On 2/28/2018 2:44 AM, Rory McCann wrote:
Hi all,
To follow up on the phone call, and waiting a little bit for people to
join. 😁
I think this list should have a Code of Conduct. I propose something
like Geek Feminism's one. Thoughts?
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Community_anti-harassment/Policy
I see nothing wrong with a mailing list deciding on rules for how they
moderate themselves. Before setting rules, it's important to identify
what behavior is an issue. With OpenStreetMap Carto's (osm-carto) Code
of Conduct, I wanted to start with text that covered derailing topics,
including by taking issues off-topic. osm-carto went with a CoC based on
that of Go.[1]
The other codes of conduct that made my list for consideration were
those from Debian, FreeBSD, Go, Joomla, Puppet, GNOME, Julia, and KDE. A
downside to this list is that they're all software development related
projects. OpenStreetMap Carto is similar to one[2], but OpenStreetMap
isn't a software project. I would want to also consider what other
non-software volunteer groups are doing. Some that kind to mine are
cycling associations, ramblers, and other groups which OSM has a strong
tie to.
A couple of issues I would consider if I were doing the selection again
are readability and education or socioeconomic status. Readability is a
big problem with many codes of conduct. The Go CoC comes with a score of
11-13,[3] and I'd want 8-10 at most. This is better than the Geek
Feminism one, which scores 13-15 and uses a lot of jargon.
For education and socioeconomic status, I can't say it any better than
Richard Fairhurst did [4]:
Volunteer communities in general, and open source software in
particular, can be unwelcoming places for people from poorer
backgrounds or without a university/college education. Wealthy,
educated people - which most open source contributors are - can easily
dismiss contributions from such users through rhetorical skill,
through sniping on grammar/spelling etc., and through belitting their
concerns as not representative of the empowered, educated group.
Increasingly I have noticed that contributors from these [areas where
residents have typically benefited from as good an education, and have
less well-paying jobs] find it hard to articulate their views on the
site without being shot down by the wealthier, more educated majority.
This might take the form of the majority criticising minority
contributors over minutiae (small sincerely-believed factual
inaccuracies, grammar/spelling); or a deliberate unwillingness to
tolerate assumptions that differ from the majority; or constructing
means of engagement/consultation that are less open to those from
poorer backgrounds (evening meetings arranged which are effectively
closed to those unable to get childcare, etc.).
My open-source background is largely in the OpenStreetMap project
where there has been a fair amount of academic research done into
contributor biases (particularly, though not entirely, through the
work of Professor Muki Haklay). The result of such bias is easy to
visualise in OSM: wealthy areas such as London or San Francisco are
mapped in much more detail than poorer areas such as the Welsh Valleys
or the rural American Midwest. However, although the prevailing
open-source narrative has led to a fair amount of (welcome) discussion
as to how we can welcome and help those groups traditionally
considered marginalised in technology, there has been little or no
thought given to how we make ourselves more welcoming to poorer or
less well educated people. Indeed, there are instances of where such
contributors have received a hostile reception on the project's
communication channels (mailing lists, on-site discussions).
[1]: The reporting mechanisms weren't suitable for a small project
[2]: It's style development, but we communicate over issues, pull
requests, and similar means.
[3]: Sometimes called grade level, but that leads people to bad
assumptions about what level of education is needed to understand a
piece of text
[4]: https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/pull/491
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