Mike Solomon <m...@meeshkan.com> writes: > The preamble and intent is one thing; adding a corrective committee with the > authority to enact punishments based on anonymous reports is another. It > implements hierarchies and institutions exerting coercive power based on > incomplete and secret information. That is inherently an entity offering an > opportunity for "pulling strings". I am not really a fan of constructs with > a life and dynamics of their own.
It's a big responsibility. I think the way to do it is talk to successful committees (ie the Facebook Open Source CoC Committee) and learn how they've dealt with challenging situations. One example: in communities that are more gender balanced, I've heard of situations where a man starts writing inappropriate messages to a woman and she reports the messages to the CoC committee. In this case, I think secrecy, hierarchy and coercive decision making power is important to preserve the dignity of all parties. It also encourages people to come forward, which is much harder to do in the open. I don't know of many communities with good gender balance that don’t have codes of conduct, probably for this reason. Ultimately, I think the benefits of secrecy, hierarchy and possible coercion in matters of conduct outweigh the negatives, although I agree with you that secrecy and hierarchy should be the exception and not the rule. Most communication should be in the open and hierarchy free. Thanks, ~Mike
