Getting Things Done - v1.0 CoC Action and Implementation Plan

[Lukas Blakk]

I've just returned from one week vacation away from this thread and have
now caught up. Approximately 10 people are dominating this conversation
and we seem no where near implementation. I suggest that we move away
from increasingly abstract discussions and move to actual public
community planning so that decision making with a firm goal of
_implementation_ can occur by a deadline. Without process, we will
continue to draw people's energy away from their work and I fear we will
burn out Deb, who gracefully volunteered her spare time to take on the
role of Steward for this initiative. She, too, has other work
responsibilities and should get to return to them quickly.

Proposed Plan of ACTION and IMPLEMENTATION:

0. In the next week (before April 13) we hold two town-hall community
meetings in time slots that do their best to accommodate for opposite
time zones. The purpose of these meetings: to go over the sections of
the proposed CoC that Deb has so carefully drafted and once that is done
we can have a brief (timed) discussion on each line item, gather
feedback, then take the temperature of the community for the acceptance
of each item (re-worded by facilitators if needed) for our v1.0 CoC.
There will be a voting system to record attendees' yay, nay, or
abstention on each item.*

1. v1.0 CoC as it returns from those two meetings will be turned into a
final draft and then posted in a *very public place*, available for
review by the community at large over a period of 2 weeks. This is no
longer a discussion, this is a notice to show what Mozilla will be
adopting as its first CoC and the point is to give time for people to
update their wikis/modules/team policies with references to this new
document in preparation for the implementation day.

2. During those two weeks - a draft will be created of suggested methods
of resolution for CoC and that document, too, will go into a *very
public place* for review, comment, and constructive feedback
--/finalizing this item is not a blocker for having a CoC/ /put into
place but at least a basic framework should be in place before adoption/

3. On May 1 (happy MayDay!!) - v1.0 CoC will be 'officially' adopted. It
will have a Module and several Module Owners (selected and agreed upon
in the mozilla-governance list and final approval by Mitchell) and
future amendments to this document be done through a similar process
when the Module Owners agree to initiate it.

Let's get this done and get back to work.

Cheers,
Lukas

* I would like to recommend that all Directors/Managers/Community
Leaders inform their teams about these meetings and stress the
importance of participating/attending so we get a lot of data on
people's votes

--
*-*-*-*-*
Release Manager, Mozillian
http://mzl.la/LukasBlakk

[Deb Richardson]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:12 PM, Lukas Blakk <lsb...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> time zones.  The purpose of these meetings: to go over the sections of
> the proposed CoC that Deb has so carefully drafted

I will ensure that the new draft of the CoC (based on the v2 Ubuntu
Code of Conduct) is available at least one week before the meetings
take place so everyone has a chance to review it beforehand.

Thanks Lukas :)

~ d

[Mitchell Baker]

I have some thoughts I need to get polished. I wanted to let the
discussion proceed for a while before doing so. I agree that the
discussion has reached the point of diminishing returns. I'll get that
posted shortly.



mitchell

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 3, 8:02 pm, Mitchell Baker <mitch...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I have some thoughts I need to get polished.  I wanted to let the
> discussion proceed for a while before doing so.  I agree that the
> discussion has reached the point of diminishing returns.  I'll get that
> posted shortly.

Hello Mitchell,

I think the whole conversation leads to a Mozilla Corporation's CoC,
not a Mozilla Community's CoC. The community at large has reacted very
little, and the community outside the US outside of the inner circle
of ol'timers I'm in has reacted just zilch. Since you read french,
this tweet pretty much summarizes the opinions I received from a few
people here: https://twitter.com/#!/clochix/status/187127600844505090

If this is going to be implemented based on the input of, as Lukas
said, roughly ten people including 3 active on authoring, does it
represent "a community"?

Best,

</Daniel>

[Lukas Blakk]

On 4/3/12 11:19 AM, Daniel Glazman wrote:
> On Apr 3, 8:02 pm, Mitchell Baker <mitch...@mozilla.com> wrote:

>> I have some thoughts I need to get polished. I wanted to let the
>> discussion proceed for a while before doing so. I agree that the
>> discussion has reached the point of diminishing returns. I'll get that
>> posted shortly.

> Hello Mitchell,
>
> I think the whole conversation leads to a Mozilla Corporation's CoC,
> not a Mozilla Community's CoC. The community at large has reacted very
> little, and the community outside the US outside of the inner circle
> of ol'timers I'm in has reacted just zilch. Since you read french,
> this tweet pretty much summarizes the opinions I received from a few
> people here: https://twitter.com/#!/clochix/status/187127600844505090
>
> If this is going to be implemented based on the input of, as Lukas
> said, roughly ten people including 3 active on authoring, does it
> represent "a community"?
>
> Best,
>
> </Daniel>

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

I view it differently. If _only_ 10 people are going around in circles
with diminishing returns, I am confident that 1K+ Mozillians are going
to be just fine with not only the existence of a CoC, but the process by
which one is implemented, and they will continue to do as they are doing
now - working on the Mozilla mission in relative comfort and trusting
that there is care and respect being put into this decision and it's
ultimate results.

Cheers,
Lukas

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 3, 9:39 pm, Lukas Blakk <lsbl...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> I view it differently. If _only_ 10 people are going around in circles
> with diminishing returns, I am confident that 1K+ Mozillians are going
> to be just fine with not only the existence of a CoC, but the process by
> which one is implemented, and they will continue to do as they are doing
> now - working on the Mozilla mission in relative comfort and trusting
> that there is care and respect being put into this decision and it's
> ultimate results.

That's a pretty uncertain assertion Lukas... Another possibility is
that only 10 people contributed to this discussion because the 2000
others think this is a storm in a glass of water as we say in french,
in other words something that is not worth it.

</Daniel>

[Majken Connor]

I think you do raise a good point that not enough people access or have
knowledge of governance. This is for another thread, but I think most
people don't know about governance or conductors, or many other tools that
should be important to participating in the community. So either way IMO
it's good to take what we've got and go large, see who else engages and
what they have to say, and let the governance list get back to topics like
making more modules, and helping preserve culture with some sort of
orientation for new members.

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 3:53 PM, Daniel Glazman <daniel....@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Apr 3, 9:39 pm, Lukas Blakk <lsbl...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>

> > I view it differently. If _only_ 10 people are going around in circles
> > with diminishing returns, I am confident that 1K+ Mozillians are going
> > to be just fine with not only the existence of a CoC, but the process by
> > which one is implemented, and they will continue to do as they are doing
> > now - working on the Mozilla mission in relative comfort and trusting
> > that there is care and respect being put into this decision and it's
> > ultimate results.
>

> That's a pretty uncertain assertion Lukas... Another possibility is
> that only 10 people contributed to this discussion because the 2000
> others think this is a storm in a glass of water as we say in french,
> in other words something that is not worth it.
>

[Teoli]

I think it is even worse than that. I think most community members and
even most MoCo employees don't even know there is such discussion. If
you weren't listening/reading the right blog/newsgroup at the right
time, you wouldn't be aware of it.

There is so much information channel at Mozilla, that reaching the
community at the whole is difficult: you can't consider that posting a
newsgroup entry and a syndicated blog post will reach the whole community.

Is there something planned at Mozilla Latam to foster participation of
Mozillians in the discussion? It would be a nice opportunity to reach
people there.

Is anybody aware if there is discussion about this CoC in some Asiatic
community (Japan, China, ...)? Or in another local community (there was
some informal in the French community?

Are Reps involved in the discussion here? Have they be notified of it?

I don't think people speaking in these discussions represent the Mozilla
Community and can speak for it.
--
Jean-Yves

[Brian King]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Teoli
<news.fak...@localhost.invalid>wrote:

> Are Reps involved in the discussion here? Have they be notified of it?
>

This was my first thought, especially after reading Majken's post in this
thread about the lack of visibility of the governace list.

I may be wrong, but I suspect many Reps wouldn't be interested in
contributing discussion (though perhaps the outcome), even if they do work
in areas where a CoC would be applicable. There is quite a bit of back
story to this and many reps may not necessarily have that while they try to
make an impact in their community.

Yet, for those that do want to contribute I think their feedback would be
valuable so I will alert them of these discussions.


--
Brian King

[Cédric Corazza]

Le 03/04/2012 20:19, Daniel Glazman a écrit :
> Hello Mitchell,
>
> I think the whole conversation leads to a Mozilla Corporation's CoC,
> not a Mozilla Community's CoC. The community at large has reacted very
> little, and the community outside the US outside of the inner circle
> of ol'timers I'm in has reacted just zilch. Since you read french,
> this tweet pretty much summarizes the opinions I received from a few
> people here: https://twitter.com/#!/clochix/status/187127600844505090
>
> If this is going to be implemented based on the input of, as Lukas
> said, roughly ten people including 3 active on authoring, does it
> represent "a community"?
>
> Best,
>
> </Daniel>
>

This meets what I posted in the thread and that Daniel stated more
clearly than I did:
- this seems to be more a corporate problem than a community problem
- almost no contributor (if none at all) joined this discussion. FTR, I
joined some of the leader of the "big" locales (in terms of number of
contributors), and they weren't aware of this discussion
- this is too much US centric culture/feelings
- we just have to state what can be aggregated on Planet X (Mozilla/Open
Web, etc. dedicated and what to be posted on Planet Y which would be not
about Mozilla mission, not Mozilla branded, and would aggregate whatever
Mozillians want, in the limit of the laws and in their own responsibility.

We really don't need a code of conduct for the community in my opinion:
we are adults and know how to act in society, and to quote one of my
friends, Mozilla is no substitute for moral code.

Regards

Cédric

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 3, 10:02 pm, Majken Connor <maj...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think you do raise a good point that not enough people access or have
> knowledge of governance. This is for another thread, but I think most
> people don't know about governance or conductors, or many other tools that
> should be important to participating in the community. So either way IMO
> it's good to take what we've got and go large, see who else engages and
> what they have to say, and let the governance list get back to topics like
> making more modules, and helping preserve culture with some sort of
> orientation for new members.

Hmmmm...

If the vast majority of the community has not looked for ways to
contribute ideas on the original issue (Gerv's post and reactions),
that could be because they're already beyond that point (and that's a
fact to carefully analyze) or because they had no reaction at all (and
that's a fact to carefully analyze too...).
Going large may resurrect the issue and become a discussion that a lot
of people don't see worth it or see painful for a reason or another. I
urge you to consider that point before moving to a wider discussion.
2000 people have moved on, whatever the reason. If they have moved on
on a topic supposed to be super-sensitive, isn't that a message in
itself?

</Daniel>

[Fabrice Desré]

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:02:59 -0400, Majken Connor wrote:

> I think you do raise a good point that not enough people access or have
> knowledge of governance. This is for another thread, but I think most
> people don't know about governance or conductors, or many other tools
> that should be important to participating in the community. So either
> way IMO it's good to take what we've got and go large, see who else
> engages and what they have to say, and let the governance list get back
> to topics like making more modules, and helping preserve culture with
> some sort of orientation for new members.

We have the Mozillians.org site now, so that should be easy to reach out
to people from the community and at least let them know what's happening
here, in a clear and consice way. We can't expect people to endure long
threads like this. They could feel unwelcome, and that would be a
violation of the CoC ;)

Fabrice (with its French employee hat)

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 3, 11:56 pm, Cédric Corazza <cedric.cora...@gmail.com> wrote:

> We really don't need a code of conduct for the community in my opinion:
> we are adults and know how to act in society, and to quote one of my
> friends, Mozilla is no substitute for moral code.

This is worse than that : a Code of Conduct will get rid of
controversial discussions, and in that case, we're just not a
Community because being a Community implies explicitly accepting
diversity of opinion, even widely diverging, even when it's not
pleasant.

</Daniel>

[Toni Hermoso Pulido]

Al 03/04/12 23:56, En/na Cédric Corazza ha escrit:

> Le 03/04/2012 20:19, Daniel Glazman a écrit :

>> Hello Mitchell,
>>
>> I think the whole conversation leads to a Mozilla Corporation's CoC,
>> not a Mozilla Community's CoC. The community at large has reacted very
>> little, and the community outside the US outside of the inner circle
>> of ol'timers I'm in has reacted just zilch. Since you read french,
>> this tweet pretty much summarizes the opinions I received from a few
>> people here: https://twitter.com/#!/clochix/status/187127600844505090
>>
>> If this is going to be implemented based on the input of, as Lukas
>> said, roughly ten people including 3 active on authoring, does it
>> represent "a community"?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> </Daniel>
>>
>

> This meets what I posted in the thread and that Daniel stated more
> clearly than I did:
> - this seems to be more a corporate problem than a community problem
> - almost no contributor (if none at all) joined this discussion. FTR, I
> joined some of the leader of the "big" locales (in terms of number of
> contributors), and they weren't aware of this discussion
> - this is too much US centric culture/feelings
> - we just have to state what can be aggregated on Planet X (Mozilla/Open
> Web, etc. dedicated and what to be posted on Planet Y which would be not
> about Mozilla mission, not Mozilla branded, and would aggregate whatever
> Mozillians want, in the limit of the laws and in their own responsibility.
>

> We really don't need a code of conduct for the community in my opinion:
> we are adults and know how to act in society, and to quote one of my
> friends, Mozilla is no substitute for moral code.

Dear all,

just one comment. I'm European. As I have commented long before the
beginning of this discussion, I support having a code of conduct, and I
don't dislike what I've read so far.

However, I've felt overwhelmed with all this message flood, which makes
it difficult to follow and participate for people with less time as me.

Thanks to people who are trying to get things done.

--
Toni Hermoso Pulido
http://www.cau.cat

[Majken Connor]

Some comments to a few posts:

-Mozilla doesn't pay me, I'm firmly in the community camp at the moment, I
think there are a couple others that are long time community and so it's
assumed they're MoCo, but I won't name names in case I'm wrong.

-I also agree that when this is taken to the larger community it should not
be presented in the context of "Gerv made a blog post we don't like, what
do you think of this CoC?" Most people that want a CoC have wanted a CoC
since before this. I think it's time to stop bringing up Gerv's blog post
in the CoC planning discussions. If this is the only example we can think
of where we wish we'd had a code of conduct then that really doesn't
justify having one. The good reason I see to have one is because of growth,
and a desire to preserve and promote the good values we find in the
community.

-I think even the people who suggest the code should be against anything
that causes harm don't want it to ban controversial topics, I think their
perspective is that people won't be petty in what the say hurts them. I
think they're trying to leave room for people to escalate for a resolution.
If you know someone didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but your feelings
are hurt, you should still be able to talk to them about it.

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Toni Hermoso Pulido
<ton...@softcatala.cat>wrote:

> Al 03/04/12 23:56, En/na Cédric Corazza ha escrit:
>
> Le 03/04/2012 20:19, Daniel Glazman a écrit :
>>

>>> Hello Mitchell,
>>>
>>> I think the whole conversation leads to a Mozilla Corporation's CoC,
>>> not a Mozilla Community's CoC. The community at large has reacted very
>>> little, and the community outside the US outside of the inner circle
>>> of ol'timers I'm in has reacted just zilch. Since you read french,
>>> this tweet pretty much summarizes the opinions I received from a few

>>> people here: https://twitter.com/#!/**clochix/status/**
>>> 187127600844505090<https://twitter.com/#%21/clochix/status/187127600844505090>

>>>
>>> If this is going to be implemented based on the input of, as Lukas
>>> said, roughly ten people including 3 active on authoring, does it
>>> represent "a community"?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> </Daniel>
>>>
>>>

>> This meets what I posted in the thread and that Daniel stated more
>> clearly than I did:
>> - this seems to be more a corporate problem than a community problem
>> - almost no contributor (if none at all) joined this discussion. FTR, I
>> joined some of the leader of the "big" locales (in terms of number of
>> contributors), and they weren't aware of this discussion
>> - this is too much US centric culture/feelings
>> - we just have to state what can be aggregated on Planet X (Mozilla/Open
>> Web, etc. dedicated and what to be posted on Planet Y which would be not
>> about Mozilla mission, not Mozilla branded, and would aggregate whatever
>> Mozillians want, in the limit of the laws and in their own responsibility.
>>
>> We really don't need a code of conduct for the community in my opinion:
>> we are adults and know how to act in society, and to quote one of my
>> friends, Mozilla is no substitute for moral code.
>>
>
> Dear all,
>
> just one comment. I'm European. As I have commented long before the
> beginning of this discussion, I support having a code of conduct, and I
> don't dislike what I've read so far.
>
> However, I've felt overwhelmed with all this message flood, which makes it
> difficult to follow and participate for people with less time as me.
>
> Thanks to people who are trying to get things done.
>
> --
> Toni Hermoso Pulido
> http://www.cau.cat
>

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

[Mitchell Baker]

Lukas
Good to take action to try to keep things from spirling into endless
discussion. I applaud the focus on a process, but we need more
leadership here. That's at least in part my role.

Look for more shortly.

Mitchell

On 4/3/12 10:12 AM, Lukas Blakk wrote:

[Asa Dotzler]

On 4/3/2012 5:12 PM, Majken Connor wrote:
> I think it's time to stop bringing up Gerv's blog post
> in the CoC planning discussions. If this is the only example we can think
> of where we wish we'd had a code of conduct then that really doesn't
> justify having one.

What other examples do we have that would have benefited from a code of
conduct?

I can think of one other situation. A bit less than a year ago a certain
un-named Mozillian ;) received threats of violence and other abuses in
Bugzilla and newsgroups because he posted about changing the versioning
scheme of the browser, and next to no one publicly called out the
threats and abuse as inappropriate. I speculated at the time that a code
of conduct saying that it's not acceptable to threaten violence against
other contributors might have given people something to use to push back
against those people making threats.

I also have the vague recollection of something many many years ago
causing me to wonder about the value of a CoC.

So, in my 13 years of experience on the Mozilla project, I can think of
two or maybe three occasions where I or others I spoke with thought a
CoC could be really valuable.

- A

[Mook]

On 4/3/2012 12:39 PM, Lukas Blakk wrote:

> I view it differently. If _only_ 10 people are going around in circles
> with diminishing returns, I am confident that 1K+ Mozillians are going
> to be just fine with not only the existence of a CoC, but the process by
> which one is implemented, and they will continue to do as they are doing
> now - working on the Mozilla mission in relative comfort and trusting
> that there is care and respect being put into this decision and it's
> ultimate results.

As one of those people who has been silent so far: no, not at all; it's
simply that I haven't yet thought of any points that haven't been
expressed by others (reading the multiple threads, more-or-less daily,
is much more work than I wanted to do for a silly offshoot of a hobby).

After reading everything, though, my personal conclusion is that I'll be
completely ignoring the CoC if it does come into effect. My
interactions with others in Mozilland won't change; I will continue to
treat people with respect, unless they have tried very hard to show me I
should do otherwise. I will not be doing things for fear of losing my
job (it isn't, I've never been paid by MoCo/MoFo, though I do have some
schwag).

I certainly will not be viewing something pushed through as having
achieved consensus; doing things that way works for technical modules
because we trust the abilities of the module owners, but it doesn't work
nearly as well for people issues.

There may or may not be a silent majority, but please don't randomly
decide they are in your favour.

--
Mook

[Mark Côté]

On 12-04-03 05:48 PM, Daniel Glazman wrote:
> On Apr 3, 10:02 pm, Majken Connor<maj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think you do raise a good point that not enough people access or have
>> knowledge of governance. This is for another thread, but I think most
>> people don't know about governance or conductors, or many other tools that
>> should be important to participating in the community. So either way IMO
>> it's good to take what we've got and go large, see who else engages and
>> what they have to say, and let the governance list get back to topics like
>> making more modules, and helping preserve culture with some sort of
>> orientation for new members.
>
> Hmmmm...
>
> If the vast majority of the community has not looked for ways to
> contribute ideas on the original issue (Gerv's post and reactions),
> that could be because they're already beyond that point (and that's a
> fact to carefully analyze) or because they had no reaction at all (and
> that's a fact to carefully analyze too...).

It can also be because we believe that others have already said what we
thought needed to be said, and that by adding "me too" or "not me" posts
we would add no value to the discussion. I'm sure a number of us are
waiting until there is actually something concrete to comment on, rather
than continuing a long debate.

Mark

[Axel Hecht]

On 03.04.12 19:12, Lukas Blakk wrote:
<...>

> * I would like to recommend that all Directors/Managers/Community
> Leaders inform their teams about these meetings and stress the
> importance of participating/attending so we get a lot of data on
> people's votes
>

I don't see the discussions here as a safe place. I wouldn't recommend
that others expose themselves to that.

Much more, I trust in Mitchell to lead to something that she considers
right for Mozilla, with the help of others. But not based on votes.

Axel

[Kyle Huey]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 5:25 AM, Axel Hecht <l1...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> Much more, I trust in Mitchell to lead to something that she considers
> right for Mozilla, with the help of others. But not based on votes.
>

+1 on both counts.

- Kyle

[da...@illsley.org]

I thinks it's plausible that there have been members of the community who
have been on the wrong end of bad behaviour, seen no path to support and
resolution, and silently melted away. While I'm not for a particularly
detailed, proscriptive CoC, I think an aspirational document which sets
expectations and routes to support would be beneficial in these situations.

David

[Gervase Markham]

On 04/04/12 16:06, Kyle Huey wrote:
>> Much more, I trust in Mitchell to lead to something that she considers
>> right for Mozilla, with the help of others. But not based on votes.
>
> +1 on both counts.

+1 also. Piecemeal voting is not a good way to author a document,
particularly one on such a sensitive subject.

Gerv

[Mike Connor]

On 2012-04-04, at 1:44 PM, <da...@illsley.org> wrote:

> I thinks it's plausible that there have been members of the community who
> have been on the wrong end of bad behaviour, seen no path to support and
> resolution, and silently melted away. While I'm not for a particularly
> detailed, proscriptive CoC, I think an aspirational document which sets
> expectations and routes to support would be beneficial in these situations.

I think this is almost certainly more true than any of us really want to believe. One of the key drivers here (Deb Richardson) mentioned being reduced to tears by the actions of another Mozilla contributor. I certainly feel like my own behaviour in many cases has been well below the standard we all claim is "how Mozilla already is."

We've focused a lot in these threads on threats and discrimination. That's understandable, but I think we're failing a self-awareness check. I've been forgiven a lot of things on the "oh, that's just mconnor" principle. [1] But that doesn't mean my actions haven't caused problems, or caused individuals to choose to contribute elsewhere.

tl;dr We shouldn't assume everything is ideal solely on the basis of extreme examples.

-- Mike

[1] http://snarkfest.net/blog/2010/02/02/aspie-in-a-fishbowl/

[Robert Kaiser]

Mike Connor schrieb:

> I think this is almost certainly more true than any of us really want to believe. One of the key drivers here (Deb Richardson) mentioned being reduced to tears by the actions of another Mozilla contributor. I certainly feel like my own behaviour in many cases has been well below the standard we all claim is "how Mozilla already is."

I fully agree, I have been at the end where I strongly asked myself if I
want to be a part of this the way the project I worked on and myself as
someone who believed in it was treated - I probably have been on the
side of making others feel bad - hopefully not unwelcome - and I think
we'll not be able to suppress such events completely (neither should we,
IMHO).
The CoC could help to make people new to the community understand that
such cases are not the rule, on the contrary, are something where those
people are at fault. And having such a document to look at (and ways to
possibly escalate if needed) can make people feel more welcome just by
ensuring that this is not the standard. I think escalation should stay
just as rare as it was in the last 10+ years.

Robert Kaiser

[Majken Connor]

When I say "it's how we already are" what I mean is we already agree that
making someone cry is not ok. We also already have conductors, and many of
us already have people we trust to talk to. However, I do think we need a
CoC, I just think it doesn't need to promote anything specifically
different, it just needs to promote how we already want to behave. I have
also been made to cry a couple times, I've also been in situations where I
was made to feel there was no escalation path. I've seen way too many
situations where people have said "well, this is what we're doing, maybe
we'll address your feedback later" and "we don't have time for this" in
reference to community discussions. I see the CoC as one step in a process
that will help reinforce and empower the community to continue being open
and respectful.

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:17 PM, Robert Kaiser <ka...@kairo.at> wrote:

> Mike Connor schrieb:

>
> I think this is almost certainly more true than any of us really want to
>> believe. One of the key drivers here (Deb Richardson) mentioned being
>> reduced to tears by the actions of another Mozilla contributor. I
>> certainly feel like my own behaviour in many cases has been well below the
>> standard we all claim is "how Mozilla already is."
>>
>

> I fully agree, I have been at the end where I strongly asked myself if I
> want to be a part of this the way the project I worked on and myself as
> someone who believed in it was treated - I probably have been on the side
> of making others feel bad - hopefully not unwelcome - and I think we'll not
> be able to suppress such events completely (neither should we, IMHO).
> The CoC could help to make people new to the community understand that
> such cases are not the rule, on the contrary, are something where those
> people are at fault. And having such a document to look at (and ways to
> possibly escalate if needed) can make people feel more welcome just by
> ensuring that this is not the standard. I think escalation should stay just
> as rare as it was in the last 10+ years.
>
> Robert Kaiser
>

[Zack Weinberg]

On 2012-04-05 9:01 AM, Mike Connor wrote:
> On 2012-04-04, at 1:44 PM,<da...@illsley.org> wrote:
>
>> I thinks it's plausible that there have been members of the
>> community who have been on the wrong end of bad behaviour, seen no
>> path to support and resolution, and silently melted away. While I'm
>> not for a particularly detailed, proscriptive CoC, I think an
>> aspirational document which sets expectations and routes to support
>> would be beneficial in these situations.
>
> I think this is almost certainly more true than any of us really want
> to believe. One of the key drivers here (Deb Richardson) mentioned
> being reduced to tears by the actions of another Mozilla contributor.
> I certainly feel like my own behaviour in many cases has been well
> below the standard we all claim is "how Mozilla already is."

Concur. As anecdata only: as many of you know, I file bugs on behalf of
several web developers who don't want to do it themselves. Now the #1
reason they don't want to do it themselves is that they believe they
have no chance of filing the bug in the proper component, and therefore
it will be ignored. This is not a conduct issue; it is a "bugzilla is
optimized for developers, not for bug reporters" issue.

The #2 reason they don't want to do it themselves, though, _is_ a
conduct issue: they expect that if the bug _isn't_ completely ignored,
it will instead get brushed off, rudely, possibly even abusively. They
think this for one of three reasons:

1) They have actually tried reporting a bug to Mozilla themselves in the
past, and received a rude or abusive response for their trouble.

2) They have tried reporting a bug to _some other_ open-source project
and received a rude or abusive response. They assume they will get the
same reaction from us.

3) They have seen some of our infamous bugs, the ones that are many
years old with no sign of a fix, but lots of people yelling at us for
not fixing it and us yelling right back for increasing our bugmail pile.
They assume this is typical.

We can't do much about (2), but we can do something about (1) and to a
lesser extent (3).

I think it is especially important that we do do something about this,
because people who are at the point of filing a bug are people who are
standing in the metaphorical doorway of joining the project. Their
bug-filing experience can make the difference between a new contributor
and another person advocating Chrome ;-) And we only get *one chance*
to make a good impression.

zw