Discussion regarding Community Working Group and/or Ombudsman

[David Nalley]

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 6:50 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 11:16:33PM -0400, David Nalley wrote:
>> During our discussion today I was initially convinced that the idea of
>> a CWG/Ombudsman acting as mediator only was a good one. However now I
>> am beginning to question that. Our discussion today centered around
>> making this person(s)/group responsible only for mediation, and having
>> extremely limited or no enforcement capabilities. I think the reasons
>> for that were sound, but I am beginning to question the efficacy.
>>
>> Effectively we'd be creating a paper tiger, with limited or no
>> authority to which we'd funnel a ton of complaints - I can't imagine
>> how demoralizing it would be to take all the complaints in the first
>> place, but then only to be able to offer suggestions would take an
>> incredible set of people, and I fear we'd burn them out very fast.
>>
>> I notice that Gentoo has discontinued their ombudsman program (I sadly
>> can't find the original charter for the position with a quick google,
>> or the reason for discontinuation). In it's place they put a developer
>> relations council, any member of which may singly  excommunicate a
>> member from the project permanently, with the only appeal being to the
>> full developer council. I don't think that is a direction Fedora
>> should go, but I do find it interesting.
>>
>> I am very concerned that we not repeat something akin to the 'Hall
>> Monitors' issues. Specifically I am very worried that the Board (and I
>> am speaking for myself only) would second-guess any delegated body's
>> decisions if it became overly controversial.
>>
>
> I am concerned about that too.  However, I think that having a group that
> specializes in mediation only is the best way to counteract that.  A group
> that has enforcement powers but where the power of enforcement ultimately
> lies with the Board (as is laid out in the Code of Conduct Enforcement
> document) is always going to be subject to second-guessing on the part of
> the Board.  Even if the present Board were to agree that the Board should
> never change a decision made by that group, the next Board may well take
> a more active role in decisions made.
>
> By contrast, mediation works by *not* having the mediator make decisions.
> Instead, the mediator facilitates communication between the parties
> involved, works to have both sides understand the positions of the other,
> and tries to get the parties to agree to a course of action on their own.
> If the parties come to agreement due to the mediator, then there is no
> escalation to the Board as the people involved have resolved their
> differences already.
>

So I've seen good bit of mediation, mainly from a former $dayjob in
the form of Alternative Dispute Resolution. That particular type of
mediation worked very well, and streamlined what would have otherwise
been a more painful experience. That experience does draw out two
things though. The first is that it was required, you couldn't get
around it (at least in any of the cases I have seen) and the second is
that when mediation didn't work that everything done in the mediation
process had to be repeated, plus lots of other stuff.

I sadly see that:
1. We aren't giving them authority (which is OK)
2. We aren't making mediation mandatory (or at least we haven't said
that it is)
3. There is still this 'court of last resort' which could also be the
court of first resort. (e.g. why would I spend the time and effort to
route through $mediator when I can go straight to the board)




> Another way to say this is that far from being a paper tiger, a group that
> specializes in doing mediation is no tiger at all.  They are not here to
> enforce a code of conduct and reprimand people who don't follow it, they're
> here to help people understand each other's viewpoints and try to refine
> their ideas to satisfy as many of the problems that the other one sees as
> possible.
>
> On the other hand, I think that some of the other people within the Board do
> favor having a group that works to enforce the Code of Conduct.  That group,
> however, seems set up to be second guessed by the Board quite frequently.
> The idea seemed to be that the group could serve as the first people to
> handle enforcement issues.  If the parties in the conflict were unhappy with
> what happened they could then escalate to the Board.  How is that better
> than how we setup Hall Monitors?

I agree whole heartedly, though I'd go further and say that such a
group would be setup to fail IMO.


>
>> I guess I am also
>> skeptical of the number of problems that really need intervention. I
>> understand there to be flare ups from time to time, but I doubt a
>> formal mediator (or at least one past the channel ops or list
>> owner/moderator) is needed in most cases. If there really exists so
>> many serious problems as to need a dedicated mediator/team of
>> mediators, perhaps there are bigger problems to be dealt with than the
>> mediation process.
>>
> I don't see mediators as being limited to the kinds of conflicts that lead
> to violations of the Code of Conduct.  I see them as being available to help
> steer discussions in productive directions so that the conditions where
> violations of the Code of Conduct occur are less common place.  Mediators
> help people feel better about working on Fedora by making sure that the
> people involved in a discussion have their thoughts heard and issues
> addressed.

You're going to see my skepticism come out here, and I'll apologize in
advance for it. I think that the people who have the 'whuffie' to
steer discussions as you describe already exist in the Fedora
community, and if they aren't already doing so, I doubt that adding
another FAS group or title is going to start them on the road to doing
so. Fedora is a community of doers, those whuffie-laden people who
could do that largely aren't (there are of course exceptions), and I
suspect it's either because they are burned out (or just burned) from
acting, ignore the problems, or just don't want that to be a part of
their contribution. or a combination thereof (just for the record, I
am guilty of this as well, even if there aren't many places where I
possess whuffie in Fedora).

And for the people who aren't Cory Doctorow readers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie