[Development] QUIP 12: Code of Conduct

[Edward Welbourne]

On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 02:25:20PM +0000, Ulf Hermann wrote:
>> All the proposals for codes of conduct that I have seen so far mention
>> banning only as a last resort and have several less drastic measures
>> that should be applied before.

André Pönitz (29 October 2018 21:18) came back with
> That's exactly the way the Project has operated before, without the
> suggested burocratic overhead and without giving some committee
> super-powers ranking over all other mechanisms in the project.

Which indeed means we currently have a process, at least where there is
some form of moderation (the forum, the wiki) or admin group (IRC); and
I would argue this mailing list effectively is moderated, since various
well-established participants would step in and call someone out if
their conduct was out of line.  If we are satisfied with that process,
then all we need is a CoC, to give folk clarity as to what conduct they
can expect to be handled how sternly.  The CoC might indeed explicitly
say that the way it'll be "enforced" is by relevant admins acting
reasonably - in which case it's probably best to spell out that we *do*
expect our admins and moderators to act *within* the CoC *even* when
dealing with infractions.

> Sure, each time when action has to be taken on IRC or by mailing
> list moderation, people taking that decision feel somewhat uneasy,
> lest they be accused of censorship or similar. But that is *good*,
> as it makes people exercise any extra powers very consciously.

That's *mostly* good; but beware of the Dunning-Kruger effect.  The
sorts of folk who abuse authority are exactly the ones least likely to
question their own use of it.  So we do need to take care, in selecting
who shall have Powers, to select those who show restraint precisely
because they *do* question their own authority and the aptness of their
use of it.

If nothing else, it's a good idea to have some level of process, even if
only informally among the admins and moderators, where one does not take
certain actions (bans, blocks, &c.) without consulting with the other
admins and moderators - "my dear peers, I'm considering banning that
chap, for [reasons], but just want to sanity-check that I'm not
over-reacting" - unless there is some life-threatening urgency involved
(in which case I imagine we'll also be carefully retaining records, to
hand over to Proper Authorities outside the project, as part of
anticipated court proceedings).

>> Also, the point of having a neutral third party decide on the issue,
>> rather than people directly involved in the conflict should result in
>> that third party deciding on the measurements to be taken, not any
>> victims of harassment, harm, or whatever.

So, to boil down Andre's point: to what extent are the existing
moderators and admins not already a suitable neutral third party ?
I trust we have several in each context, so that others can serve as
neutral third party when someone's complaining against one of them.

	Eddy.