I agree with Jonathan here. I also have my own similar personal story
from ~20 years ago where I used a French expression as the opening line
in an email where all the rest was in English... and some of the
recipients (co-workers) could very rightly have been offended. Actually
some wondered if I might have been mad at them, but instead of jumping
the gun, they asked me directly, I explained the meaning of the French
expression and why I used it in this context, they explained that there
was a corresponding slang word... that day they learned a new French
expression and I learned a new word of English slang. I was not being
careless, I simply had no way to know at the time that there was a
corresponding English slang word that could have been offending, because
I am not a native English speaker.
We all had a good laugh in the end, but if it was not for their
assumption of good faith this could have turned into a huge mess.
I realize that not everybody will agree and I am not planning to enter
this CoC debate... I just wanted to relay an experience.
Stepping out of this thread now.
Daniel
On 2018-12-10 7:44 p.m., Jonathan Moules wrote:
Hi Maria,
Just a thought, but I'm not sure getting rid of the assumption of good
faith is a good idea. To do so would be basically assuming people are
guilty until proven innocent which runs counter to how these things
should work.
To use a personal anecdote, many years ago I had a black flatmate who I
was joking around with and I made a comment that it turns out is a
negative racial epithet. Being young and unworldly, I didn't know that
at the time and certainly didn't mean it in that context, it also has a
perfectly innocent context - the only one I'd ever been exposed to -
which is how I was using it.
Now, reading your thebias.com link, I can see that the author there
would suggest I be pilloried for what was an honest mistake. They'd say
I was being "careless" or "ignorant" and stepping on their toes. But I
don't think either is fair because it's not reasonable to expect people
to know everything that could offend everyone, especially somewhere as
multicultural as the internet.
For example, consider this symbol: 👍a simple thumbs-up emoticon that's
commonly used to signify "it's all good" and "thanks". Well, it turns
out that it's "an obscene insult" in some cultures! I didn't know that
until a few seconds ago when I went searching for a simple example.
I have learnt over the years from experiences in both directions that
it's best to always assume good faith if possible. Humans may be the
species with the most complex communication on the planet, but that
doesn't mean we don't fail often.
@Ben - Thanks for sharing World Human Rights day. I'm a long time fan of
the UNDHR!
Cheers,
Jonathan
On 2018-12-09 12:49, María Arias de Reyna wrote:
Dear OSGeo community,
As you may already know, I have been working for the last months in
improving our community procedures[1] to make it a safer space. Recent
events in the community have shown that we have a lot of work ahead.
We all, as OSGeo, must remove the recent bullying and campaigning
mentality that is unfortunately gradually become a part of our
culture. Disclosing private data or hinting threats is not helpful and
can only make our community less comfortable for everyone. We will
work on improving actions on harmful behavior.
This has been a slow task, but there are some actions taking place:
CoC committee members have become inactive. I volunteered to pick up
the task and lead a new CoC committee. Right now I am the only CoC
member, but I am looking for more volunteers. If only, to make sure
that if I am involved in any CoC incident, someone else can take care
of it properly as mediator.
I want to change also the way incidents and violations of the CoC are
reported. I noticed there are reports being done on person and on
private email, but never through the official channels (which right
now is a mailing list).To improve this, I will ask the SAC to replace
the mailing list with an alias and a form on the website. Also, there
will be a public list of who receives those emails so people reporting
incidents will have a clear understanding of who is receiving the
information and decide to contact privately only a subset of the team.
Replacing the mailing list by an alias that sends the data directly to
the inbox of the CoC team is important, as sometimes incidents are not
reported just because the person reporting is scared to leave a trace
of the report or is not sure who will be reading the report.
Another action I am going to propose is a change on the CoC itself.
Our community has grown a lot both in diversity and in numbers, and we
need a strict code of conduct that makes sure marginalized or harrased
people is always covered by it. We can't rely anymore on just common
sense and good faith.
Once the new board is settled, I am going to propose to change the
current CoC for another like the Contributor Covenant[2]. As it is a
CoC shared by many communities, this has the advantage of receiving
the upgrades and experience from other communities. As you can see, it
fixes some of the bugs from our CoC, like the assuming good intent and
good faith[3] part that made the current CoC useless on most cases. I
will propose to add some foreword to adapt to specifities for our
community, but in my opinion, the latest version of the Contributor
Covenant is easy to read, simple, and cover most of what we need. My
hope is that this new CoC can be adapted to all OSGeo Projects and
Events that don't already have a CoC, so we have full OSGeo universe
covered by default.
I hope this actions will prove useful in the medium term and we don't
have to see more members leaving the community. We should remember to
be empathic and kind. We are all seeking the same goals and we should
encourage cooperation, not hinder each other. I know that developer
communities are very used to these bad behaviours, but I'm confident
we can grow better.
Have a nice day!
María.
[1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2018-August/011640.html
[2] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/
[3]
https://thebias.com/2017/09/26/how-good-intent-undermines-diversity-and-inclusion/
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Daniel Morissette
Mapgears Inc
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