As a contributor, and I have to clarify this word, as it seems to be a
> difference with this acceptation in America and in Europe (at least in
> France), a contributor is a people who participates voluntarily to a
> project. Well, as a contributor, I join daily my local IRC channel,
> hosted on Mozilla servers, to know what's going on, to get informed of
> personal things about my fellows, etc. We can kick, say stupid things
> and bad jokes, troll and so on. These kind of things cement a local
> community.

"Cement[ing] a local community" via jokes or whatever is another way of saying "making in-group bonds stronger at the expense of the out-group". It is well-established that sexist jokes (which presumably a group of men could bond over) make women feel less amused and more disgusted than non-sexist jokes [1], for instance.

[1] http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1998-07621-003 (apologies for not posting a link to the full paper, I couldn't find a redistributable version)

Behind any code of conduct we create are axioms about the sorts of people we want to include. As a concrete example, we don't care about including people who believe that the internet should not be free and open and can't be persuaded otherwise, so I think humour or trolling at their expense to cement a Mozilla community is fine. We do want to include people of every nationality, though, so jokes at a particular nationality or ethnicity's expense ("An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman...") are *not* fine in a Mozilla community forum or IRC channel.

Two qualifiers:

1. Obviously this doesn't apply to, say, small groups of close friends who meet up for drinks at a MozCamp. Those aren't communities, though, and don't aim to be inclusive.

2. We'll want to mark out certain forums where no code of conduct applies. There are a number of channels on irc.mozilla.org where pretty much anything goes, and I don't see anyone proposing to shut them down. However we must ensure that such forums are strictly off-topic and that no Mozilla activities happen in them. (I know I've slipped up a few times.) This excludes official community channels.

[sid...@gmail.com]

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 4, 3:52 pm, sid1...@gmail.com wrote:

> We do want to include people of every nationality, though, so jokes at a particular nationality or ethnicity's expense ("An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman...") are *not* fine in a Mozilla  community forum or IRC channel.

"**We** do want..." ??? Who's that "we"?

First, I have no idea who you are, you're not signing your posts and
your semi-hidden email address (by gmail) does not help. Can you
please disclose your identity? Thanks.

Second, this is just ridiculous... As we use to say in french, one can
laugh of everything, just not with everyone. Again, we're adults. When
Stuart (pavlov) joked, sometimes quite strongly, at french people and
France every day (that was many years ago), I was not upset at all. I
was laughing, it was humour. It *was* fine in the Mozilla community
and we did not need a 'deus ex machina' to understand it. Again, in a
community of trust, this is not a problem.

This goes faaaaaar beyond political correctness.

</Daniel>

[Teoli]

On 04/04/12 06:52, sid...@gmail.com wrote:
> 2. We'll want to mark out certain forums where no code of conduct applies. There are a number of channels on irc.mozilla.org where pretty much anything goes, and I don't see anyone proposing to shut them down. However we must ensure that such forums are strictly off-topic and that no Mozilla activities happen in them. (I know I've slipped up a few times.) This excludes official community channels.
>

(Who is 'we'? Is there a secret committee with an agenda? I thought that
everything was happening here, and there aren't a 'we' here)

Very bad. The code of conduct must be general enough and free-speech
compliant enough so that the community (or communities), in a broad
consensus, adhere to it. That what I understand when I read Mitchell post.

If not, it will at best be ignored by the community (or communities).
And all the people following/answering this thread will have only lost
time for no practical result.

If you have to make CoC-free zones, the CoC is too broad.

-- Jean-Yves

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 7:52:17 PM UTC+5:30, Daniel Glazman wrote:
> On Apr 4, 3:52 pm, sid1...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> "**We** do want..." ??? Who's that "we"?

"We" as in any community that collectively decides to adopt a code of conduct. The entire point of a code of conduct is to make sure people feel included.

> First, I have no idea who you are, you're not signing your posts and
> your semi-hidden email address (by gmail) does not help. Can you
> please disclose your identity? Thanks.

My apologies, I don't normally use Google Groups and I hadn't set my identity correctly. Fixed.

> Second, this is just ridiculous... As we use to say in french, one can
> laugh of everything, just not with everyone. Again, we're adults. When
> Stuart (pavlov) joked, sometimes quite strongly, at french people and
> France every day (that was many years ago), I was not upset at all. I
> was laughing, it was humour. It *was* fine in the Mozilla community
> and we did not need a 'deus ex machina' to understand it. Again, in a
> community of trust, this is not a problem.

You disagree philosophically with a code of conduct. That's fine, but I was assuming that it was a given that we were moving forward with it. In that case, no, ethnic jokes are not fine in any forum/channel where Mozilla work is done.

Of course, we don't care about people with *too* thin a skin. I don't think we care about someone who is offended at bacon-related posts on planet because of their religion, for example.

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 10:35:27 PM UTC+5:30, Teoli wrote:
> (Who is 'we'? Is there a secret committee with an agenda? I thought that
> everything was happening here, and there aren't a 'we' here)

We as in the community that collectively decides to adopt a code of conduct.

>
> Very bad. The code of conduct must be general enough and free-speech
> compliant enough so that the community (or communities), in a broad
> consensus, adhere to it. That what I understand when I read Mitchell post.

There is literally no way the content on the channels I'm talking about will adhere to any sort of code of conduct. If we do not have CoC-free zones, these channels will have to be shut down.

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 10:35:27 PM UTC+5:30, Teoli wrote:

> (Who is 'we'? Is there a secret committee with an agenda? I thought that
> everything was happening here, and there aren't a 'we' here)

We as in the community that collectively decides to adopt a code of conduct.

>

> Very bad. The code of conduct must be general enough and free-speech
> compliant enough so that the community (or communities), in a broad
> consensus, adhere to it. That what I understand when I read Mitchell post.

[Majken Connor]

I don't think that's realistic. I think most of us are trying to write down
how we feel we already treat each other. Can you give an example of the
type of behaviour that would have to stop, or you're worried the CoC would
want to stop?

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:17 PM, Siddharth Agarwal <sid...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 10:35:27 PM UTC+5:30, Teoli wrote:

> > (Who is 'we'? Is there a secret committee with an agenda? I thought that
> > everything was happening here, and there aren't a 'we' here)
>

> We as in the community that collectively decides to adopt a code of
> conduct.
>
> >

> > Very bad. The code of conduct must be general enough and free-speech
> > compliant enough so that the community (or communities), in a broad
> > consensus, adhere to it. That what I understand when I read Mitchell
> post.
>

> There is literally no way the content on the channels I'm talking about
> will adhere to any sort of code of conduct. If we do not have CoC-free
> zones, these channels will have to be shut down.

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 7:52:17 PM UTC+5:30, Daniel Glazman wrote:

> On Apr 4, 3:52 pm, sid1...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> "**We** do want..." ??? Who's that "we"?

"We" as in any community that collectively decides to adopt a code of conduct. The entire point of a code of conduct is to make sure people feel included.

> First, I have no idea who you are, you're not signing your posts and
> your semi-hidden email address (by gmail) does not help. Can you
> please disclose your identity? Thanks.

My apologies, I don't normally use Google Groups and I hadn't set my identity correctly. Fixed.

> Second, this is just ridiculous... As we use to say in french, one can
> laugh of everything, just not with everyone. Again, we're adults. When
> Stuart (pavlov) joked, sometimes quite strongly, at french people and
> France every day (that was many years ago), I was not upset at all. I
> was laughing, it was humour. It *was* fine in the Mozilla community
> and we did not need a 'deus ex machina' to understand it. Again, in a
> community of trust, this is not a problem.

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 11:51:16 PM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:
> I don't think that's realistic. I think most of us are trying to write down
> how we feel we already treat each other. Can you give an example of the
> type of behaviour that would have to stop, or you're worried the CoC would
> want to stop?

>From the first page on qbo: http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6356

I believe these would fit under "neurotype":
http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/3297
http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/3411
http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6076

There are a number of other examples I've seen on IRC, including a community member outright yelling at other community members in a channel you own. (We took care of that by banning him temporarily to let him cool down.)

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 11:51:16 PM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:

> I don't think that's realistic. I think most of us are trying to write down
> how we feel we already treat each other. Can you give an example of the
> type of behaviour that would have to stop, or you're worried the CoC would
> want to stop?

[Siddharth Agarwal]

Oh, and I don't actually mean to call individual people out with my post. I've indulged in this sort of behaviour myself.

[Siddharth Agarwal]

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 4, 8:13 pm, Siddharth Agarwal <sid1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You disagree philosophically with a code of conduct. That's fine, but I was assuming that it was a given that we were moving forward with it. In that case, no, ethnic jokes are not fine in any forum/channel where Mozilla work is done.

Again, we're adults, usually able to defend ourselves, able to detect
humour, and even able to sue someone if needed for instance in case of
religious or ethnic discrimination. I will probably not myself accept
a Code of Conduct if it contains restrictions of that kind, starting
from original good will but finally impacting us too much. To me,
that's the first step to the Police of Thought and an unacceptable
level of political correctness.

"TSA must stop the bad guys without annoying the good ones". I think
everyone agrees with that sentence, right ? Replace "TSA" by "Code of
Conduct" and understand "without annoying the good guys" is as
important as "stop the bad guys".

</Daniel>

[Majken Connor]

I don't think any of those examples are the things people want to ban. If
there is wording in the code that you think would cause that then it would
be very good to raise that.

Well, yes, he was breaking the implied code of behaviour and we used our
resources to handle the situation. We also didn't take it personally even
though it was probably a bit upsetting at some point. We knew he wasn't in
his right mind at the time. He came back another day and admitted he was
drunk at the time and apologized directly to the people he had addressed
his anger to. IMO this is exactly how the situation would be handled under
a CoC.

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Siddharth Agarwal <sid...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, April 4, 2012 11:51:16 PM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:

> > I don't think that's realistic. I think most of us are trying to write
> down
> > how we feel we already treat each other. Can you give an example of the
> > type of behaviour that would have to stop, or you're worried the CoC
> would
> > want to stop?
>

> From the first page on qbo: http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6356
>
> I believe these would fit under "neurotype":
> http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/3297
> http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/3411
> http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6076
>
> There are a number of other examples I've seen on IRC, including a
> community member outright yelling at other community members in a channel
> you own. (We took care of that by banning him temporarily to let him cool
> down.)

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:27:48 AM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:
> I don't think any of those examples are the things people want to ban. If
> there is wording in the code that you think would cause that then it would
> be very good to raise that.

(I have no idea how my much longer reply got lost. Google Groups is absolutely the worst forum software I've ever had the displeasure of using, and I really wish I had access to Thunderbird right now.)

How would a personal attack (calling someone an "asshole" and wishing for him to be executed) or mocking a person's different neurotype behind his back be allowed under any sort of code of conduct?

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:27:48 AM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:
> I don't think any of those examples are the things people want to ban. If
> there is wording in the code that you think would cause that then it would
> be very good to raise that.

(I have no idea how my much longer reply got lost. Google Groups is absolutely the worst forum software I've ever had the displeasure of using, and I really wish I had access to Thunderbird right now.)

How would a personal attack (calling someone an "asshole" and wishing for him to be executed) or mocking a person's different neurotype behind his back be allowed under any sort of code of conduct?

[Majken Connor]

It's not, and it's not ok now. I didn't see you link to examples of that.

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Siddharth Agarwal <sid...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:27:48 AM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:
> > I don't think any of those examples are the things people want to ban. If
> > there is wording in the code that you think would cause that then it
> would
> > be very good to raise that.
>

> (I have no idea how my much longer reply got lost. Google Groups is
> absolutely the worst forum software I've ever had the displeasure of using,
> and I really wish I had access to Thunderbird right now.)
>
> How would a personal attack (calling someone an "asshole" and wishing for
> him to be executed) or mocking a person's different neurotype behind his

> back be allowed under any sort of code of conduct?

[Majken Connor]

ok thanks for pointing out on IRC I didn't read the first one *sigh*

I think that would be a grey area. It's obviously a joke, we've never been
able to kill people over the internet, and it's referencing a cultural
reference. Having those lines out of context I assume the person in
question has been a problem, and so the people in the quote responded in
frustration. If that's where it ended I think it was maybe not the _best_
behaviour but I don't see it needing to be escalated.

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Majken Connor <maj...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's not, and it's not ok now. I didn't see you link to examples of that.
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Siddharth Agarwal <sid...@gmail.com>wrote:
>

>> On Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:27:48 AM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:
>> > I don't think any of those examples are the things people want to ban.
>> If
>> > there is wording in the code that you think would cause that then it
>> would
>> > be very good to raise that.
>>

>> (I have no idea how my much longer reply got lost. Google Groups is
>> absolutely the worst forum software I've ever had the displeasure of using,
>> and I really wish I had access to Thunderbird right now.)
>>
>> How would a personal attack (calling someone an "asshole" and wishing for
>> him to be executed) or mocking a person's different neurotype behind his

>> back be allowed under any sort of code of conduct?

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:27:48 AM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:
> I don't think any of those examples are the things people want to ban. If
> there is wording in the code that you think would cause that then it would
> be very good to raise that.

1. I don't know the context behind it, but calling someone an "asshole" behind their back is a personal attack, and so is implying that that person should have been executed. (point 2 at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Code_of_Conduct/Draft#Mailing_lists_and_web_forums )

2. Mozilla community members have repeatedly mocked one particular community member in the past. (I don't think the community member is active now.) This has happened both
- on his face, e.g. by implying that he doesn't have sufficient mental capacity to drive: http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6076
- behind his back, e.g. by posting http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/3297 for everyone to see and vote on, and saying "It's Jonathan..." as if he were a marked target for humour and mockery.

I've seen him being mocked several other times behind his back, but qbo doesn't have records of these incidents. I know I've mocked him at least once, and I now regret that.

Example 2 is not only a personal attack, it goes against diversity of neurotype.

I don't see how these examples wouldn't fall afoul of any code of conduct.

[Majken Connor]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:18 PM, Siddharth Agarwal <sid...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:27:48 AM UTC+5:30, Majken Connor wrote:
> > I don't think any of those examples are the things people want to ban. If
> > there is wording in the code that you think would cause that then it
> would
> > be very good to raise that.
>

> 1. I don't know the context behind it, but calling someone an "asshole"
> behind their back is a personal attack, and so is implying that that person
> should have been executed. (point 2 at
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Code_of_Conduct/Draft#Mailing_lists_and_web_forums)
>

I don't read it that way. If he were dead he wouldn't be able to come back.
I don't think the people in question actually wished him dead, I think they
were just super frustrated, and clearly they've had to deal with him
before. The joke wasn't in the best taste and it might be a good example of
something to point out maybe they don't do.

>
> 2. Mozilla community members have repeatedly mocked one particular
> community member in the past. (I don't think the community member is active
> now.) This has happened both
> - on his face, e.g. by implying that he doesn't have sufficient mental
> capacity to drive: http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6076

> - behind his back, e.g. by posting http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/3297for everyone to see and vote on, and saying "It's Jonathan..." as if he

> were a marked target for humour and mockery.
>

In the first quote I don't see how it's a direct reference to a person's
mental capacity. The same response would be appropriate for anyone. I
honestly don't believe the people making these comments are aware of any
sort of mental health issue. I think they just think he's young and
annoying. But as we established on IRC this stuff isn't acceptable already.
No one has brought them up. If it were the same person submitting all these
quotes (no way to know, unfortunately) they would already be in line for a
conversation to find out what's going on and ask them to stop.

>
> I've seen him being mocked several other times behind his back, but qbo
> doesn't have records of these incidents. I know I've mocked him at least
> once, and I now regret that.
>

Code of conduct or not, you should ask people to stop next time you see it.

>
> Example 2 is not only a personal attack, it goes against diversity of
> neurotype.
>
> I don't see how these examples wouldn't fall afoul of any code of conduct.
>

They would, and they bother you enough to bring them up, so they already
fall afoul with the implied code we share with each other.

[Robert O'Callahan]

I think discussing specific examples and how they would be handled under
proposed Codes of Conduct helps focus discussion and helps people
understand the impact of the proposal(s).

Rob
--
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. ... If you love those
who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors
doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more
than others?" [Matthew 5:43-47]

[Matt Brubeck]

On 04/04/2012 11:45 AM, Siddharth Agarwal wrote:
> From the first page on qbo: http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6356

I can provide some context for that quote, since I think it makes a good
test case for how a Code of Conduct would handle conflicts with trolls
and other malicious parties.

[Note: Some offensive language is quoted below.]

The person who prompted the quote had been repeatedly banned from
irc.mozilla.org (and repeatedly circumvented the bans) for behaviors
including gay-bashing, personal attacks, flooding multiple channels,
setting channel topics to "BUTTSEX," and similar abuse.

Last week that person appeared on IRC again (despite being banned
previously) saying "wassup, pussies? gavin is a cocksucker, just FYI"
then was immediately banned again. After that, two people in the
channel made the comments seen in the link above, and then the matter
dropped.

Obviously this person wanted to provoke an emotional reaction, and
succeeded somewhat. I don't think the banned user has any legitimate
claim that he was wronged by those comments (since they were exactly the
sort of reaction he sought). But some may feel that other people in the
channel should not be subjected to such comments.

Many of us know that it's better not to feed trolls, but few of us have
perfect control over our emotional reactions. And when someone has
already disrupted a channel with deliberately rude behavior, some
dismissive humor can be less awkward than just letting the rudeness pass
unremarked. I hope anyone applying a code of conduct to a situation
like this can take these types of circumstances into account.

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:24 AM, Gavin Sharp <ga...@gavinsharp.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Siddharth Agarwal <sid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 1. I don't know the context behind it, but calling someone an "asshole" behind their back is a personal attack, and so is implying that that person should have been executed. (point 2 at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Code_of_Conduct/Draft#Mailing_lists_and_web_forums )
>

> I posit that context matters. The person being referred to as an
> "asshole" by that quote was someone who showed up on IRC calling for
> people to be fired, and making vulgar ad hominem attacks (very classic
> "trolling" behavior). They certainly aren't someone I consider to be
> part of the Mozilla community.

Fair enough: we don't want to include trolls in our community. A bit
of context in the notes section would have gone a long way here, both
for me and for anyone new to the community who chances upon that
quote.

>
> I don't think it will be productive to analyze in detail a few
> specific examples of behavior that may or may not be problematic
> (especially if they're taken out of context!). Let's focus instead on
> the broader, primary goal of this thread - coming to agreement about
> what the Code of Conduct should look like.

Like Rob, I think focusing on specific examples and seeing whether
they should and do cross the line is important. It helps community
members figure out whether what they're saying is appropriate.

[Gavin Sharp]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Robert O'Callahan <rob...@ocallahan.org> wrote:
> I think discussing specific examples and how they would be handled under
> proposed Codes of Conduct helps focus discussion and helps people
> understand the impact of the proposal(s).

I think that focusing on the infinite number of "how will the code of
conduct impact situation X should someone complain about it" scenarios
is unlikely to be very productive. As many others have noted, the code
of conduct will not (and should not) have any "impact" at all on the
vast majority of Mozilla interactions - by and large we're pretty
trusting and respectful to each other, and true conflict is rare.

The value I see in having the code of conduct is twofold:
a) as a set of very broad general principles to help address the
(rare) cases where trust breaks down and normal conflict resolution
processes don't work
b) as an aspirational document useful for "outsiders", or people
interested in becoming Mozillians, to understand our shared values

I don't think the situations you or Sid were highlighting are part of
a) - there are plenty of existing non-CoC-related ways for those
situations to be resolved, if they even need to be resolved - the
situations in question didn't actually offend/hurt/bother anyone,
AFAICT.

Gavin

[Majken Connor]

I do agree, but in this case sid0's concerns were about situations he felt
are handled differently now and about the impact of the code of conduct. I
think that by discussing the specific examples it has helped him see that
the code is not so different from how we hope we already behave.

[Robert O'Callahan]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 9:28 AM, Gavin Sharp <ga...@gavinsharp.com> wrote:

> I think that focusing on the infinite number of "how will the code of
> conduct impact situation X should someone complain about it" scenarios
> is unlikely to be very productive. As many others have noted, the code
> of conduct will not (and should not) have any "impact" at all on the
> vast majority of Mozilla interactions - by and large we're pretty
> trusting and respectful to each other, and true conflict is rare.
>

I agree. However, when the code of conduct prima facie rules out something
I've done recently, I want to know whether I will need to modify my
behavior (which I'm generally willing to do, by the way).

[Gavin Sharp]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Robert O'Callahan <rob...@ocallahan.org> wrote:
> I agree. However, when the code of conduct prima facie rules out something
> I've done recently, I want to know whether I will need to modify my
> behavior (which I'm generally willing to do, by the way).

You're right. I think that particular item in the proposal is
potentially problematic.

Gavin

[Mitchell Baker]

I understand the specifics and esp humor have some edge cases. Keep in
mind though, that the topics is "explicit statements of personal
violence" .

But as i said i understand that humor question and so here's my take:

Humor is part of being human, it's important, it relieves tension, it
builds a bunch of positive things.

it's also sometimes hard to translate across cultures, and is rife with
possibilities for misunderstanding.

so I would say that humor about violence is risky. It may be OK in the
setting. It might be clearly humor, it might be not so clear, depending
on the audience.

How does this fit with the proposed CoC? Someone reads your joke,
doesn't understand it, is upset by it. The C of C (plus all their
colleagues at Mozilla) should say something like -- talk to someone you
trust. See if everyone else understand this to be humor, see if it
bothers you as humor. If it does, speak to the person who sent it. Or
if you're not able to do so (new to the community, uncomfortable saying
you're uncomfortale), then talk to [named escalation path]. The role of
the people in the escalation path is to help figure out if someone is
uniquely senstive and help them if they are, and help both parties.

Over time, we'll learn some people shouldn't ever joke about anything
sensitive, maybe some people can manage it. I would also say jokes
about gender roles are extremely sensitive and very likely to cause
problems.

that's not a black and white, yes or no. But as a number of people have
said, we're a community.

mitchell

[Gavin Sharp]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 6:19 PM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> How does this fit with the proposed CoC?  Someone reads your joke, doesn't
> understand it, is upset by it.  The C of C (plus all their colleagues at
> Mozilla) should say something like -- talk to someone you trust.  See if
> everyone else understand this to be humor, see if it bothers you as humor.
>  If it does, speak to the person who sent it.  Or if you're not able to do
> so (new to the community, uncomfortable saying you're uncomfortale), then
> talk to [named escalation path].  The role of the people in the escalation
> path is to help figure out if someone is uniquely senstive and help them if
> they are, and help both parties.

Yes, I think this is great. I see the "is upset by it" part of that as
key. I see very little reason to try and force the Code of Conduct
into situations where our pre-existing conflict resolution strategies
are already effective, or where there isn't even a conflict to begin
with (Robert's example). I think much of the resistance to the CoC
seems to stem from the inference that it may be used that way.

I guess there are different views about what the code of conduct should include:
a) a well-defined process for resolving conflict when it cannot, for
whatever reason, be resolved via other pre-existing/less formal
interactions (an "escalation path")
b) a pro-active statement of inclusiveness that explicitly protects
certain groups or minorities
c) a document explicitly defining what kind of behaviour is or isn't
acceptable across all "Mozilla venues" (however that is defined)

a) seems relatively uncontroversial as a concept (though may still
require some work to get the details right), and seems quite useful (I
think it would have been useful in the incident that triggered this
discussion).

b) and c) are somewhat more controversial, largely because any list of
groups/behaviours/venues cannot be exhaustive, and deciding which
groups/behaviours/venues merit inclusion is highly subjective. Their
scope is also quite broad - "all of Mozilla" seems like far too big
and diverse of a community to try and start enforcing (or even
defining) very specific, explicit rules.

I know many people in these threads have been vocal about the
importance of b) and c), but I'm not confident that their value
outweighs the conflict created by debating them. From my perspective,
dialing down the desired specificity (and also turning focus to item
a)) seems more likely to lead to a productive outcome. I think your
proposal (in the other thread) is a good step in this direction, so I
am happy to see it.

Gavin

[Fred Wenzel]

On Wed Apr 4 19:33:29 2012, Gavin Sharp wrote:
> I know many people in these threads have been vocal about the
> importance of b) and c), but I'm not confident that their value
> outweighs the conflict created by debating them. From my perspective,
> dialing down the desired specificity (and also turning focus to item
> a)) seems more likely to lead to a productive outcome. I think your
> proposal (in the other thread) is a good step in this direction, so I
> am happy to see it.

I agree.

~F

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On 05-04-2012 01:57, Majken Connor wrote:
> In the first quote I don't see how it's a direct reference to a person's
> mental capacity. The same response would be appropriate for anyone. I
> honestly don't believe the people making these comments are aware of any
> sort of mental health issue. I think they just think he's young and
> annoying. But as we established on IRC this stuff isn't acceptable already.
> No one has brought them up. If it were the same person submitting all these
> quotes (no way to know, unfortunately) they would already be in line for a
> conversation to find out what's going on and ask them to stop.

Yes, I'm convinced. I retract my concern with some of the content on
irc.m.o, but I'd still like to see a statement on how to deal with
trolls or otherwise unproductive input.

- Sid