Proposal

[Mitchell Baker]

First, thanks to Deb for doing a ton of work to make this possible.


I propose we adopt a very basic Code of Conduct. The goal is to make it
clear we expect to treat each other well, and that there are some
aspects of how we treat each other that is relevant to an identity as a
Mozillian. I like the explanatory material in the Ubuntu document, but
I understand that the length makes it seem like a big document full of
rules.

For our purposes, I propose:

1. we use the headings as our basic doc. We have links to the
explanatory text that Deb has pulled together. That means that the core
CoC looks something like:


Be considerate.
Be respectful.
Be collaborative.
Consult others when disagreements occur
Ask for help
[Threats of violence, even as a joke, are not acceptable.]
I'm inclined to call this out explicitly.
[I'd delete Step down considerately for now, maybe put it in
the leadership code]
Empower others. [I've just added this, I think it's a key
aspect of Mozilla, will have some discussion on it]


2. We replace the diversity section in its entirety with something like
what I've written below.

3. We add a clear mechanism for what someone can do when s/he feels
s/he feels there a serious enough problem to work on.

4. There's one big question in the inclusion section -- it's in
subsection (b) below ("such beliefs about non-Mozilla activities should
not be expressed in Mozilla spaces.") I think it's the right thing, but
we should discuss. It reflects my view that (a) limiting content has
many problems, that Mozilla is about people being people a; and that (b)
we are about inclusion and empowerment. Also that it's narrow enough
to be workable across any definition of mozilla spaces.

5. We may also, separately, address whether our big communications
channels like planet.mozilla.org should default to "mozilla-related"
default or to a "whole-person" default. I think I'm still of the former
opinion, I recognize the planet peers are of the latter.


Mozilla Inclusiveness Statement

Mozilla is an inclusive organization. Everyone who is moves
the Mozilla mission forward is welcome, regardless of
personal characteristics.
Mozilla-based activities are inclusive. We work to create
opportunity for all in our activities, regardless of
personal characteristics.
As Mozillians we share the Mozilla mission, but not necessarily
other social, economic, political or religious views.
We acknowledge that some Mozillians may also participate in or
support exclusion based on personal characteristics in
other aspects of their lives. When this occurs:

(a) any such belief must not be carried into Mozilla activities.
(b) such beliefs about non-Mozilla activities should not be expressed
in Mozilla spaces.
(c) those Mozillians offended by such beliefs should also draw the
same line: exclusionary actions outside of Mozilla should be left
outside of Mozilla.

Mitchell

[Majken Connor]

This sounds good to me.

I've been thinking about planet, but will wait for a new thread on that, or
I think it might take over this one.

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

[Fred Wenzel]

I like this proposal. More specifically, I think the inclusiveness
represents very well the line between inside/outside Mozilla activities
and the kinds of activities we desire to remain outside our community.

I also like how the inclusiveness statement focuses on the positive side
rather than listing a long and necessarily incomplete list of personal
characteristics being able to possibly offend people.

Do you have an idea what the "clear mechanism" mentioned in number 3
could look like? I think that's the key issue still missing from this
proposal ("what if a conflict occurs that I am unable to resolve
directly with the person in question?").

Thanks,
Fred

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

[Mike Connor]

On 2012-04-04, at 3:09 PM, Fred Wenzel wrote:

> Do you have an idea what the "clear mechanism" mentioned in number 3 could look like? I think that's the key issue still missing from this proposal ("what if a conflict occurs that I am unable to resolve directly with the person in question?").

This is my only question. It's probably clear that sorting out conflict resolution is my biggest concern.

The rest is something that I believe is spot-on in both the aims and expression. Thank you Mitchell!

-- Mike

[Mitchell Baker]

Will work on this shortly. will be away from my computer for a couple
of hours though.

ml

[Robert O'Callahan]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 6:49 AM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> [Threats of violence, even as a joke, are not acceptable.]
> I'm inclined to call this out explicitly.
>

A couple of months ago I joked on IRC on #developers, "if anyone complains
about our code not working on non-2s-complement architectures*, I will
throw them off a bridge". That will be forbidden?

[* An implausible scenario]

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]

[Robert O'Callahan]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 8:07 AM, Robert O'Callahan <rob...@ocallahan.org>wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 6:49 AM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com>wrote:
>
>> [Threats of violence, even as a joke, are not acceptable.]
>> I'm inclined to call this out explicitly.
>>
>
> A couple of months ago I joked on IRC on #developers, "if anyone complains
> about our code not working on non-2s-complement architectures*, I will
> throw them off a bridge". That will be forbidden?
>
> [* An implausible scenario]
>

Here is the actual text:
http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/6254

[Johnathan Nightingale]

My silence on these threads has not been because I don't care, but because I want to make sure I'm helpful when I speak. Now that we have a proposal, though, I wanted to add my read on it all, in case it is helpful, or echoes your own.

I think Daniel's point about a community of trust is deeply true, and names an incredibly special thing about Mozilla. We start from trust more than any group I know. I think (without putting words into anyone's mouth) that pride in that community of trust informs a lot of the people who resist the idea of a CoC. They don't want freedom to hurt people; they want to believe that we don't need a Code to keep us from doing so. They want us to be better than that.

Quite apart from any one blog post, though (and also quite apart from employment, I'd argue), it's clear that many people in the community have an appetite for some shared statement of values. Not as dictat, but as affirmation. The manifesto is an affirming document. It talks about what we stand for. The gap in the manifesto is that it names our shared values about the web, not our shared values about each other. Dispute resolution aside, I think many of the people supporting a CoC are really supporting an affirmation of the ways we want to treat each other. That we don't already have one, and immediately recognize it as a great idea, is a little sad for them. And they want us to be better than that.

We're closer than we think. We're typically excellent to each other. When there are lapses, I've seen many of you call that out and pull the person aside. In Daniel's language, this is trust and self-regulation. In CoC language, this is problematic conduct and dispute resolution. And the vast majority of the time, it's entirely moot because we are typically excellent to each other. I'm very proud of that. I think we all are.

I trust you all, and I support Mitchell's proposal below. A lot of this conversation has gone down threads of edge-case what-if that will only happen if we stop trusting each other. If that happens, there isn't language you can put into a wiki doc that will fix it. An expression of shared expectations about how we treat other humans in Mozilla, that starts from trust, is a thing I can feel really good about, and is how I read what Mitchell's proposing.

J

On 2012-04-04, at 2:49 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:

> First, thanks to Deb for doing a ton of work to make this possible.
>
>
> I propose we adopt a very basic Code of Conduct. The goal is to make it clear we expect to treat each other well, and that there are some aspects of how we treat each other that is relevant to an identity as a Mozillian. I like the explanatory material in the Ubuntu document, but I understand that the length makes it seem like a big document full of rules.
>
> For our purposes, I propose:
>
> 1. we use the headings as our basic doc. We have links to the explanatory text that Deb has pulled together. That means that the core CoC looks something like:
>
>
> Be considerate.
> Be respectful.
> Be collaborative.
> Consult others when disagreements occur
> Ask for help

> [Threats of violence, even as a joke, are not acceptable.]
> I'm inclined to call this out explicitly.

---
Johnathan Nightingale
Sr. Director of Firefox Engineering
joh...@mozilla.com

[Daniel Glazman]

Mitchell, if I understand a bit better the scope of your proposal, I
still don't see precisely how you plan to "apply" it to the Community.
What will happen exactly? Will for instance Mozilla release that
document saying these are values the Community "should" adhere too, or
will all members of the Community have to "sign" such a document
online or, or, or... ?

About your item 4, you said "Also that it's narrow enough to be
workable across any definition of mozilla spaces" so please let me
express two concerns.

First, planet.mozilla.org is not entirely a Mozilla space... It's the
aggregate of articles published elsewhere, often in entirely personal
spaces, hosted outside of Mozilla, managed outside of Mozilla. So to
deal with pmo, the CoC has to leave the field of Mozilla and reach
personal websites of Mozillians OR restrict pmo to mozilla-related
stuff. I think the former will be unacceptable to the vast majority,
and the latter seems counter-productive and meaningless to me; as I
said elsewhere, it will annoy the good guys without blocking the bad
ones...

Second, irc.mozilla.org and the mailing-lists or google groups won't
work well with this item 4 because access is immediate. If it's
possible to make Google Groups' subscription based on accepting a
Licence/CoC/whatever, it's not going to be feasible for IRC.
Furthermore, the whole concept of IRC and its success as a mean of
communication inside Mozilla and outside it with third-party
developers or even users is based on its total openness and "a
posteriori" online management by IRC ops, not on a CoC. For what it's
worth, I would like to note that IRC has been the main communication
channel of all Mozilla developers for fifteen years, managed only by
the IRC Ops. No CoC. And it works fine, has always worked fine, even
when trolls appear.

I also have a respectful suggestion : don't call that document a "Code
of Conduct". It really sounds like an enforceable document distributed
to new hires by a HR department...

</Daniel>

[da...@illsley.org]

Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>
> Mozilla Inclusiveness Statement
>
> Mozilla is an inclusive organization. Everyone who is moves
> the Mozilla mission forward is welcome, regardless of
> personal characteristics.
> Mozilla-based activities are inclusive. We work to create
> opportunity for all in our activities, regardless of
> personal characteristics.
> As Mozillians we share the Mozilla mission, but not necessarily
> other social, economic, political or religious views.

I like it all up to here, but I think the remainder needs some heavy word
smithing. One thing that jumps out is that we go from 'views' to 'beliefs',
and I think it should be consistent one way or the other.

My attempt would be...

Some Mozillians also participate in cultures and other communities which
support and enact exclusion based on personal characteristics. These views
and actions are not consistent with building an inclusive community focused
on the mission, and so:
(a) any such views and actions must not be carried into
Mozilla activities.
(b) such views and actions about non-Mozilla activities should not be
expressed in Mozilla spaces.
(c) those Mozillians offended by such views should also draw the same

line: exclusionary actions outside of Mozilla should be left outside of
Mozilla.

> We acknowledge that some Mozillians may also participate in or
> support exclusion based on personal characteristics in
> other aspects of their lives. When this occurs:
> (a) any such belief must not be carried into Mozilla activities.
> (b) such beliefs about non-Mozilla activities should not be expressed in Mozilla spaces.
> (c) those Mozillians offended by such beliefs should also draw the same
> line: exclusionary actions outside of Mozilla should be left outside of Mozilla.

HTH,
David

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-04-04 11:49 AM, Mitchell Baker wrote:

> First, thanks to Deb for doing a ton of work to make this possible.

Indeed. And you too, this is a very hard discussion to participate in. I
have had to repeatedly withdraw in order to retain civility. Thanks for
your efforts here, and for remaining engaged.

> (a) any such belief must not be carried into Mozilla activities.
> (b) such beliefs about non-Mozilla activities should not be
> expressed in Mozilla spaces.

I agree with these points. Particularly that "mozilla spaces"
(organization owned, operated and/or authorized) is a coherent and
useful boundary along which to attempt regulating behavior. It's helpful
to note this explicitly, as you propose, to clarify the absence of any
attempt to regulate what people do in their own time or spaces.

> (c) those Mozillians offended by such beliefs should also draw
> the same line: exclusionary actions outside of Mozilla should be left
> outside of Mozilla.

I'm disappointed by this point, as well as the less-specific terms
"exclusionary", "offended" and "characteristics". I think these terms
suggest an equivalence of power, harm and morality between actions
congruent with social oppression and defense against them. I think this
is wrong, that we should articulate the difference in this code, and
that the more-specific terms in the ubuntu document and earlier variants
under discussion here are more clear about that.

I hope I've phrased this objection constructively; I'm hoping to
influence the outcome of this process, but not shut it down.

-Graydon

[Lukas Blakk]

I'm having a hard time with this proposal, comments inline.

On 4/4/12 11:49 AM, Mitchell Baker wrote:

> First, thanks to Deb for doing a ton of work to make this possible.
>
>

> I propose we adopt a very basic Code of Conduct. The goal is to make
> it clear we expect to treat each other well, and that there are some
> aspects of how we treat each other that is relevant to an identity as
> a Mozillian. I like the explanatory material in the Ubuntu document,
> but I understand that the length makes it seem like a big document
> full of rules.
>
> For our purposes, I propose:
>
> 1. we use the headings as our basic doc. We have links to the
> explanatory text that Deb has pulled together. That means that the
> core CoC looks something like:
>
>
> Be considerate.
> Be respectful.
> Be collaborative.
> Consult others when disagreements occur

Consult who? In the case of the Planet incident "consulting" the module
owners garnered criticism from many sides and, if anything, made the
situation worse.

> Ask for help
Again I must ask - from who? There are people who just started with
Mozilla activities and people who've been around for 13+ years - and so
much in between. Depending on who you ask, what kind of 'help' will you
get? Is coming to the governance list a form of 'help'? It doesn't feel
like it at all.

> [Threats of violence, even as a joke, are not acceptable.]
> I'm inclined to call this out explicitly.
> [I'd delete Step down considerately for now, maybe put it in
> the leadership code]
> Empower others. [I've just added this, I think it's a key
> aspect of Mozilla, will have some discussion on it]
>
> 2. We replace the diversity section in its entirety with something
> like what I've written below.
>

Without a diversity statement and the intentions having one projects it
seems to me that we are completely whitewashing the significant issue
that brought this all to the fore. There are underrepresented groups at
Mozilla who will continue to be silenced if there is not a clear message
of intolerance for discriminatory behaviours when in the Mozilla Space
(be that real or virtual).

> 3. We add a clear mechanism for what someone can do when s/he feels
> s/he feels there a serious enough problem to work on.

This is the part that never seems to get even to a draft state - what is
the plan here? The closest we have right now is "Mitchell will make the
call from on high" and I'm not sure that's scalable or even the desired
role Mitchell is looking to fill. I look forward to some tangible items
on the table for this mechanism so we can get a sense of what exactly we
are willing to commit to with regards to process.

> 4. There's one big question in the inclusion section -- it's in
> subsection (b) below ("such beliefs about non-Mozilla activities
> should not be expressed in Mozilla spaces.") I think it's the right
> thing, but we should discuss. It reflects my view that (a) limiting
> content has many problems, that Mozilla is about people being people

> a; and that (b) we are about inclusion and empowerment. Also that

> it's narrow enough to be workable across any definition of mozilla

> spaces.
>
> 5. We may also, separately, address whether our big communications
> channels like planet.mozilla.org should default to "mozilla-related"
> default or to a "whole-person" default. I think I'm still of the
> former opinion, I recognize the planet peers are of the latter.
>
>

> Mozilla Inclusiveness Statement
>
> Mozilla is an inclusive organization. Everyone who is moves
> the Mozilla mission forward is welcome, regardless of
> personal characteristics.
> Mozilla-based activities are inclusive. We work to create
> opportunity for all in our activities, regardless of
> personal characteristics.
> As Mozillians we share the Mozilla mission, but not necessarily
> other social, economic, political or religious views.

> We acknowledge that some Mozillians may also participate in or
> support exclusion based on personal characteristics in
> other aspects of their lives. When this occurs:
>

> (a) any such belief must not be carried into Mozilla activities.
> (b) such beliefs about non-Mozilla activities should not be
> expressed in Mozilla spaces.

> (c) those Mozillians offended by such beliefs should also draw
> the same line: exclusionary actions outside of Mozilla should be left
> outside of Mozilla.

So this puts things in an inclusion vs. exclusion light instead of
acknowledging discrimination or power abuse by privileged classes of
people within the organization. As distasteful as it may be to a few,
the lack of mention leave the 'welcome' part seeming a bit hollow to me.
Welcome, but not supported.

Still, I'm with Johnathan - we do have a general level of trust in
Mozilla that is quite special to me. What's come out of the discussion
of CoC is an incredible amount of fear from a few that CoC means some
irreparable damage to free speech will occur. What very few people seem
to get behind is that this is a small piece of a bigger step towards
open-ness, diversity, inclusivity and just generally increasing our
awesomeness in underrepresented groups if we manage to do this right.
The web of trust we have with each other could actually grow, if we're
willing to stand up for such things.

Cheers,
Lukas

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

[Majken Connor]

Who is being silenced? I said the same thing to sid0 about his examples. If
someone is being silenced we don't need a CoC to deal with it, we already
feel it's not ok.

I believe Deb and Mitchell have both mentioned that we'd make a CoC first,
and then figure out the escalation path, with conductors as the opening
suggestion.

[Majken Connor]

Darn, I didn't word that right. That was a genuine question, not
rhetorical. If someone is being silenced or made fun of, it should be
brought up. For sid0's examples it was enough to bring them up on IRC, one
of the offending quotes was taken down. I'm not sure if you're talking only
about gerv's post, or if there were other issues brought up here that
you're referring to that would help us see where there are holes in the
code.

[Axel Hecht]

I personally have run into various situations where I crossed the
boundary of other mozillians feeling good.

I have learned to consult with others and ask for help. First, I go to
people that I trust to comment in my best interest. And they'll tell me
what fragments of my thinking are interesting, and where I'm a lunatic.
They'll challenge my thinking, they'll point out alternative ways of
communicating the good points. And hopefully, they'd make me be a better
mozillian.

>> [Threats of violence, even as a joke, are not acceptable.]
>> I'm inclined to call this out explicitly.
>> [I'd delete Step down considerately for now, maybe put it in
>> the leadership code]
>> Empower others. [I've just added this, I think it's a key
>> aspect of Mozilla, will have some discussion on it]
>>
>> 2. We replace the diversity section in its entirety with something
>> like what I've written below.
>>
> Without a diversity statement and the intentions having one projects it
> seems to me that we are completely whitewashing the significant issue
> that brought this all to the fore. There are underrepresented groups at
> Mozilla who will continue to be silenced if there is not a clear message
> of intolerance for discriminatory behaviours when in the Mozilla Space
> (be that real or virtual).

"underrepresented groups" and "silenced". Wow. And a call for intolerance.

If you'd put yourself into the position of someone not sharing your pov,
do you think you've chosen the language to influence people in your favor?

Axel

[Lukas Blakk]

>> Without a diversity statement and the intentions having one projects it
>> seems to me that we are completely whitewashing the significant issue
>> that brought this all to the fore. There are underrepresented groups at
>> Mozilla who will continue to be silenced if there is not a clear message
>> of intolerance for discriminatory behaviours when in the Mozilla Space
>> (be that real or virtual).
>

> "underrepresented groups" and "silenced". Wow. And a call for
> intolerance.
>
> If you'd put yourself into the position of someone not sharing your
> pov, do you think you've chosen the language to influence people in
> your favor?
>
> Axel
>
>

> If I put myself in the position of _not_ being from an underrepresented
> group? I'm not sure what that would look like because this isn't about
> a thought experiment, it's my actual life and how this discussion is
> affecting my work and the mental space I get into the past few weeks
> that this discussion has been going on. That's not a POV - that's an
> effect of this space and the voices that are being heard all around my
> while a continued plea for help is being ignored.
>
> -Lukas

[Mitchell Baker]

On 4/4/12 1:26 PM, Daniel Glazman wrote:
> Mitchell, if I understand a bit better the scope of your proposal, I
> still don't see precisely how you plan to "apply" it to the Community.
> What will happen exactly? Will for instance Mozilla release that
> document saying these are values the Community "should" adhere too, or
> will all members of the Community have to "sign" such a document
> online or, or, or... ?

Daniel: the proposal says content that "support[s] exclusion based on
personal characteristics" does not belong in Mozilla spaces. It says
nothing about signing up for any values. It *explicitly* acknowledges
that people have different beliefs.

As for applying it, that's a little bit related to the mechanisms re
what to do when people feel there's a problem. I envision that's a
community escalation process, like any other at Mozilla. that's the
next discussion now that I've got a proposal posted.

>
> About your item 4, you said "Also that it's narrow enough to be
> workable across any definition of mozilla spaces" so please let me
> express two concerns.
>
> First, planet.mozilla.org is not entirely a Mozilla space... It's the
> aggregate of articles published elsewhere, often in entirely personal
> spaces, hosted outside of Mozilla, managed outside of Mozilla. So to
> deal with pmo, the CoC has to leave the field of Mozilla and reach
> personal websites of Mozillians OR restrict pmo to mozilla-related
> stuff. I think the former will be unacceptable to the vast majority,
> and the latter seems counter-productive and meaningless to me; as I
> said elsewhere, it will annoy the good guys without blocking the bad
> ones...
>

First, you're extending what I said (no content supporting exclusion" to
"non-mozilla stuff."
To the larger point, yes -- If we decide exclusionary materials doesn't
belong at Mozilla then someone who post such content will need to not
syndicate to mozilla, or not syndicate that post to mozilla or do
something else.
Maybe you're making the assumption that every personal website is a
mozilla site?

> Second, irc.mozilla.org and the mailing-lists or google groups won't
> work well with this item 4 because access is immediate. If it's
> possible to make Google Groups' subscription based on accepting a
> Licence/CoC/whatever, it's not going to be feasible for IRC.
> Furthermore, the whole concept of IRC and its success as a mean of
> communication inside Mozilla and outside it with third-party
> developers or even users is based on its total openness and "a
> posteriori" online management by IRC ops, not on a CoC. For what it's
> worth, I would like to note that IRC has been the main communication
> channel of all Mozilla developers for fifteen years, managed only by
> the IRC Ops. No CoC. And it works fine, has always worked fine, even
> when trolls appear.

The C of C is an aspriational document that describes how we want to
work with each other. I guess you're assuming people will sign up to
it. Think about the Manifesto, as Jonathan brought up. We don't
require people to sign up to it before they join a mailing list. We use
it to determine if we're on course, etc.

>
> I also have a respectful suggestion : don't call that document a "Code
> of Conduct". It really sounds like an enforceable document distributed
> to new hires by a HR department...
>

Maybe this is the key issue -- it does seem to bring up this connection
to it. I think open source projects have them though.
> </Daniel>

[David Ascher]

On Apr 04 '12 4:06 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
>
>> I also have a respectful suggestion : don't call that document a "Code
>> of Conduct". It really sounds like an enforceable document distributed
>> to new hires by a HR department...
>>
>

> Maybe this is the key issue -- it does seem to bring up this
> connection to it. I think open source projects have them though.

Informally I've used the phrase "social contract" (with an implicit
references to my compatriot Rousseau's definition of the term) to refer
to what I think we're talking about.

That word may translate better, maybe?

--david

[Fred Wenzel]

On Wed Apr 4 16:08:41 2012, David Ascher wrote:
> On Apr 04 '12 4:06 PM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
>>

>>> I also have a respectful suggestion : don't call that document a "Code
>>> of Conduct". It really sounds like an enforceable document distributed
>>> to new hires by a HR department...
>>>
>>

>> Maybe this is the key issue -- it does seem to bring up this
>> connection to it. I think open source projects have them though.
>
> Informally I've used the phrase "social contract" (with an implicit
> references to my compatriot Rousseau's definition of the term) to
> refer to what I think we're talking about.

I think this is just shifting the issue elsewhere: I expect the same
person who thinks "code of conduct" sounds too strict and intimidating
to object similarly to the word "contract" (misinterpreting the term as
a legal document that needs to be signed).

~F

[David Ascher]

On Apr 04 '12 3:17 PM, Axel Hecht wrote:
> I personally have run into various situations where I crossed the
> boundary of other mozillians feeling good.
>
> I have learned to consult with others and ask for help. First, I go to
> people that I trust to comment in my best interest. And they'll tell
> me what fragments of my thinking are interesting, and where I'm a
> lunatic. They'll challenge my thinking, they'll point out alternative
> ways of communicating the good points. And hopefully, they'd make me
> be a better mozillian.

Jumping on here -- we haven't been visible enough about it, but I wanted
to just say that the Conductors group was formed with exactly that
purpose -- it's 200% fine for people to do what Pike just mentioned
through their existing networks, but if people are feeling unsure, or
don't know who to reach out for just that kind of feedback, we're there
to help.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Conductors

--david

[Matt Brubeck]

On 04/04/2012 04:12 PM, Fred Wenzel wrote:
> I think this is just shifting the issue elsewhere: I expect the same
> person who thinks "code of conduct" sounds too strict and intimidating
> to object similarly to the word "contract" (misinterpreting the term as
> a legal document that needs to be signed).

The current Code of Conduct proposal is based directly on the Ubuntu
Code of Conduct. Ubuntu Members are required to sign the code of
conduct, and all contributors are "recommended" to sign it:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SigningCodeofConduct

I haven't seen any proposals to do the same at Mozilla. It might not
even be possible for Mozilla, because our community did not grow around
such a code from its early days as Ubuntu's did. But, given the model
we are starting from, we shouldn't be surprised if people have the
impression that all community members will be required to agree to the code.

(P.S. If anyone participating in this discussion has not participated in
the Ubuntu community and seen its Code of Conduct in action, I'd
encourage you to make an effort to learn about their experiences. While
Mozilla won't follow the exact same path, it's still much more useful to
learn from prior examples than to simply guess what will happen in a
community with a code of conduct.)

[fantasai]

On 04/04/2012 11:49 AM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
> First, thanks to Deb for doing a ton of work to make this possible.
>
>
> I propose we adopt a very basic Code of Conduct. The goal is to make it clear we expect to treat each other well, and that
> there are some aspects of how we treat each other that is relevant to an identity as a Mozillian. I like the explanatory
> material in the Ubuntu document, but I understand that the length makes it seem like a big document full of rules.
>
> For our purposes, I propose:
>
> 1. we use the headings as our basic doc. We have links to the explanatory text that Deb has pulled together. That means that
> the core CoC looks something like:
>
> Be considerate.
> Be respectful.

I agree with these. (Note: they seem flip sides of the same coin.)

> Be collaborative.

Lucy mentioned "Be open". Neither of these is about how to treat people, but a core
part of how we work. I think they should either both be there, or both not be there.

> Consult others when disagreements occur
> Ask for help

These two seem like the same thing, at least wrt how to treat people, so I'd combine
them somehow. (If we're going to include how we work, then Ask for help splits partly
into "Consult others when disagreements occur" and partly into "Be collaborative.")

> [Threats of violence, even as a joke, are not acceptable.]
> I'm inclined to call this out explicitly.

I suggest
No violence or ill-will towards any person.

> [I'd delete Step down considerately for now, maybe put it in
> the leadership code]

Agreed.

> Empower others. [I've just added this, I think it's a key
> aspect of Mozilla, will have some discussion on it]

I really like this.

Overall, I like having very simple, self-evident statements. I don't want to have a
long legal document for this. I won't read it; it doesn't interest me to read it.

If we're having a code of conduct, I'd like it to be, like the Manifesto, an affirmation
of widely-held values; and I'd like it to be, like the Bugzilla Etiquette document, a
set of guidelines we can refer people to when they're out of line, not a legal document
we agree to in order to participate.

> 5. We may also, separately, address whether our big communications channels like planet.mozilla.org should default to
> "mozilla-related" default or to a "whole-person" default. I think I'm still of the former opinion, I recognize the planet
> peers are of the latter.

I think we should have both options. It's not just about people being offended;
it's also about people's bandwidth and improving their ability to keep up with
and read things they're interested in. There are solid use cases for both types
of news feed, and splitting them is likely to make both more useful: readers
looking for a Mozilla-related news feed can find one that's noise-free, and
posters will likely feel more comfortable opening up their entire blog feed to
a newsfeed explicitly intended to encompass personal entries, making the open
feed more open.

I don't have an opinion on the other points yet.

For reference, if I was writing a Code of Conduct, it'd be:
1. Be respectful of all persons.
2. No violence or ill-will towards any person.
3. Do not post off-topic things to a topic'd forum.
4. Unless otherwise specified, trim quotes and interleave your replies.

~fantasai

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 4, 11:00 pm, Lukas Blakk <lsbl...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> Without a diversity statement and the intentions having one projects it
> seems to me that we are completely whitewashing the significant issue
> that brought this all to the fore. There are underrepresented groups at
> Mozilla who will continue to be silenced if there is not a clear message
> of intolerance for discriminatory behaviours when in the Mozilla Space
> (be that real or virtual).

Underrepresented as? As Mozillians?!?!? I've been involved with
Netscape and then Mozilla for the last 13 years and based on what I
saw and lived, still see and live, I really doubt it can happen! Could
be hilarious to read your words if if was not also just tragic... And
ridiculous.

Silenced?!? You've got to be kidding, right? You've been shouting for
weeks now and this CoC discussion is in response to that.

Discriminatory behaviours? You're still there despite of what Mitchell
wrote above and despite the fact a large part of the Community doesn't
see any discriminatory behaviour in Gerv's original post?

These two first excerpts of your prose are way beyond the limits of
what's acceptable. The third one starts looking more like a bad
leitmotiv.

Lukas, I start thinking you don't have a problem with the Mozilla
community but a problem with any organization reaching a decision
point, even balanced, logical and consensual, that does not match your
expectations as soon as it touches some topic. Even when it's in reply
to your own request. You also have a problem with opinions and points
of views that are perfectly legal and expressed without words of hate
or violence but not matching your point of view. You are using on
purpose vocabulary that triggers escalation and that is hard to
discuss because of the sensitive aspect of the issue itself. I do
consider that as offensive behaviour, disrespectful of the fact the
issue should have been discussed first between adults.
FWIW, another person, Mozilla employee, with precisely the same
opinion as you, did silence _me_ on twitter. Only because I expressed
an opinion different, a different point of view, I was told "don't
contact me ever again". That was in public. _This_ is offensive,
discriminatory and intolerant behaviour.

I start thinking, and I have the gut feeling I'm not the only one,
that intolerance is more visible on one side than on the other one...

</Daniel>

[Mitchell Baker]

Let's hang on here. There's a lot of pain and hurt and anger in this
discussion. It's starting to leak out in all sorts of places.
There's plenty of intolerance, let's cut it off now.

Daniel, your tone here is difficult, and characterizations of hilarious
and kidding etc are nasty. I too was surprised by the comment about
being silenced, but I take that as something to try to understand, not
to belittle.

Issues of race and gender and exclusion and being a minority or feeling
under-represented in some way are deep, complicated social issues. It
takes a lot of work to internalize how someone in a different setting
feels uncomfortable, or threatened or marginalized. It many cases it
takes an act of faith -- "I don't get it, but I understand it's deeply
disturbing to you, so I'll take a step in your direction."

I think we're all looking at this setting now. Those who want to say
"there's no issue, we should continue as before" are probably going to
see statements about inclusion and how we want to treat each other.
Those who want the Mozilla community to settle on a particular
definition of marriage aren't going to see that either.

All of us will see a clear commitment to inclusion in Mozilla activities.

I suggest we stop here.


mitchell

[Mitchell Baker]

I want to address the idea of "whitewash." However, the word has a lot
of emotional content, and there's been plenty of emotion already today.
So I'm going to wait at least until tomorrow to do so.


mitchell

Supportive is oething we can address.

[Graydon Hoare]

Please, Daniel, look at your words:

On 04/04/2012 10:13 PM, Daniel Glazman wrote:

> ?!?!?
> hilarious
> ridiculous.
>
> kidding,
> shouting

>
> way beyond the limits of what's acceptable.

> bad leitmotiv.
>
> you have a problem
> on purpose
> offensive
> disrespectful
> silence _me_
> offensive,
> discriminatory
> intolerant

You are attempting to equate the hurt you feel by being asked to follow
a code of conduct in a small number of forums on the internet, to the
hurt gay people feel by being reminded, at work, of the fact that much
of the world wants to either kill them or illegalize them _as people_
over their sexual orientation. You are comparing a minor adjustment in
etiquette to an issue that is literally life and death for many gay people.

Please reflect on that comparison and consider how much you think it
could possibly be true.

-Graydon

[Asa Dotzler]

On 4/4/2012 6:18 PM, fantasai wrote:
> 4. Unless otherwise specified, trim quotes and interleave your replies.

You, Fantasai, are awesome. :D

- A

[Daniel Glazman]

I apologize for the tone of my previous posting here, caused by some
wordings I found truly shocking.
I realize my answer was as shocking to some as the message I replied
too. Sorry for that.
Let's all avoid strong words and focus on getting things one (or not).

</Daniel>

[Gregg Lind]

(me: silent so far, one of the original letter authors, moz employee,
US, remote.)

1. Minor process point... It's hard to read this as a diffset! May
I request an etherpad or other shared doc, where the entire text is in
one place?

2. What is inside and outside mozilla? Some smithing we did on this:

Mozilla spaces include but are not limited to: online activity in all
sites in *.mozilla.com|org, all mozilla corporate office locations,
and events funded or staffed primarily by Mozilla employees or
contributors acting on behalf of the Mozilla project.

(see: https://gist.github.com/2295583 if you want to see it in
context.)

3. I find the high level principles at work here good, the specifics
seem... underpowered. Those affected by things did ask for help, and
received none. I would like it spelled out where the ultimate
authority on these things rest.

4. Inclusiveness point (c) reads as an insult to me. A more positive
spin might be: "We interact with people based on what they bring into
spaces, without regard to their thoughts or beliefs outside of it"


As written, this document doesn't seem to do much to protect the
person of lesser power in interactions.

[Gregg Lind]

(my earlier response got eaten, very sad!)

In the same way that Mozilla is forward thinking on Open Source,
licensing, and company structure, I hope we can be forward thinking on
how to create a community that is great and blissful.

Mozilla has an opportunity here to do something radical and strong.

This document isn't it. This document still puts the work onto the
victim/less powerful . The legalist idea of "prove the harm before
we respond" is old and tired. Mistakes happen. What I want to know
is that people in power, *with something to lose*, will help protect
me. That we all are there to protect each other. That when mistakes
and hurts happen, we nurture our own back to health. That when we do
badly, it reflects on the people in charge as much as well!
Ultimately, if you allow it, it's on you!

GL

[Asa Dotzler]

On 4/4/2012 2:23 PM, Gregg Lind wrote:
> (my earlier response got eaten, very sad!)
>
> In the same way that Mozilla is forward thinking on Open Source,
> licensing, and company structure, I hope we can be forward thinking on
> how to create a community that is great and blissful.
>
> Mozilla has an opportunity here to do something radical and strong.

I absolutely agree that we should (continue to) be forward thinking on
how to best foster a community that is great and blissful. I disagree
that we need to be radical here. We have a community that is almost
always great and almost always blissful and lots of people have put
years of their life into this project to that end.

The occasions of Mozilla or Mozillians not being inclusive or being
abusive are so few and far between that creating a radical policy to
guard against them doesn't seem appropriate. (I've been one of the
people watching very closely for those occasions for more than a dozen
years [and also a person guilty of failures in both aspects.])

- A

[Deb Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 6:26 AM, Asa Dotzler <a...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> The occasions of Mozilla or Mozillians not being inclusive or being abusive
> are so few and far between that creating a radical policy to guard against
> them doesn't seem appropriate. (I've been one of the people watching very
> closely for those occasions for more than a dozen years [and also a person
> guilty of failures in both aspects.])

It's not about putting a radical policy in place to guard against
things, it's about making a radical statement about our project being
truly inclusive in a real and meaningful way.

This statement is a positive thing that should reinforce and reflect
what we all already believe is true of our community. In those few
instances where someone's behaviour does not reflect these things,
this statement should give people something to look towards for
reassurance that yes, they do have a place in our community and we do
welcome them and we will protect them.

If we are truly as inclusive and welcoming as you say, why is actually
writing this down so *unbelievably* difficult?

~ deb

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 5, 2:49 pm, Deb Richardson <d...@dria.org> wrote:

> If we are truly as inclusive and welcoming as you say, why is actually
> writing this down so *unbelievably* difficult?

Because one of the true jewels of Mozilla is that it has not needed to
"write it down" for the last 15 years and, as Asa said, needed it only
marginally less times than there are fingers on my right hand. Because
writing it down will probably never match the diversity and maturity
of such a community. Because writing it down may make us lose
something instead of gaining something.

</Daniel>

[Deb Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Daniel Glazman <daniel....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Because one of the true jewels of Mozilla is that it has not needed to
> "write it down" for the last 15 years and, as Asa said, needed it only
> marginally less times than there are fingers on my right hand. Because
> writing it down will probably never match the diversity and maturity
> of such a community. Because writing it down may make us lose
> something instead of gaining something.

I completely and vehemently disagree.

~ d

[Jb Piacentino]

Daniel,

As much as I agreed with your previous post on 'Trust', I think you need
to admit the diversity of opinions on how to resolve conflicts that may
arise in our daily interractions.
- You and I, and many europeans, are influenced by Rousseau's
philosophy, as David Ascher mentionned. The social contract we establish
with our fellow Mozillians is based on the idea of individual self
restraint. In that sense, no need to write things down as we're afraid
if may limit the freedom to express ourselves.
- On the other hand, other culturally different horizons may believe
that there is a need for a written document to refer to, no matter how
hard it is to compose it and the number of iterations it may take to
fine tune it.

I feel the proposal does a good job at balancing the two perspectives.
Personally, and quoting Mitchell, "Those who want to say "there's no

issue, we should continue as before" are probably going to see

statements about inclusion and how we want to treat each other" simply
works great for me.

Jb

On 05/04/2012 14:58, Daniel Glazman wrote:
> On Apr 5, 2:49 pm, Deb Richardson <d...@dria.org> wrote:
>

>> If we are truly as inclusive and welcoming as you say, why is actually
>> writing this down so *unbelievably* difficult?

> Because one of the true jewels of Mozilla is that it has not needed to
> "write it down" for the last 15 years and, as Asa said, needed it only
> marginally less times than there are fingers on my right hand. Because
> writing it down will probably never match the diversity and maturity
> of such a community. Because writing it down may make us lose
> something instead of gaining something.
>

> </Daniel>

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 5, 3:48 pm, Jb Piacentino <j...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> Daniel,
>
> As much as I agreed with your previous post on 'Trust', I think you need
> to admit the diversity of opinions on how to resolve conflicts that may
> arise in our daily interractions.
> - You and I, and many europeans, are influenced by Rousseau's
> philosophy, as David Ascher mentionned. The social contract we establish
> with our fellow Mozillians is based on the idea of individual self
> restraint. In that sense, no need to write things down as we're afraid
> if may limit the freedom to express ourselves.
> - On the other hand, other culturally different horizons may believe
> that there is a need for a written document to refer to, no matter how
> hard it is to compose it and the number of iterations it may take to
> fine tune it.

I perfectly admit that and even discussed it extensively on IRC with
another mozillian a few hours ago, in the exact same terms.

That said, there is another thing we may need take under
consideration: Europeans are rarely afraid to contribute to
controversial or sensitive topics. But the 17 (seventeen) private
messages I received from mozillians since 9am CEST today mostly from
North America and mostly saying "I don't want to expose myself in
public on such a topic but you summarized my position" indicate this
is not the case elsewhere...

</Daniel>

[Alina Mierlus]

On 4/5/12 3:14 PM, Deb Richardson wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Daniel Glazman<daniel....@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Because one of the true jewels of Mozilla is that it has not needed to
>> "write it down" for the last 15 years and, as Asa said, needed it only
>> marginally less times than there are fingers on my right hand. Because
>> writing it down will probably never match the diversity and maturity
>> of such a community. Because writing it down may make us lose
>> something instead of gaining something.
>

> I completely and vehemently disagree.

I also disagree with this, Daniel. First, because Mozilla now is not
what it was 15 years ago, or the one that I met 4 years ago when I
started contributing.

As the project evolves into a much bigger and complex organization (w/
increasing number of newcomers and new communities), you need to adapt
to it.

And those newcomers are not necessarily geeks, they don't know the
history of who trust whom.

And in this case, the trust should be built (but that's another topic).

I find Mitchell's proposal very reasonable. Is short, understandable and
sounds more like a "welcome note" rather than a code of conduct (which
is how it should be).

Although, I like very much the "Rules of Engagement" document used by
the WebFWD community: https://webfwd.org/other/rules/ (could be a good
example).

Personally, I don't think a Code of Conduct (or whatever name will take)
will solve conflicts, information overflow on planet or makes the
community / environment more open to collaboration.

But I support the idea of having one, it could be a good start.

--
Alina Mierlus
@alina_mierlus

[Asa Dotzler]

On 4/5/2012 5:49 AM, Deb Richardson wrot

> If we are truly as inclusive and welcoming as you say, why is actually
> writing this down so *unbelievably* difficult?

I have no problem with a powerful statement of inclusiveness. I'm more
than OK with it, I fully support it. That can be done without being
"radical", IMO. A "we're inclusive and welcome all comers" style
statement is absolutely fine with me and totally in line with how we've
strived to operate for as long as I've been involved.

I don't think that's what Greg was after, though. He said the
inclusiveness part of the proposal was an insult ("Inclusiveness point
(c) reads as an insult to me") and called for something radical ("do
something radical and strong") that somehow does not allow for harm to
happen ("If you allow it, it's on you!)

As I said, I'm supportive of a statement of inclusiveness and welcoming.
I'm concerned about a radical statement that is focused on preventing
harm. Harm is so rare that any policy designed to prevent it will almost
necessarily have unwanted side-effects.

- A

[Asa Dotzler]

On 4/4/2012 11:49 AM, Mitchell Baker wrote

> I propose we adopt a very basic Code of Conduct. The goal is to make it
> clear we expect to treat each other well, and that there are some
> aspects of how we treat each other that is relevant to an identity as a
> Mozillian. I like the explanatory material in the Ubuntu document, but
> I understand that the length makes it seem like a big document full of
> rules.

Mitchell, this proposal looks good to me. I very much like the
aspirational rather than prescriptive approach. I think it covers what
I've hoped for when talking with you and others about a Code of Conduct.
I can support this policy and I believe I can help newcomers understand
it and feel good about it.

I am a (only a little bit) concerned about the name, especially given
that a code of conduct means to some communities (including Ubuntu) a
contract that participants must sign. It might be valuable to spend a
bit of time on getting the name right. "Bugzilla Etiquette" feels right
on and quite descriptive as a heading for a set of rules we've used
effectively over the years to encourage positive communications in
Bugzilla. That might not be the right kind of phrasing for this
document, and I'm personally not strongly opposed to calling it a CoC,
but it could be worth a bit more discussion.

- A

[Deb Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Asa Dotzler <a...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> On 4/5/2012 5:49 AM, Deb Richardson wrot
>

>> If we are truly as inclusive and welcoming as you say, why is actually
>> writing this down so *unbelievably* difficult?
>

> I don't think that's what Greg was after, though. He said the inclusiveness
> part of the proposal was an insult ("Inclusiveness point (c) reads as an
> insult to me") and called for something radical ("do something radical and

> strong") that somehow does not allow for harm to happen ("If you allow it,
> it's on you!)

I think we read this differently. I took it to mean more that we be
specific about our inclusiveness, actually saying things like "we
explicitly welcome diversity in age, culture, ethnicity, genotype,
gender identity or expression, language, national origin, neurotype,
phenotype, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual
orientation, socio-economic status, subculture and technical ability"
rather than being vague and generalizing the whole thing.

Maybe I misunderstood.

~ d

[Deb Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Deb Richardson <d...@dria.org> wrote:
> Maybe I misunderstood.

Rereading I realize that I don't actually know what that means.

Regardless, I still think we should be specific in our statement of
inclusiveness, rather than general, and ensure that people have clear
escalation paths when needed.

~ d

[Gervase Markham]

On 05/04/12 07:16, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> You are attempting to equate the hurt you feel by being asked to follow
> a code of conduct in a small number of forums on the internet, to the
> hurt gay people feel by being reminded, at work, of the fact that much
> of the world wants to either kill them or illegalize them _as people_
> over their sexual orientation. You are comparing a minor adjustment in
> etiquette to an issue that is literally life and death for many gay people.

I think some of Daniel's words were perhaps ill-chosen but I think his
point about language of escalation making things hard to discuss was a
good one.

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 05/04/12 13:49, Deb Richardson wrote:
> It's not about putting a radical policy in place to guard against
> things, it's about making a radical statement about our project being
> truly inclusive in a real and meaningful way.

Jeff Walden's proposed reworking of the original draft:

"Although this list cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly welcome
people of diverse age, [...], subculture, and technical ability
to the Mozilla community. We value their participation. We
value their contributions, of code, of time, of ideas, in whatever
form they might come. And above all: we welcome them as friends."

is, I would suggest, a radical statement about our project being truly
inclusive in a real and meaningful way. Wouldn't you say? And one I
would support 100% if it were in a code of conduct - I think it nails it.

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 04/04/12 22:07, Gregg Lind wrote:
> (me: silent so far, one of the original letter authors, moz employee,
> US, remote.)

It might help to explain what you mean by "the original letter".

> 3. I find the high level principles at work here good, the specifics
> seem... underpowered. Those affected by things did ask for help, and
> received none.

I would note in this connection, and in support of the idea of a defined
escalation path for issues, that the first private email I received
about my blog post was a notification that a donation to the National
Center for Lesbian Rights had been made "in my honour". I suspect that
would not be item 1 on a CoC list of actions to be taken when one felt
upset by something another community member has done.

Here's my suggestion: "If your brother or sister sins, go and point out
their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you
have won them over." (Matthew 18:15)

In case it's useful data: The second email I got was a notification
pointing me to an IRC exchange in a public channel. The third was a
forward of an email of complaint which had been sent to a...@mozilla.com
(which is a list I am not a member of), with an accompanying suggestion
that there might need to be a discussion about planet policy. The fourth
was one suggesting planet policy might need to be taken up as a
governance issue, and I should add it to my list of things to work on.
The fifth was an email of support, with shock at the level of backlash.
Those five emails covered a timespan of nearly 2 days.

_No_ emails were (polite or otherwise) expressions of hurt or upset at
the content of the post, or suggestions that I should remove it from my
blog and/or Planet. It seems that people were happy to talk behind my
back to their friends, to the entirety of MoCo, to MoCo HR... but not to
me. [Asa says (and I have no reason to doubt him) that he wrote a mail
but forgot to hit Send.]

We need a defined path for escalation of problems, and it needs to
include, at a very early stage, privately communicating with the person
who has upset you.

Gerv

[Sheeri Cabral]

One thing to be careful about here:

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

On 12-04-04 11:49 AM, Mitchell Baker wrote:

> (a) any such belief must not be carried into Mozilla activities.
> (b) such beliefs about non-Mozilla activities should not be
> expressed in Mozilla spaces.

While I agree with this viewpoint, I do have to point out that having a written "policy" about this stuff *might* open Mozilla up to lawsuits if something does happen. If we specifically say in a written-down place "we do not condone this type of behavior" and then we do, presumably by ignorance or accidentally, then Mozilla *might* be able to be sued more than if we didn't have this policy in place.

Note: I am most definitely not a lawyer; however, I was once given this argument by an organization that did not want to put up "Safe Zone" stickers to specify that a building was a zone free of harassment, so I'm passing it along. I am happy to be corrected.

-Sheeri

[Deb Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> We need a defined path for escalation of problems, and it needs to include,
> at a very early stage, privately communicating with the person who has upset
> you.

It should be part of the escalation path, but absolutely should not be
a requirement. If someone is harmed and is not comfortable
communicating directly with the person who has done that harm, under
no circumstances should they be forced to do so before escalating to a
higher level.

~ d

[Gervase Markham]

On 05/04/12 17:43, Deb Richardson wrote:
> It should be part of the escalation path, but absolutely should not be
> a requirement. If someone is harmed and is not comfortable
> communicating directly with the person who has done that harm, under
> no circumstances should they be forced to do so before escalating to a
> higher level.

I think it should be a requirement, but there should be a mediated
mechanism which permits them, should they choose, to hide their identity
from the person - via a Conductor of the person's choice, perhaps.

I think making this a required step is part of what it means to have a
"by default, we trust each other" community. It seems to me that not
raising the issue, by some means, with the person concerned is saying
"without asking, I have already decided that your reaction to my upset
is going to be offensive, negative or otherwise hard for me to deal with".

Gerv

[L. David Baron]

On Thursday 2012-04-05 13:43 -0300, Deb Richardson wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> > We need a defined path for escalation of problems, and it needs to include,

> > at a very early stage, privately communicating with the person who has upset
> > you.

>
> It should be part of the escalation path, but absolutely should not be
> a requirement. If someone is harmed and is not comfortable
> communicating directly with the person who has done that harm, under
> no circumstances should they be forced to do so before escalating to a
> higher level.

Is it worth saying that the escalation path ought to begin
privately, and stay private at least until the person has been
notified and had a chance to respond?

-David

--
𝄞 L. David Baron http://dbaron.org/ 𝄂
𝄢 Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ 𝄂

[Deb Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 1:49 PM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> I think it should be a requirement, but there should be a mediated mechanism
> which permits them, should they choose, to hide their identity from the
> person - via a Conductor of the person's choice, perhaps.

That's different than requiring someone to privately communicate with
the person who has done harm.

~ d

[Gregg Lind]

On Thursday, April 5, 2012 10:46:45 AM UTC-5, Deb Richardson wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Deb Richardson <deb@...> wrote:
> > Maybe I misunderstood.
>
> Rereading I realize that I don't actually know what that means.
>
> Regardless, I still think we should be specific in our statement of
> inclusiveness, rather than general, and ensure that people have clear
> escalation paths when needed.
>
> ~ d

+1 on both counts.

[Deb Richardson]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 1:54 PM, L. David Baron <dba...@dbaron.org> wrote:
> Is it worth saying that the escalation path ought to begin
> privately, and stay private at least until the person has been
> notified and had a chance to respond?

Oh I would expect pretty much every stage of the escalation path to be
"private" as in "not something we post to Planet or have a discussion
about on IRC", etc.

I'm just saying that if someone is harmed, they should not be expected
to directly and privately engage with the person who did that harm if
they don't want to.

~ d

[Gregg Lind]

Gerv, since you asked, some clarificaitons:

1) The initial letter to people at planet. This was a private, back-channel communication, that hoped to resolve the issues (a clarification of the rules for planet, an editorial suggestion about what content was appropriate, and a reminder that words have impact, and a suggestion to think about that impact before writing).

2) I don't know you, and p.m.o has ownership.

[Gregg Lind]

+1 I like this language as well

[Gregg Lind]

[Gregg Lind]

On Thursday, April 5, 2012 10:46:45 AM UTC-5, Deb Richardson wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Deb Richardson <deb@...> wrote:
> > Maybe I misunderstood.
>
> Rereading I realize that I don't actually know what that means.
>
> Regardless, I still think we should be specific in our statement of
> inclusiveness, rather than general, and ensure that people have clear
> escalation paths when needed.
>
> ~ d

+1 on both counts.

[Graydon Hoare]

On 12-04-05 09:15 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:

> I think some of Daniel's words were perhaps ill-chosen but I think his
> point about language of escalation making things hard to discuss was a
> good one.

I agree that we need to be careful to avoid escalating language if we're
to reach any sort of consensus.

I will try not to escalate further here, but I need to clarify something
that appears not to be getting through. Please read this as at most an
explanation of another way this topic is being made "hard to discuss",
rather than an accusation. I'm trying to hold to a civil tone here and I
appreciate those trying to do the same themselves. Apologies if this is
obvious or overwrought.

Escalating language is not merely language that uses loud words,
exclamation points and all caps. Though that certainly is. Another sort
of language in this conversation comes across as very hostile to many
readers. It is the language of dismissal, generalizing,
making-invisible, "whitewashing" (to use an earlier term).

The choice to omit or reduce the significance of terms like "oppression"
or "power imbalance" or "marginalization" to peripheral or not-mentioned
categories in the conversation, or to tell people in oppressed groups
that they should not make such a fuss, is heard as an attempt to rob
someone weak of their dignity and anger, their self-defense against
oppression. Something that has a much longer and more painful history
than this community, than anything any of us are doing here together.
Often a life-long or multi-generational struggle. Sometimes multi-century.

Oppression is a real phenomenon. Listen to what people report when
describing their experiences of it. It's not "being offended" or
"disagreeing" or a difference of opinion you resolve through debate.
It's immediate, unavoidable, life-altering systemic abuse that you can't
escape no matter how you try. It's having countries execute you, police
detain you, hospitals refuse you, employers fire you, schools expel you,
families disown you, strangers beat you and stalk you, colleagues harass
you. Daily. Your whole life. It's a system.

That's the real-life context to keep in your mind when hearing an
oppressed individual's self-defense. In cases where there's been any
relief from some of those forms of oppression (recently, by human rights
campaigns) they remain very fresh in the minds of the oppressed.

Race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, disability and
similar categories some of us are trying to keep the topic focused on
are "special" categories: they've been "weaponized", used to harm
generations of people, keep populations weak or invisible.

Language that asks to dismiss, trivialize, generalize or talk-down the
seriousness of these topics is escalating. Whether or not it uses "angry
voice". Similarly, referring to people concerned with these topics as
"thought police" or "politically correct" is escalating. I don't care
what you think or whether you use euphemisms. I care whether your acts
reinforce oppression.

This community has a history of being able to look at a broad context,
to read between the lines and hear the "power implications" in matters
of technical policy. Even when it's presented in "calm voice". We pick
apart patent law, DRM law, copyright law, licenses, terms of service,
protocols, architectures and processes, understanding what they're about
and how they're being used to harm people. So it's very disappointing to
see that ability to reason about power vanish when applied to social
oppression. It comes across as somewhere between willful ignorance and
siding with oppressors.

-Graydon

[Mitchell Baker]

Actually, I encourage the people who wrote Daniel privately to speak up.
If you are not comfortable speaking up in public then you should come
to me. I own the result here, not Daniel. If you don't trust me then
find someone you do trust who will get to me. Otherwise you are
devaluing your own views and your ability to build our community.

For those who would say something needs to be on this list to be valid,
I urge you to look at today's stream re escalation process for those
that aren't comfortable -- there are some eloquent statements about
what to do when you don't feel safe or comfortable in public.

Or if you're worried you can't express your idea calmly, then again let
me know.

It should be safe for people to say "wow, I've just been told we treat
people as "non-human." Where did that come from? I'm upset, or hurt or
angry. "


mitchell


On 4/5/12 10:28 AM, Al Billings wrote:

> On 4/5/12 7:15 AM, Daniel Glazman wrote:
>> But the 17 (seventeen) private
>> messages I received from mozillians since 9am CEST today mostly from
>> North America and mostly saying "I don't want to expose myself in
>> public on such a topic but you summarized my position" indicate this
>> is not the case elsewhere...
>

> Quoting a silent majority as support to espouse a position that,
> fundamentally, is at odds with this ongoing process (seeing it as both
> unnecessary and, from what I can tell, stupid), is not really going to
> move things forward.
>
> At this point, I think we've all heard your overarching theme that many
> Europeans, especially the French, will say that they can talk about
> politics, women, minority groups, etc. without being offended (or, at
> least, without anyone telling *you* they are offended), unlike Americans
> (apparently). You don't need to continue to beat that drum.
>
> Al
>

[Mitchell Baker]

Graydon

I'm guessing you spend some effort to raise this issue in measured
tones. I think you did so succesfully, and wanted to thank you for the
effort.

mitchell

On 4/4/12 11:16 PM, Graydon Hoare wrote:
> Please, Daniel, look at your words:
>
> On 04/04/2012 10:13 PM, Daniel Glazman wrote:
>
>> ?!?!?
>> hilarious
>> ridiculous.
>>
>> kidding,
>> shouting
>>
>> way beyond the limits of what's acceptable.
>> bad leitmotiv.
>>
>> you have a problem
>> on purpose
>> offensive
>> disrespectful
>> silence _me_
>> offensive,
>> discriminatory
>> intolerant

>
> You are attempting to equate the hurt you feel by being asked to follow
> a code of conduct in a small number of forums on the internet, to the
> hurt gay people feel by being reminded, at work, of the fact that much
> of the world wants to either kill them or illegalize them _as people_
> over their sexual orientation. You are comparing a minor adjustment in
> etiquette to an issue that is literally life and death for many gay people.
>

> Please reflect on that comparison and consider how much you think it
> could possibly be true.
>
> -Graydon

[Christie Koehler]

On 04/04/2012 01:22 PM, Johnathan Nightingale wrote:
> I think Daniel's point about a community of trust is deeply true, and
> names an incredibly special thing about Mozilla. We start from trust
> more than any group I know. I think (without putting words into
> anyone's mouth) that pride in that community of trust informs a lot

The concept of trust has come up a lot in this discussion. It many cases
trust is spoken about as if it is something we, as Mozillians,
automatically share. Trust does not exist by default.

Trust is something that is built up, between individuals, through
interactions over time. Community can implement structures that
facilitate building of trust. A standard for behavior is one of those
structures.

When you are part of a privileged or majority group, you may start out
at a higher level of trust, or build trust more quickly based on this
shared identity.

However, being part of a minority and/or less-privileged group means you
start out with less trust and it takes longer to build said trust.

This is why a number of us have asked over and over again for specific
groups of underrepresented, under-privileged groups to be named in
whatever standard for behavior we adopt. Such statements indicate that
there is recognition of the power imbalances at play, and help minority
employees and contributors sense that Mozilla does want them to feel
safe and welcome.

-Ck

[Al Billings]

Hella +1

[Christie Koehler]

In my opinion and experience, this proposal is a step in the wrong
direction.

It does nothing to recognize the power imbalances that affect people.

It does nothing to mitigate those imbalances. It is too vague and confusing.

Specific behaviors need to be called out as unacceptable:

* intimidating, harassing, stalking
* violence or threats of violence (emotional, physical and verbal)
* inappropriate physical contact, unwanted sexual attention
* demeaning and/or derogatory statements related to gender, sexual
identity, race, religion, physical appearance or disability

It's not enough to say "be respectful, collaborative, considerate."
That's too vague. People engage in inappropriate behavior all the time
that *they* consider to be respectful when, in fact, people affected by
their behavior feel otherwise.

I also want a statement that all are welcome at Mozilla regardless of
gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion. It's not a
given that these are included and welcome groups, so it's important to
specifically call it out. (For more on this, see my earlier email about
trust.)

It should also be made clear that this conduct is expected at all
Mozilla-run and/or supported spaces.

I'm fine with aspirational statements being part of the code of conduct.
In fact, I think that's a great idea. But it also needs to include the
items above for it to be effective.

I know this part is being worked on, but the following issues about
addressing and resolving grievances need to be addressed:

* no one should be required to directly address persons who they feel
have violated the code of conduct

* The Conductors have been suggested as the group who will arbitrate
code of conduct issues. This concerns me greatly. I have no insight into
how the Conductors were chosen for their role, what training they have
been giving and what checks and balances are in place. This is a
critical role and those selected for it need to be vetted and supported
accordingly.

* There should be a clear statement about what happens if someone
violates the code of conduct, particularly if it happens multiple times.
This will be different for employees and community members (given the
differences in our legal relationships with the project).

-Ck

--
Christie Koehler
Web Product Engineer
ckoe...@mozilla.com
503-928-4133

[Majken Connor]

This is a danger of trying to avoid or suppress too much conflict. People
don't want to speak up, or they don't feel like they're supposed to. I
think it's been a while that a culture has been sinking in where dissent is
considered unproductive and unsupportive. This is part of why I've
suggested "open" being a value listed in the CoC. Talking things out has to
be more important than talking it right.

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

[Robert Kaiser]

Lukas Blakk schrieb:
>> Consult others when disagreements occur
> Consult who?

I partially agree in that I think for this and the "ask" topic, we need
some group to contact for those who are new to the community or don't
like contacting the "other party" directly. I think Conductors could be
the right contact there if that group agrees it fits what they are doing.

May we need to add something like "if you have questions about or
problem with behaviour of some people within Mozilla spaces, please
contact the Conductors group".

> There are underrepresented groups at
> Mozilla who will continue to be silenced if there is not a clear message
> of intolerance for discriminatory behaviours when in the Mozilla Space
> (be that real or virtual).


What "underrepresented" and "continue to be silenced" groups do you mean
there, within Mozilla activities? SeaMonkey "followers"? Camino
developers? Newsgroup lovers? I've seen those be treated with
intolerance, discriminated, or ridiculed withing the community a couple
of times. I think those groups always found a way to clear out the
problems and calm down everyone in the end, bringing our collaborative
and inclusive work ethic to the front again and working together under
the Mozilla mission.
And I don't see how we should make "social, economic, political or
religious views" outside of the Mozilla mission a necessary part of
Mozilla as a whole. I fully agree with Mitchell in that.

If you are talking about MoCo as an employer, that might be a different
story, but rules for that are probably not the topic of the governance
list/group.

Robert Kaiser

[Jb Piacentino]

Language is certainly another potential barrier. I am sure a large
number of non native English speaking readers hesitate in jumping in (I
know for a fact this is painfully true in Daniel's country - which is
also mine btw).
Maybe turning to someone in your local Mozilla community could help in
that situation ?

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

[Mitchell Baker]

Agh, I found this message really helpful. I've put my train of thinking
below. I'll probably put the concusion in a separate message as well.


This message lead me down this path:

There is the question of whether one understands, internalizes or is
trying to respond helpfully to the difficult, oppressed experiences of
particular groups.

There's also the question of if an how these overall social experiences
/ difficulties / oppression is reflected in Mozilla specific things.

For example: Let's stipulate that someone understands whole-heartedly
the content you describe, and perhaps is even doing things in their life
to try to address this.

It's immediate, unavoidable, life-altering systemic abuse that
you can't escape no matter how you try. It's having countries
execute you, police detain you, hospitals refuse you, employers

fire you, schools expel you,families disown you, strangers beat

you and stalk you, colleagues harass you. Daily. Your whole
life. It's a system.

How should that translate into Mozilla? I think the differences on
where that translates are the source of many of the difficulties.

For example, I think I've been told I'm whitewashing the issue because I
find the long list of specific list of 15 or so categories some of which
require links to wikipedia to understand to be unhelpful. So now I
understand that having a list that people can point to and say "those
words right there are me" is important.

Does this mean people should assume I'm not in the category that
understands the context you describe above? Or assume I'm not actively
trying to change the context you describe? I think not, but I think some
of that is happening. This is my guess as to some of the problem. (
I've used myself as an example here not because I'm particularly
important but because I don't have to wonder if I'm hurting someone else
by using him or her as the example.)

I think probably one's reaction to specific language in a code of
conduct has become a litmus test of whether one understands the context
you describe and more broadly whether one respects specified groups of
people. That explains why everyone is so upset.


"i need this kind of language in a writtem document to feel comfortable
that you understand the context i live in and are going to support me as
a full-fledged Mozilla contributor"

This makes total sense to me. This message has either been delivered or
heard (let's not debate which right now, maybe later) as:

"if you don't accept my way of expressing this you don't respect various
groups of people, and even treat them as non-human and we won't tolerate
this behavior."

Thus we have everyone upset.

Is this close?


mitchell

On 4/5/12 11:00 AM, Graydon Hoare wrote:

[Majken Connor]

Some notes on several posts (and I skimmed a bunch):

On why it's hard - because this was raised as a reaction to a divisive
issue and so the water is somewhat poisoned. Some people want to make sure
it's worded so strictly that the original incident doesn't happen. Which is
complicated more because there hasn't been a public stance taken on that
incident. It's also hard because not many people have brought up other
examples that the code should address to help others understand.

On escalation - living with mconnor gave me a really great perspective on
how Mozilla works, or at least engineering, and it's pretty awesome. It was
totally fine if his employees went to Schrep with a problem because Schrep
was around and everyone is there to help everyone, it wasn't seen as
disrespectful or going over anyone's head. There are many reasons why
someone might want to talk to someone else first before addressing the
person directly. As Mozilla grows I've been keenly aware of the ways things
are being taken to in person or phone meetings between employees because
it's more convenient or more efficient (not always bad). There have been a
few times where I've said something directly replying to a comment to make
sure that's not what's going on (eg "please email me directly if you want
to keep talking about this). In many of the occasions I was the only one
who had taken the messages that way. The last time it happened I found it
useful to ask my friends what they knew about something first, and they
were able to answer my questions so that I could make a more thoughtful
comment, or take away my need to raise it at all.

Conductors - I don't believe we'll go forward with using them without
analyzing the situation. I have some concerns at the moment, it's very
employee heavy, and right now it's just a designation. If they're to be
official promoted mediators I'd like to see a bit more activity from them,
including some meetings and blog posts about ways we can better get along
or handle conflict in a constructive way. I'd want to make sure they have a
policy themselves on how to better help and make sure they're people who
are comfortable with conflict since they'll be in the middle of it and we
don't want them advising people to "just let it go." But I also believe the
people suggesting this are also planning on checking with them and beefing
up the program or it would be a poor suggestion.

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

[Teoli]

On 05/04/12 12:32, Mitchell Baker wrote:
> For example, I think I've been told I'm whitewashing the issue because I
> find the long list of specific list of 15 or so categories some of which
> require links to wikipedia to understand to be unhelpful. So now I
> understand that having a list that people can point to and say "those
> words right there are me" is important.

One thing I strongly dislike in a specific list is that it makes
non-listed minorities less important than listed ones.

We will only list the bigger minorities, vocal enough, to be heard. This
will make other minorities feel more excluded. It is unfair.

In my country, one says that we can live together because we are all the
minority of some other empowered group and that, thanks to that, when
the majority of any group takes a decision, they listen to the
minorities opinion carefully.

My impression of Mozilla is that it is the same. We are so diverse that
everybody is also member a member of a minority. It is impossible to
list all minorities, by doing this we will single out worth vs non-worth
minorities. That's far worse than no list.

--
Jean-Yves

[Tim Chevalier]

On Apr 5, 11:24 am, Mitchell Baker <mitch...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> It should be safe for people to say "wow, I've just been told we treat
> people as "non-human."  Where did that come from?  I'm upset, or hurt or
> angry. "

Should it be safe for people to say here, "I feel that I'm being
treated as less than a person, and I'm upset, hurt or angry about
that"?

Cheers,
Tim

[Mitchell Baker]

Absolutely.

Also, saying that "I feel that naming particular categories of people in
the document is important; otherwise I'm uncomfortable that it won't be
clear that group is explicitly included" and "i feel really angry that
this isn't in there" or "really angry that you dont' understand this"
let's me know what's going on.

Saying that because I didn't recognize this or that because i did
something different at first means i have a huge set of undesirable,
disrespectful and intolerable views or behavior doesn't help me learn,
makes a lot of assumptions about me and requires me to set a lot aside
to try and make progress.

(Again i use myself as an example only because i'm sure i'm not hurting
some third person by using them as an example.)


mitchell

[Tim Chevalier]

On Apr 5, 1:45 pm, Mitchell Baker <mitch...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/12 1:31 PM, Tim Chevalier wrote:> On Apr 5, 11:24 am, Mitchell Baker<mitch...@mozilla.com>  wrote:
> >> It should be safe for people to say "wow, I've just been told we treat
> >> people as "non-human."  Where did that come from?  I'm upset, or hurt or
> >> angry. "
>
> > Should it be safe for people to say here, "I feel that I'm being
> > treated as less than a person, and I'm upset, hurt or angry about
> > that"?
>
> > Cheers,
> > Tim
>
> Absolutely.
>
> Also, saying that "I feel that naming particular categories of people in
> the document is important; otherwise I'm uncomfortable that it won't be
> clear that group is explicitly included" and "i feel really angry that
> this isn't in there"  or "really angry that you dont' understand this"
> let's me know what's going on.
>
> Saying that because I didn't recognize this or that because i did
> something different at first means i have a huge set of undesirable,
> disrespectful and intolerable views or behavior doesn't help me learn,
> makes a lot of assumptions about me and requires me to set a lot aside
> to try and make progress.
>

When I've been hurt, I find it helpful for the person who has hurt me
to listen and focus on understanding what happened, rather than on
defending their self-image as a respectful or tolerant person. When
I've been hurt, it's not helpful to me to be told I have to phrase
things in a way that pleases the person who hurt me. When I'm told
that, it makes me not want to talk about having been hurt, and simply
avoid the person who hurt me in the future. That doesn't help the
person who hurt me learn or grow, either, since if I'm bringing it up
at all, I'm conveying my recognition that they didn't do it in person.

The reason I bother to explain this is that what I've seen happen over
and over in the discussions on this list over the past weeks, as well
as in auxiliary discussions, is that those of us who were hurt by the
incident that sparked these discussions[*] have been told we need to
rephrase our hurt and anger so as to be nicer to the people who may
want to be hurtful things to us. I, personally, call these kinds of
responses "derailing" because I don't find them helpful. It makes me
want to avoid other Mozillans rather than engaging with them, because
it's just easier that way and I can do my work without people hurting
me. But it's sad if people aren't willing to learn and, instead,
attack people who are making themselves vulnerable by saying "I've
been hurt".

Cheers,
Tim

[*] This is not to dwell *too* much on the impact of the original
incident. The point is that none of us, I think want to be hurt again,
and none of us want to see steps taken that will make it more likely
that we will be hurt again.

[Gavin Sharp]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Tim Chevalier <catamo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The reason I bother to explain this is that what I've seen happen over
> and over in the discussions on this list over the past weeks, as well
> as in auxiliary discussions, is that those of us who were hurt by the
> incident that sparked these discussions[*] have been told we need to
> rephrase our hurt and anger so as to be nicer to the people who may
> want to be hurtful things to us.

I'm pretty confident that I haven't seen any examples of people
intending to "do hurtful things" in this discussion. Intent doesn't
change the fact that pain was caused, but I think it does have an
effect on how you should approach addressing that pain. The core
misunderstandings I've seen in this discussion seem to stem from a
lack of empathy and understanding, not a lack of good will (though
unfortunately the former can breed the latter in later stages of
conflict - I fear we may have hit that point in some cases :( ).

Given this, I think it's important to note that choice of language
should focus on resolving the misunderstanding, and increasing
empathy. This often requires making arguments based on whatever shared
understanding already exists, rather than making absolute statements
that are unlikely to increase empathy. It's a reality that many
participants in this discussion cannot fathom feeling "unsafe" or even
"hurt" as a result of interactions in a Mozilla context. Merely
stating that these people are wrong unfortunately isn't going to be
effective in making them understand that perspective. To truly resolve
that misunderstanding requires an effort from both sides (note that
I'm not making a judgement about whether that reality is "fair"). One
side needs to be open to understanding, and willing to listen; the
other side needs to be willing to explain using language that relies
as little as possible on perspectives that aren't shared, and avoiding
hyperbole.

Gavin

[Gavin Sharp]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> "i need this kind of language in a writtem document to feel comfortable that
> you understand the context i live in and are going to support me as a
> full-fledged Mozilla contributor"
>
> This makes total sense to me.  This message has either been delivered or
> heard (let's not debate which right now, maybe later) as:
>
> "if you don't accept my way of expressing this you don't respect various
> groups of people, and even treat them as non-human and we won't tolerate
> this behavior."
>
> Thus we have everyone upset.
>
> Is this close?

I've tried to express this differently in the other thread, but this
is a much better distillation of a misunderstanding that I see as one
of the core causes of conflict. Hopefully identifying it explicitly
will help clear things up.

Thanks for this.

Gavin

[Tim Chevalier]

On Apr 5, 2:34 pm, Gavin Sharp <ga...@gavinsharp.com> wrote:
> Given this, I think it's important to note that choice of language
> should focus on resolving the misunderstanding, and increasing
> empathy. This often requires making arguments based on whatever shared
> understanding already exists, rather than making absolute statements
> that are unlikely to increase empathy. It's a reality that many
> participants in this discussion cannot fathom feeling "unsafe" or even
> "hurt" as a result of interactions in a Mozilla context. Merely
> stating that these people are wrong unfortunately isn't going to be
> effective in making them understand that perspective. To truly resolve
> that misunderstanding requires an effort from both sides (note that
> I'm not making a judgement about whether that reality is "fair"). One
> side needs to be open to understanding, and willing to listen; the
> other side needs to be willing to explain using language that relies
> as little as possible on perspectives that aren't shared, and avoiding
> hyperbole.

I have a lot of empathy for people in more privileged social
placements than my own. I have to, in order to survive.

So I don't think it's very productive for me to try to be *more*
empathetic towards them when many of them seem to show zero empathy
towards me. When someone belittles any concern I may have as
"political correctness" or "oversensitivity", I just don't think it's
possible for me to get them to be empathetic towards me. When someone
has already written me off as unworthy of equal respect and
consideration, *I* can't do anything to change that. Someone in a more
privileged social placement than my own might be able to, which is why
I appreciate the few allies who have stepped in to say what might not
be listened to if someone like me (or anyone else who's part of the
Homozilla affinity group) was saying it.

When you make it my responsibility to "convert" or "persuade" people
who have already written me off as subordinate, I feel like that's
asking me to do something superhuman.

I agree with your statement "Merely stating that these people are

wrong unfortunately isn't going to be effective in making them

understand that perspective". I don't think that some people will ever
realize that they ought to empathize with people less privileged than
themselves, because there is nothing in it for them. That's the nature
of privilege: everyone has an incentive to empathize "up", but
incentives to empathize "down" are rare. One could argue that the
incentive is the ability to collaborate with everybody in the Mozilla
community and not just those who are socially, economically and
culturally similar to oneself, but clearly not everybody agrees that
this is a good thing. Or at least it's clear to me, reading the
comments from those who evidently would rather not work with me
because they value the ability to make comments in a project context
that devalue groups I'm part of more than they value anything I could
potentially contribute.

Rather, I state that "these people are wrong" in order to make it
known to those who are actually setting policy -- and it's not always
clear to me who that is -- that what has happened has compromised my
ability to feel safe at work and fractured my trust in the community.

Cheers,
Tim

[Mark Côté]

On 12-04-05 03:50 PM, Teoli wrote:
> In my country, one says that we can live together because we are all the
> minority of some other empowered group and that, thanks to that, when
> the majority of any group takes a decision, they listen to the
> minorities opinion carefully.
>
> My impression of Mozilla is that it is the same. We are so diverse that
> everybody is also member a member of a minority. It is impossible to
> list all minorities, by doing this we will single out worth vs non-worth
> minorities. That's far worse than no list.

Not sure I understand this. I am straight, 33-year-old male of European
descent. Sure I dress a bit funny, have unconventional political views,
and was bullied a bit in school (a looong time ago) for being nerdy, but
I think it's a big stretch to say that I am just as much a minority as,
say, a queer person of colour or a transgendered woman. I feel that that
would be a serious abuse of the privileges heaped upon me simply because
I was born white and straight.

Mark

[Gavin Sharp]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Tim Chevalier <catamo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> When you make it my responsibility to "convert" or "persuade" people
> who have already written me off as subordinate, I feel like that's
> asking me to do something superhuman.

Fair enough. I recognize that it can be incredibly difficult to
"persuade" people, and that sometimes it doesn't feel worth it. But
I'm fairly confident that no one in the Mozilla community would accept
the characterization that they have "written you off as subordinate"
because of who you are. I really don't want to get into a debate about
semantics, but this highlights a communications issue. You feel that
you have been "written off as subordinate", and making an effort to
explain *why* you feel that way, in a way that will be understood by
the people responsible for making you feel that way, is just about the
only truly effective way to ensure that they don't do it again. The
establishment of a Code of Conduct is unlikely to be effective in
achieving that goal if the misunderstandings remain (though it may be
useful in other ways, e.g. by providing a better environment in which
that conversation can take place).

Gavin

[Tim Chevalier]

On Apr 5, 4:02 pm, Gavin Sharp <ga...@gavinsharp.com> wrote:
> I really don't want to get into a debate about
> semantics, but this highlights a communications issue. You feel that
> you have been "written off as subordinate", and making an effort to
> explain *why* you feel that way, in a way that will be understood by
> the people responsible for making you feel that way, is just about the
> only truly effective way to ensure that they don't do it again. The
> establishment of a Code of Conduct is unlikely to be effective in
> achieving that goal if the misunderstandings remain (though it may be
> useful in other ways, e.g. by providing a better environment in which
> that conversation can take place).

I strongly disagree. There are some people in the world who, I
believe, will always see me as subordinate. Some of those people
happen to be part of Mozilla. There is nothing I can do to make them
change their mind, because they derive social privilege and status
from seeing themselves as superior to me. Anyway, I don't really need
to make them change their minds. What would allow me to do my job in a
safe environment is a system that creates consequences and
accountability for bad behavior, including behaviors founded in the
abuse of power.

It's easy to think that abuses of power and privilege arise from
"misunderstandings". I don't think that they always do. It feels good
to be at the top of a social totem pole and bad to be at the bottom.
People who are at the top want to stay that way. Passing legislation
to invalidate the relationships of people lower in the status
hierarchy is just one way they do that. I don't believe the answer
here is to correct misunderstandings -- that would put me in a
position of having to win a debate in order to prove that I deserve to
be treated equally. I have very little interest in having to do that
on the job. Rather, I think the answer is to clearly articulate that
Mozilla values keeping social hierarchies in the outside world and not
recreating them inside the project, because recreating those
hierarchies in the project would exclude some contributors and thus
hurt the project; and that there will be consequences for those who go
against that value. Unfortunately, at least in its current form, it
looks like the Code of Conduct won't do either of those things.

Cheers,
Tim

[Fred Wenzel]

On Thu Apr 5 16:24:33 2012, Tim Chevalier wrote:
> I think the answer is to clearly articulate that
> Mozilla values keeping social hierarchies in the outside world and not
> recreating them inside the project, because recreating those
> hierarchies in the project would exclude some contributors and thus
> hurt the project; and that there will be consequences for those who go
> against that value.

This is pretty much exactly, almost word-for-word identical to the
proposal Mitchell has made most recently. (Paraphrased: Be exclusionary
all you want *outside* Mozilla, but *inside* Mozilla we're an inclusive
community).

> Unfortunately, at least in its current form, it looks like the Code of Conduct won't do either of those things.

I am actually fairly certain it does. It a) specifically states the
inclusiveness of the community, and it will b) devise a (TBD)
escalation path to get occurring problems resolved. All it really can
provide is an affirmative statement of how we want to treat each other
and how to act if someone doesn't adhere to those principles
(intentionally or by accident). The one thing it can unfortunately not
guarantee is that no one will ever get hurt again -- but it can (and, I
think, it *will*) get us a whole lot closer to keeping it from
happening.

~F

[Justin Dolske]

On 4/4/12 6:18 PM, fantasai wrote:

>> Be collaborative.
>
> Lucy mentioned "Be open". Neither of these is about how to treat
> people, but a core part of how we work. I think they should either
> both be there, or both not be there.

I think "open" tends to be a little wishy-washy these days; it's used in
too many different ways and has lost a crispness of meaning.

"Invite participation" might be the phrase I would use... It's both a
literal statement of how we work, and a measure of how appropriate
certain actions/words may be.

>> 5. We may also, separately, address whether our big communications
>> channels like planet.mozilla.org should default to
>> "mozilla-related" default or to a "whole-person" default. I think
>> I'm still of the former opinion, I recognize the planet peers are
>> of the latter.
>
> I think we should have both options. It's not just about people being
> offended; it's also about people's bandwidth and improving their
> ability to keep up with and read things they're interested in.

Yes. I've written about this a few times already -- even before the post
that started this, I think it was pretty broadly agreed that Planet was
a high-volume firehose that was hard to fully (or even partially!) consume.

But very little of the Planet content is not Mozilla-related. Even, I
would posit, by a very narrow definition of what that means. So I think
it's quite important to keep the issues of content and volume separate.
They'll need different solutions. I worry that by attempting to address
both now is either an overreaction to the rare "inappropriate" post, or
conflating the two separate problems.

Justin

[Nicholas Nethercote]

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Teoli
<news.fak...@localhost.invalid> wrote:
>
> One thing I strongly dislike in a specific list is that it makes non-listed
> minorities less important than listed ones.
>
> We will only list the bigger minorities, vocal enough, to be heard. This
> will make other minorities feel more excluded. It is unfair.

That's interesting; I've been thinking that a shorter list is better.

I'm in favour of the Code of Conduct. I agree with Christie that it
needs clear language about unacceptable behaviour and that it should
mention specific minorities. And yet, when I see a list like this:

> age, culture, ethnicity, genotype, gender identity or expression, language, national origin,
> neurotype, phenotype, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual
> orientation, socio-economic status, subculture and technical ability"

I can't help but groan. (Apologies to Deb for quoting her slightly
out of context, but a similar list was given earlier on in this
discussion.) I understand the intent is to be comprehensive, but I
feel that a much shorter list -- one that contains the "weaponized"
categories that Graydon eloquently described -- is more meaningful.

In fact, I suspect that for people who are unconvinced about the
necessity of a Code of Conduct, a list that long might tip them over
into concluding "what a bunch of politically correct crap". In
contrast, a shorter list perhaps would not elicit that response.

Having said that, adding a "catch-all" phrase to indicate that the
listed minorities are not the only relevant ones would be useful.
Something like "We welcome people of any gender, sexual orientation,
disability, ethnicity, religion, or any other characteristic".
"Characteristic" probably isn't the best word here but I'm sure
there's a good, simple way to express this that doesn't involve words
like "phenotype".

Nick

[Justin Dolske]

On 4/5/12 9:54 AM, L. David Baron wrote:
> On Thursday 2012-04-05 13:43 -0300, Deb Richardson wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Gervase Markham<ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>>> We need a defined path for escalation of problems, and it needs to include,
>>> at a very early stage, privately communicating with the person who has upset
>>> you.
>>
>> It should be part of the escalation path, but absolutely should not be
>> a requirement. If someone is harmed and is not comfortable
>> communicating directly with the person who has done that harm, under
>> no circumstances should they be forced to do so before escalating to a
>> higher level.
>
> Is it worth saying that the escalation path ought to begin
> privately, and stay private at least until the person has been
> notified and had a chance to respond?

Maybe?

In many cases, I'd agree that attempting to resolve problems without a
public flogging is more likely to be successful and satisfying. (e.g.,
if someone feels patch review was needlessly strict, creating a public
scene is not really helpful for anyone -- talk it over with the reviewer
or module owner).

But I think it would be tricky to write such advice in a way that
doesn't come across as trying to silence people or serve as a cover-up
(even if that's not the intent).

Justin

[Tim Chevalier]

On Apr 5, 7:55 pm, Nicholas Nethercote <n.netherc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't help but groan.  (Apologies to Deb for quoting her slightly
> out of context, but a similar list was given earlier on in this
> discussion.)

Is your groan related to the number of groups on the list that you are
a part of?

>  I understand the intent is to be comprehensive, but I
> feel that a much shorter list -- one that contains the "weaponized"
> categories that Graydon eloquently described -- is more meaningful.

But the categories on the longer list are all weaponized categories. I
don't believe Graydon intended his list to be exhaustive.

>
> In fact, I suspect that for people who are unconvinced about the
> necessity of a Code of Conduct, a list that long might tip them over
> into concluding "what a bunch of politically correct crap".  In
> contrast, a shorter list perhaps would not elicit that response.
>

Please don't engage in concern trolling. It's not helpful. Stating
your own opinion and owning it with an I-statement is fine, but
weaselly statements attributed to nebulous "people" are unfair.

> Having said that, adding a "catch-all" phrase to indicate that the
> listed minorities are not the only relevant ones would be useful.
> Something like "We welcome people of any gender, sexual orientation,
> disability, ethnicity, religion, or any other characteristic".
> "Characteristic" probably isn't the best word here but I'm sure
> there's a good, simple way to express this that doesn't involve words
> like "phenotype".
>

The problem is that this doesn't differentiate between groups that are
systematically oppressed and groups that aren't; there needs to be
*something* in there to stop white guys from claiming they're
oppressed as white guys because they can no longer dominate situations
the way they expect to.

Cheers,
Tim

[Asa Dotzler]

On 4/5/2012 8:05 PM, Tim Chevalier wrot

> The problem is that this doesn't differentiate between groups that are
> systematically oppressed and groups that aren't; there needs to be
> *something* in there to stop white guys from claiming they're
> oppressed

There are plenty of places in the world where "white guys" and
especially "christian white guys" are a persecuted minority, where they
reasonably fear for their well-being and even their lives. This policy
cannot speak only to the state of oppressed groups in your neighborhood.

- A

[Fred Wenzel]

On Thu Apr 5 21:17:00 2012, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> On 4/5/2012 8:05 PM, Tim Chevalier wrot

>> The problem is that this doesn't differentiate between groups that are
>> systematically oppressed and groups that aren't; there needs to be
>> *something* in there to stop white guys from claiming they're
>> oppressed
>

> There are plenty of places in the world where "white guys" and
> especially "christian white guys" are a persecuted minority, where
> they reasonably fear for their well-being and even their lives. This
> policy cannot speak only to the state of oppressed groups in your
> neighborhood.

Additionally, it is important to ensure contributions to Mozilla remain
being valued on merit. Turning a discussion ad hominem is never
acceptable, whether you're a proverbial "white guy" or not.

~F

[Daniel Glazman]

On 4/5/12 10:28 AM, Al Billings wrote:

> Quoting a silent majority as support to espouse a position that,
> fundamentally, is at odds with this ongoing process (seeing it as both
> unnecessary and, from what I can tell, stupid), is not really going to
> move things forward.

You are making a totally false assumption here and I would like you to
stop that. It was not done in such a way. People pinged me for private
discussions almost always expressing the fact they are NOT ok to
expose themselves on such a topic. I found the fact important enough
to let Mitchell and you all know. This is the second time in less than
6 months that a bunch of mozillians tell me they are not comfortable
with making their opinions public even if they would like to
contribute to the debate. I would have done the same for messages
expressing disagreement with me but fear to expose themselves too.

> At this point, I think we've all heard your overarching theme that many
> Europeans, especially the French, will say that they can talk about
> politics, women, minority groups, etc. without being offended (or, at
> least, without anyone telling *you* they are offended), unlike Americans
> (apparently). You don't need to continue to beat that drum.

I thought we were not supposed to tell someone to stop speaking/
writing. All but you apparently?

</Daniel>

[Al Billings]

On 4/5/12 10:46 PM, Daniel Glazman wrote:
>> At this point, I think we've all heard your overarching theme that many
>> > Europeans, especially the French, will say that they can talk about
>> > politics, women, minority groups, etc. without being offended (or, at
>> > least, without anyone telling *you* they are offended), unlike Americans
>> > (apparently). You don't need to continue to beat that drum.
>
> I thought we were not supposed to tell someone to stop speaking/
> writing. All but you apparently?

You misunderstand, Daniel. I'm not telling you to stop speaking. I am
telling you that you can quit beating the horse because it is dead. To
use less colloquial phrasing, "We have heard your message. You don't
need to keep saying the same message over and over. We get it."

I do question whether it is true that no one has problems with this kind
of speech in France/Europe or if it is simply that people in less
privileged groups are not willing to publicly state that they do. We
used to have the same problem (and often still do) in the United States.
People used to make all kinds of jokes at the expense of women and
minorities as a common occurrence and would say, "See, we're all
laughing. No one has any problem with any of it!" In fact, lots of
people have problems with it but they knew that there would be
repercussions if they spoke up. Silence doesn't always equal consent.
Sometimes it just means people don't feel free to speak their minds.

This has analogies in this overall discussion that may bear reflection upon.

Al

[Al Billings]

On 4/5/12 8:05 PM, Tim Chevalier wrote:
> Please don't engage in concern trolling. It's not helpful. Stating
> your own opinion and owning it with an I-statement is fine, but
> weaselly statements attributed to nebulous "people" are unfair.

I don't think tone policing people is useful here, Tim. It is not up to
you to determine what is or is not "fine" in this discussion or to label
someone as "trolling." It is a discussion and everyone here should feel
free to speak their mind, even if it is disagreeable.

Al

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 6, 8:16 am, Al Billings <abilli...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> You misunderstand, Daniel. I'm not telling you to stop speaking. I am
> telling you that you can quit beating the horse because it is dead. To
> use less colloquial phrasing, "We have heard your message. You don't
> need to keep saying the same message over and over. We get it."

Strange way of saying sorry for saying 'Quoting a silent majority as
support to espouse a position', I must say.

Fair enough on the quote above but my point was not that one. You did
not answer to the first part of my message. The important fact was not
people agreeing with me or not, the important fact is people not
willing to speak up because it's too controversial or dangerous or
painful or whatever for them even if they DO have an opinion AND will
to express it. I am absolutely sure they are many people not speaking
up and totally disagreeing with me and that's absolutely fine, eh! I
just think we need all opinions here and that's why I highly value
Mitchell's message telling this people "if you don't want to go public
at least please mail me".

</Daniel>

[Anthony Ricaud]

I'm not comfortable expressing my opinion on this very sensitive subject
because English is not my native language. It's not easy for me to find
the right words to clearly express my thoughts without being misunderstood.

I think many people are in the same boat.

On 05/04/12 20:24 , Mitchell Baker wrote:
> Actually, I encourage the people who wrote Daniel privately to speak up.
> If you are not comfortable speaking up in public then you should come
> to me. I own the result here, not Daniel. If you don't trust me then
> find someone you do trust who will get to me. Otherwise you are
> devaluing your own views and your ability to build our community.
>
> For those who would say something needs to be on this list to be valid,
> I urge you to look at today's stream re escalation process for those
> that aren't comfortable -- there are some eloquent statements about
> what to do when you don't feel safe or comfortable in public.
>
> Or if you're worried you can't express your idea calmly, then again let
> me know.
>

> It should be safe for people to say "wow, I've just been told we treat
> people as "non-human." Where did that come from? I'm upset, or hurt or
> angry. "
>
>

> mitchell
>

[Majken Connor]

there needs to be

> *something* in there to stop white guys from claiming they're

> oppressed as white guys because they can no longer dominate situations
> the way they expect to.
>
> Cheers,
> Tim

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

How is this kind of discrimination ok? Anyone who has power can abuse it or
be upset when they lose it. I happen to be raising a straight white male,
and he's pretty amazing (don't take my word for it, you can ask anyone here
who has met him). Why is it ok to assume I haven't raised him to be
respectful and empathetic to those less fortunate or different? In his
life he's already had to overcome being born to a teenaged mother, not
knowing his father, being on welfare and having the parents he knows
divorce. If you think straight white men can't be bullied for being gay,
you don't know enough teenagers, or dancers, or cross dressers. Being a
straight white male doesn't protect you from being molested as a child, or
being poor, or being beaten. Why do we have to push someone down to create
equality? Jerks come in every color, gender, size, race, neurotype and
phenotype...

I love this entry for one of the tshirt contests:
http://creative.mozilla.org/designs/1957 especially the part where people
are helping each other join the group. People who wish to empower and
uplift each other are welcome, people who don't want to share are not.
Period. If straight white men have so much power, shouldn't we be treating
them as allies? Like my son, who (with futility) tries to convince the
other teenaged boys he knows it's not cool to use "gay" or "faggot" as a
negative term. Or does that not count because he happened to be born male,
white and straight?

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 5, 8:56 pm, Majken Connor <maj...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This is a danger of trying to avoid or suppress too much conflict. People
> don't want to speak up, or they don't feel like they're supposed to.

I missed that comment of yours, Majken, so responding only now; and I
want to say I could not agree more.
Even conflicts can be constructive, and sometimes the pressure valve
needs to let pressure escape to avoid a more catastrophic event.

</Daniel>

[Siddharth Agarwal]

On 06-04-2012 07:36, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> I've talked to two Mozillians in the last couple of weeks, one paid and
> one volunteer, who have strong opinions about this topic but
> newsgroups/mailinglists/googlegroups are too high a hurdle to for them
> to join the discussion.
>
> I think we should not make any final pronouncements without some other
> mechanism for people to participate that doesn't require l337 haxor
> skillz. Limiting the discussion and planning for a policy that will
> impact thousands of Mozillians across the globe to those who can make it
> over the newsgroup hurdle seems really selective and really bad to me.

And discriminatory, honestly.

[Lukas Blakk]

On 4/5/12 12:03 PM, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>
> What "underrepresented" and "continue to be silenced" groups do you
> mean there, within Mozilla activities? SeaMonkey "followers"? Camino
> developers? Newsgroup lovers? I've seen those be treated with
> intolerance, discriminated, or ridiculed withing the community a
> couple of times. I think those groups always found a way to clear out
> the problems and calm down everyone in the end, bringing our
> collaborative and inclusive work ethic to the front again and working
> together under the Mozilla mission.
The world's population of women usually hovers around 54%, Mozilla's is
currently about 18%
Homosexuality is generally accepted to be 10% of humans, Mozilla's LGBT
population is about 3%
I'm not going to attempt to put numbers on our population of people of
colour but I can assure you we fall below norms there as well.

This "laundry list" isn't supposed to be about covering every possible
minority situation that can arise in a large, diverse group of people.
In fact, it's not about 'minority' at all. It's about oppression and a
history of struggle against it. Being the only SeaMonkey follower in a
room of Camino developers may make you a minority in the room but it
doesn't (and can't) make you oppressed.

Women struggle for the right to vote, and continue having to fight for
for equal rights
Blacks fought to end slavery, and still fight daily against profiling
and discrimination based on the colour of their skin
Homosexuals have fought and continue to experience police brutality,
forced institutionalization, and workplace discrimination (eg: fighting
for same sex benefits)

These are just a few very generalized (and hopefully obvious and
universally agreed upon) examples of _historical_ and large-scale
struggles against oppression.

Putting together a "laundry list" for the purposes of inclusion should
be a way of saying "We are going to try and be part of the solution for
people experiencing these struggles by acknowledging these groups exist,
their oppression is real, and promising to help deal with bad behaviour
directed toward these groups as we know they are people who are fighting
oppression and we are their ally in that fight".

It's not like it's the guest list for a show - being on the list is not
itself a privilege. I don't want to be on that list, I need to be on
that list and know that my larger community _sees_ me, cares for me, and
wants to be trying to do better by everyone, but with a nod to the
people on that list that says "yes, you belong here too". That these
sort of issues and discussions rarely come up at Mozilla is indeed a
sign that we are generally better than average. The list is just a
compass to help show ourselves and the outside world that we recognize
oppression exists and we won't sit idly by if it happens in our spaces.

Cheers,
Lukas

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

[Robert Accettura]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 11:05 PM, Tim Chevalier <catamo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 5, 7:55 pm, Nicholas Nethercote <n.netherc...@gmail.com> wrote:

...

>>
>> In fact, I suspect that for people who are unconvinced about the
>> necessity of a Code of Conduct, a list that long might tip them over
>> into concluding "what a bunch of politically correct crap".  In
>> contrast, a shorter list perhaps would not elicit that response.
>>
>

> Please don't engage in concern trolling. It's not helpful. Stating
> your own opinion and owning it with an I-statement is fine, but
> weaselly statements attributed to nebulous "people" are unfair.
>

>> Having said that, adding a "catch-all" phrase to indicate that the
>> listed minorities are not the only relevant ones would be useful.
>> Something like "We welcome people of any gender, sexual orientation,
>> disability, ethnicity, religion, or any other characteristic".
>> "Characteristic" probably isn't the best word here but I'm sure
>> there's a good, simple way to express this that doesn't involve words
>> like "phenotype".
>>
>

> The problem is that this doesn't differentiate between groups that are

> systematically oppressed and groups that aren't; there needs to be

> *something* in there to stop white guys from claiming they're
> oppressed as white guys because they can no longer dominate situations
> the way they expect to.

Accusing Mozillians of "systematic oppression" (your words, I'm just
changing the tense) is a pretty strong accusation, especially without
specific examples. I think this list deserves some specific examples
of where this has occurred in the community. Otherwise, this is as
"nebulous" as the term "people" like you said above. If you want to
keep things specific to Mozilla and it's experiences that should be
universal, not something that applies to everyone but you. It's only
fair in a civil discussion for everyone to abide by the same rules.

Also, while you personally may have no problems with reverse
discrimination, that seems like a terrible precedent to set, and
likely not the opinion of most people (and certainly in contrast with
American law which many of us abide by and I'm sure other countries
laws). Historically it's completely possible for a majority, or close
to it to be oppressed. For most of human history women have been the
prime example of that as they have comprised ~50% give or take a few
percent in most populations. Even so called matriarchal societies are
in many respects hardly such[1].

There is not a single person on this list that can't find something
about them that is part of a group that is oppressed somewhere in this
world. Between race, religion, nationality, gender alone you can
likely rule everyone out. Everyone is also the majority in some way,
somewhere in the world. Picking and choosing doesn't work here.

Attempting to reverse discriminatory roles vs. striving for universal
equality is quite frankly unsettling. It's setting the bar extremely
low, and hoping people run into it. If anything the CoC should be
idealistic and overshoot. It would be sad if there's more ambitious
goals for Firefox performance than for equality in the community.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Matriarchal_Prehistory

[Teoli]

On 06/04/12 06:31, Lukas Blakk wrote:
> On 4/5/12 12:03 PM, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>>
>> What "underrepresented" and "continue to be silenced" groups do you
>> mean there, within Mozilla activities? SeaMonkey "followers"? Camino
>> developers? Newsgroup lovers? I've seen those be treated with
>> intolerance, discriminated, or ridiculed withing the community a
>> couple of times. I think those groups always found a way to clear out
>> the problems and calm down everyone in the end, bringing our
>> collaborative and inclusive work ethic to the front again and working
>> together under the Mozilla mission.
> The world's population of women usually hovers around 54%, Mozilla's is
> currently about 18%
> Homosexuality is generally accepted to be 10% of humans, Mozilla's LGBT
> population is about 3%

I question these numbers. I pretend you have no way to be able to
articulate such numbers, just because Mozilla community members are not
requested to reveal this information.

Please gives your source, I find it very worrying that sexuality
preference is tracked in the whole community.

[Tim Chevalier]

On Apr 6, 6:33 am, Robert Accettura <rob...@accettura.com> wrote:
> Accusing Mozillians of "systematic oppression" (your words, I'm just
> changing the tense) is a pretty strong accusation, especially without
> specific examples.  I think this list deserves some specific examples
> of where this has occurred in the community.  Otherwise, this is as

It has occurred recently, otherwise we wouldn't be having this
discussion. We all engage in systematic oppression, except to the
extent that we take specific action to avoid doing so. For example, as
a white person, I am racist except to the extent that I take active
effort not to be racist. That's not my fault -- it's because I was
raised in a racist culture -- but it *is* my responsibility to resist
that traininbg. Hope that clarifies.

> Also, while you personally may have no problems with reverse
> discrimination, that seems like a terrible precedent to set, and

Your use of the term "reverse discrimination" implies that you think
some forms of discrimination are acceptable. When I see "reverse
discrimination" I think that the speaker thinks some kinds of
discrimination are good and natural (e.g. discrimination against
women, people of color, queer people...): "reverse discrimination, as
opposed to the kind of discrimination that's the right kind."

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism (not an exclusive
list) are oppressive because they combine prejudice with power. People
without power can't oppress people with power. Dislike or disdain are
not the same as oppression. Honestly, I'm tired of having to explain
this over and over. These are not new concepts, and those of us who
are targets for systematic oppression know them intuitively. It's a
bit tiring to have others doubt that experience, and having it
aggressively doubted and questioned is one of the ways we're further
oppressed.

Cheers,
Tim

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 6, 4:28 pm, Tim Chevalier <catamorph...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It has occurred recently, otherwise we wouldn't be having this
> discussion. We all engage in systematic oppression, except to the
> extent that we take specific action to avoid doing so. For example, as
> a white person, I am racist except to the extent that I take active
> effort not to be racist. That's not my fault -- it's because I was
> raised in a racist culture -- but it *is* my responsibility to resist
> that traininbg. Hope that clarifies.

No it does not, not at all. On the contrary, it blurred the message,
IMHO. I am now totally lost...

I don't adhere to that, at all. I am not racist because the society
I'm living in is racist, I'm not antisemitic because the society I'm
living in is antisemitic. I don't find myself engaged in any
oppression of any kind even if the society oppresses some people.
Saying that is a philosophical concept of global guilt I do not buy,
sorry.

> Honestly, I'm tired of having to explain this over and over.

Convincing people is like education. It_is_ based on explaining things
over and over.

</Daniel>

[Tim Chevalier]

Sorry, playing the game of "calling out oppressive communication
patterns is oppression" is not useful either.

The whole point of this discussion is that everyone should *not* feel
free to speak their mind if speaking their mind means abusing their
power.

Cheers,
Tim

[Teoli]

On 06/04/12 07:28, Tim Chevalier wrote:
> We all engage in systematic oppression, except to the
> extent that we take specific action to avoid doing so.

Please don't use the 'we'. You can speak for yourself but not for me.

I'm not engaging in systematic oppression. I've have never done this,
even in positions where I am/was empowered.

I can't tolerate such a personal accusation, especially as you don't
know me.
-- Jean-Yves

[Fabrice Desré]

Tim,

I understand you are feeling oppressed in many ways. I also recognize you
have very good writing skills and can tirelessly voice your opinion using
them. This does not make you be right or wrong.

But I feel this has nothing to do with supporting Mozilla's mission. I
think you are fighting another battle here, which is the LGBTQ rights
issue in the USA.

You're not building trustiness and making people feel welcome.

All this CoC "discussions" makes me really sad about the state of Mozilla
as a community. I don't know how this will end, but it's gone too far
already to not let scars and resentment all over.

Fabrice

[Daniel Glazman]

On Apr 6, 3:31 pm, Lukas Blakk <lsbl...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> The world's population of women usually hovers around 54%, Mozilla's is
> currently about 18%
> Homosexuality is generally accepted to be 10% of humans, Mozilla's LGBT
> population is about 3%
> I'm not going to attempt to put numbers on our population of people of
> colour but I can assure you we fall below norms there as well.

(I posted earlier a reply to this that never appeared, this is an
attempt to repost, sorry if a doublon occurs)

These percentages are for Mozilla Corporation, right? How can you
extend them to the Mozilla Community at large? How are they just
relevant and helping the current dicussion?

On a side note, I really wonder how you got these percentages. Asking
for these data in most european and asian countries is just simply
illegal and quite strictly punished so your data are, at the maximum,
for US-based employees of MoCo.

</Daniel>