Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Re: Fedora Council policy proposal: Community Publishing Platforms

On Monday, 21 September 2020 20:19:04 CEST Justin W. Flory (he/him) wrote:
> I agree the language in the trademark guidelines might be dated today.
> It is an old document originally written in 2008 or earlier. In the
> current global environment, I think it is easier to acknowledge now that
> conflict is inevitable and we should plan for it.

Hello,

Random thought about Cocs and/or Trademark guidelines that I have had for the
past two years.
Disclaimer: Be warned I haven't sleep the last 48 hours, pardon my French,
might not be well structured, etc.

1) the perimeter of the CoC/Trademark guidelines should be as restrictive as
possible and not encroach the "space of *libre* expression" within Fedora:
personal blogs/microblogging are off limit, unless using Fedora trademarks and
syndicated to Fedora Planet/Community blogs (I don't use blogs or planet, but
I assume a blogger can easily block/choose a post from appearing in the
Planet/Community Blogs?) You're not off limit if you are a Fedora
representative (ambassadors/members of FPC/Releng/Infra/Council, the boss...)
as you should embody Fedora values.

2) the scope of the CoC/Trademark guidelines should be as vague as possible,
meaning with a large reach but with no precisely defined "conflict", like
currently: "Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no
excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some
frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a
personal attack."
Personal attack is vague enough to encompass your typical -isms and -bia
without being explicit (to be clear here: racism, sexism, homophobia,
biphobia, transphobia, whorephobia, fatphobia, lennartphobia and other I
forgot) while directed at *another Fedora contributor or group of contributors
within the Fedora perimeter specified in 1)*.

3) This would exclude:

- political opinions and religious opinions which are ideas, not people,
and as such are not covered. I typically expect this distinction to be not
understood in Anglo-saxon countries. It may be useful to strongly discourage
such discussions to take place within Fedora venues in the Coc.

- any crass speak happening inside the realm of "libre expression spaces"
(read here the American 1st amdt as that's were our benefactors and servers
are based) defined in 1) meaning you can be a giant dick on your secret
microblog or post your lewds on Onlyfans, as long as it doesn't interfere with
the work you produce within Fedora, Redhat/Fedora contributors and Fedora
Trademarked venues or if you are a Fedora representative (ambassadors/members
of FPC/Releng/Infra/Councils...).
Of course, if people find out/dox that you are secretly a giant dick or
that you posted it on Onlyfans, some contributors will less likely want to
work with you, but *that shouldn't be a Coc issue in my opinion*, people are
adult enough to decide with whom to associate in good conscience without a
court decision. (In that case, any doxing should be ironically reprimanded, as
it would be within the realm of a targeted personal attack against the giant
dick). Some people will want to continue to work and ignore the drama, others
will thrive on drama and refuse to work with that person anymore.

Also about enforcement, Rex Dieter said:
> "My suggestion: simply remove the extraneous text "(and future Fedura
> events)".
>
> Local organizers certainly should have the ability and right to remove
> participants that violate the rules of their local event. They do not,
> however, have the ability to decide what happens beyond that (I would argue
> that is the pervue of the board/council to decide). Given this, it's best to
> just not mention it, and avoid any potential confusion or
> misunderstandings."

https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/40#comment-42610


4) The current Coc says: "It's important to remember that a community where
people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one." I do not
exactly share this opinion or maybe the wording. The scope should be vague and
large as said in 2, but must refer to *actual* and "real" personal attacks,
not just an alleged victim "feeling uncomfortable" or "feeling threatened"
next to someone. I might feel uncomfortable next to 2 meters giant with biceps
as big as my legs packing a CCW, but if this is not an actual real threat as
in saying "I gonna eat you for dinner", an implicit rape threat like "You
dropped the bar of soap", or breathing loudly 30cm behind your neck or
sniffing your hair (etc), there should be no Coc involvement. We should
address real acts and not acts where the alleged victim *choose to take*
offense.

5) Here facts here are more important than only the subjective feeling of a
person or group of persons. Which leads me to next point people are generally
against: all facts of a Coc process must be released to the public, not in
order to have the opinions of the mob, the Coc council still decides, but to
make sure this decision is made without external pressure or conflict of
interests. This decision should not be made behind close doors but publicly
(anonymous vote of course). Any the alleged culprit must be able to present a
defense based on the alleged facts against him or her and must be able to face
his or her accusers, in *all* cases. This: https://pagure.io/fedora-diversity/
issue/3
is not what we should strive for in my opinion, this is sham justice,
we don't need to know who has voted what but we need to know that all the
parties involved (members of the Coc included) has no conflict of interests,
the proceedings must not be hidden from public view, and the accused must be
able to defend themselves publicly and know their accusers. To be more
explicit: no Title IX kangaroo court like in the US, more what an actual court
is supposed to be.

6) Any parties can ask for his or her case to be reexamined.

7) Coc *should* not meddle with actual legit crimes (like murdering your
wife). Let the courts do their things *as long as they are

8) Coc council should strive for amicable/in good will resolution, not being
trigger happy. not corrupt*. I let you judge if you want to include the U.S.
as not corrupt.


Anyway, I keep hearing about this Coc draft by Bex but I never seen that
actual draft. Now Marie Nordin/riecatnor is on it since last year? There are
tons of links in Pagure https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/145
but this is not really structured.
https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/105 was more structured but is
closed as Duplicate.

Also these by Bex:

> "What if we split moderation and ops duties. Under this model, ops does
> technical work and enacts moderator decisions that require privileges as
> needed. Moderators would be drawn from ambassadors, diversity and commops.
> The groups are already charged with helping with friendliness and
> accessibility. Those groups would need to decide how to determine who is a
> moderator and for how long.

https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/71#comment-42212

doesn't inspire me confidence for the drafted Coc. Most of our work is with
the technical people through PackagingCommitee/Infra/Releng. I'd rather be
judged by what is closer to my "peer" like 12 technical people than 12
ambassadors, diversity and comm-ops people that I have never encountered from
my past few years within Fedora. Maybe ambassadors/diversity do a great job,
but their work is probably targeted on outreach rather than reaching existing
contributors. I never heard of them either before being interested in Fedora.
That's why I believe it's important that there are technical people in these
Coc positions too.

> Consider guidelines for how to log problems and Code of Conduct violations.
> Consider anonymized external reporting."
>
https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/71#comment-42212

> Please open a new private issue in the Fedora Council Pagure Repository. All
> reports will be kept confidential
>
https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issue/109#comment-438127

We should be as transparent as possible, keeping reports confidential is a
disservice to the community, and may put a dent in the trust we may have in
the Coc council.

That us my thoughts about it. I think our current Coc is a good base to start
from.

Best regards,

Robert-André

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