Enforcing the code of conduct

[Amit Shah]

Hello all,

While organising the recent FUDCon in Pune we included a code of conduct, similar to the
previous Flocks and other conferences worldwide.

I was wondering if we have any mechanisms in place where we can blacklist someone if
indeed there was a violation.

I'm thinking of a Fedora project specific blacklist as well as a shared blacklist for
major conferences worldwide.

The CoC would be pretty useless if there's no way to ban (from future gatherings)
someone indulging in activities unwelcome to the project.

Also, we should include what steps we would take as a project depending on the nature of
the violation in the CoC text itself.

If we already have such a mechanism in place, please point me to it. If not, would there
be interest in setting up a service at least for Fedora events?

          Amit
-- 
http://amitshah.net

[Máirín Duffy]

(resending from another email address since I got bouncebacks)

Hi,

On 07/15/2015 09:16 AM, Amit Shah wrote:
>  I was wondering if we have any mechanisms in place where we can
> blacklist someone if indeed there was a violation.
>
>  I'm thinking of a Fedora project specific blacklist as well as a shared blacklist for
> major conferences worldwide. 
I've not ever heard of a conference doing this. The standard approach 
right now is to eject the offender from the conference they misbehaved 
at (without refund, which doesn't really apply to Flock or FUDcons.) Eg 
see http://confcodeofconduct.com/

~m
_______________________________________________
outreach mailing list
outreach(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/outreach

[Robert Mayr]

2015-07-15 15:16 GMT+02:00 Amit Shah <amitshah(a)gmx.net&gt;:

>  Hello all,
>
>  While organising the recent FUDCon in Pune we included a code of conduct,
>  similar to the previous Flocks and other conferences worldwide.
>
>  I was wondering if we have any mechanisms in place where we can blacklist
>  someone if indeed there was a violation.
>
>  I'm thinking of a Fedora project specific blacklist as well as a shared
>  blacklist for major conferences worldwide.
>
>  The CoC would be pretty useless if there's no way to ban (from future
>  gatherings) someone indulging in activities unwelcome to the project.
>
>  Also, we should include what steps we would take as a project depending on
>  the nature of the violation in the CoC text itself.
>
>  If we already have such a mechanism in place, please point me to it. If
>  not, would there be interest in setting up a service at least for Fedora
>  events?
>
>            Amit
>
>  
What should be the PRO of this kind of CoC? I think Fedora already has many
rules and we should not make new rules and ban people from conferences.
Fedora is a place where everyone is welcome, and as far as I can remember
all the people I met in the last years respected the CoC. Sure, we can have
different opinions but that's normal, we all have different cultures and
different personal situations. Let's not make these kind of things, it
would end up with many many more rules.
Finally, the primary Fedora events have one main slogan: FLOCK/FUDCon is
always open and free for anyone. Would you like to change that too?

Kind regards.

-- 
Robert Mayr
(robyduck)

[Beth Lynn Eicher]

As one of the author's of the conference anti-harassment policy
template, I would like to comment. The policy is here:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy

When we first published it ~4 years ago, I discussed the CoC vs an
event anti-harassment policy with a Red Hat employee, who I will not
name because this person might not work for the company. I was told
that Red Hat legal discussed it and decided that the CoC was enough. I
said that I was fine with that as long as it was clearly identified as
to who were the event organizers or board members at in person
gatherings. I would also want a reminder that the CoC was in effect as
not everyone at a FUDCon or FAD has necessarily become an officially
signed up as an official Fedora contributor.

I had been brought into the discussion of banning someone from future
events for a non-Fedora, Free-Software-related project. The incident
itself, in my opinion, warranted a demand for a written apology but
not a full-bown perma-ban. However, due to the discomfort level of the
greater the community, it would not be a good idea to welcome this
individual to be in this space. To be clear, this was more than one
person who felt unsafe around the offender, it was half the community
having unpleasant interactions with this person. Events could not
resume until this person was told that they were not welcome. It took
awhile to draft such as message as the ban impacts more that just the
accused. I felt that this offender's associates, two others who were
innocent by all accounts, would be unfairly excluded too. A compromise
was worked out for the associates and they are most welcome to
participate.

As an Ohio LinuxFest board member, we have zero blacklisted
individuals from our events due to prior event misconduct. However, we
do honor requests when an attendee has a restraining order or similar
protections, to keep an eye out for the harasser's registration and
deny entry.

The power to ban someone from your project and its events, in my
opinion, in rightfully given to the Fedora Board. It is not a matter
to be taken lightly or with haste. The power to eject the offender
from the event rightfully is with the event organizers to handle the
immediate situation.

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 8:16 AM, Amit Shah <amitshah(a)gmx.net&gt; wrote:
>  Hello all,
>
>  While organising the recent FUDCon in Pune we included a code of conduct, similar to the
> previous Flocks and other conferences worldwide.
>
>  I was wondering if we have any mechanisms in place where we can blacklist someone if
> indeed there was a violation.
>
>  I'm thinking of a Fedora project specific blacklist as well as a shared blacklist for
> major conferences worldwide.
>
>  The CoC would be pretty useless if there's no way to ban (from future gatherings)
> someone indulging in activities unwelcome to the project.
>
>  Also, we should include what steps we would take as a project depending on the nature of
> the violation in the CoC text itself.
>
>  If we already have such a mechanism in place, please point me to it. If not, would there
> be interest in setting up a service at least for Fedora events?
>
>            Amit
>  --
>  http://amitshah.net
>  --
>  ambassadors mailing list
>  ambassadors(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors 


-- 
Thanks,

Beth Lynn Eicher

[Máirín Duffy]

On 07/15/2015 01:58 PM, Beth Lynn Eicher wrote:
>  The power to ban someone from your project and its events, in my
>  opinion, in rightfully given to the Fedora Board. It is not a matter
>  to be taken lightly or with haste. The power to eject the offender
>  from the event rightfully is with the event organizers to handle the
>  immediate situation. 
s/Board/Council  (the board doesn't exist anymore)

Also this note only went to ambassadors list, it should go to 
council-discuss and outreach too.

~m

[Truong Anh Tuan]

----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Beth Lynn Eicher"
> <bethlynn(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  To: ambassadors(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:58:08 AM
>  Subject: Re: [Ambassadors] Enforcing the code of conduct 
<snipped>

>  The power to ban someone from your project and its events, in my
>  opinion, in rightfully given to the Fedora Board. It is not a matter
>  to be taken lightly or with haste. The power to eject the offender
>  from the event rightfully is with the event organizers to handle the
>  immediate situation. 
+1. I also think event organizers have full rights to immediately take
action(s) on violation to event's CoC. Further more, they can bring it
higher to process at community level if that violation is serious
enough and/or (could be) repeated.
In that case, Community Working group [1] would be a good place to
bring it to.

Rgds,
Tuan

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_working_group

[Jared K. Smith]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 9:16 AM, Amit Shah <amitshah(a)gmx.net&gt; wrote:

>  I was wondering if we have any mechanisms in place where we can
> blacklist
>  someone if indeed there was a violation.
>
>  I'm thinking of a Fedora project specific blacklist as well as a shared
>  blacklist for major conferences worldwide.
>  

I am not an attorney, and don't play one on the internet, and this is not
legal advice....   That being said, one aspect that people often overlook
in "Code of Conduct" discussions is the legal liabilities involved.  Let's
say person A organizes a conference and decides (for whatever reason) that
person B needs to be banned.  Person B comes back later (or next year, or
three years down the road) -- who is responsible to check to make sure
person B hasn't been blacklisted?  Who is responsible to check to make sure
person B isn't registering under a different name?  If person B were to do
something illegal upon returning, person A might have additional legal
liabilities.

I mention all this not to discourage the use of codes of conduct -- but to
help people remember that trying to ban someone might incur additional
responsibilities (and liabilities), which might be hard on a loosely-formed
mostly-volunteer group.  It's unfortunate that we live in such a litigious
society... and that it's harder to do the right thing because of it.

-Jared

[Amit Shah]

Forwarding to council-discuss and outreach lists.

On (Wed) 15 Jul 2015 [12:58:08], Beth Lynn Eicher wrote:
>  As one of the author's of the conference anti-harassment policy
>  template, I would like to comment. The policy is here:
>  http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
>  
>  When we first published it ~4 years ago, I discussed the CoC vs an
>  event anti-harassment policy with a Red Hat employee, who I will not
>  name because this person might not work for the company. I was told
>  that Red Hat legal discussed it and decided that the CoC was enough. I
>  said that I was fine with that as long as it was clearly identified as
>  to who were the event organizers or board members at in person
>  gatherings. I would also want a reminder that the CoC was in effect as
>  not everyone at a FUDCon or FAD has necessarily become an officially
>  signed up as an official Fedora contributor.
>  
>  I had been brought into the discussion of banning someone from future
>  events for a non-Fedora, Free-Software-related project. The incident
>  itself, in my opinion, warranted a demand for a written apology but
>  not a full-bown perma-ban. However, due to the discomfort level of the
>  greater the community, it would not be a good idea to welcome this
>  individual to be in this space. To be clear, this was more than one
>  person who felt unsafe around the offender, it was half the community
>  having unpleasant interactions with this person. Events could not
>  resume until this person was told that they were not welcome. It took
>  awhile to draft such as message as the ban impacts more that just the
>  accused. I felt that this offender's associates, two others who were
>  innocent by all accounts, would be unfairly excluded too. A compromise
>  was worked out for the associates and they are most welcome to
>  participate.
>  
>  As an Ohio LinuxFest board member, we have zero blacklisted
>  individuals from our events due to prior event misconduct. However, we
>  do honor requests when an attendee has a restraining order or similar
>  protections, to keep an eye out for the harasser's registration and
>  deny entry.
>  
>  The power to ban someone from your project and its events, in my
>  opinion, in rightfully given to the Fedora Board. It is not a matter
>  to be taken lightly or with haste. The power to eject the offender
>  from the event rightfully is with the event organizers to handle the
>  immediate situation.
>  
>  On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 8:16 AM, Amit Shah <amitshah(a)gmx.net&gt; wrote:
>  > Hello all,
>  >
>  > While organising the recent FUDCon in Pune we included a code of conduct, similar to
> the previous Flocks and other conferences worldwide.
>  >
>  > I was wondering if we have any mechanisms in place where we can blacklist someone if
> indeed there was a violation.
>  >
>  > I'm thinking of a Fedora project specific blacklist as well as a shared
> blacklist for major conferences worldwide.
>  >
>  > The CoC would be pretty useless if there's no way to ban (from future
> gatherings) someone indulging in activities unwelcome to the project.
>  >
>  > Also, we should include what steps we would take as a project depending on the
> nature of the violation in the CoC text itself.
>  >
>  > If we already have such a mechanism in place, please point me to it. If not, would
> there be interest in setting up a service at least for Fedora events?
>  >
>  >           Amit
>  > --
>  > http://amitshah.net
>  > --
>  > ambassadors mailing list
>  > ambassadors(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors
>  
>  
>  
>  -- 
>  Thanks,
>  
>  Beth Lynn Eicher
>  --
>  ambassadors mailing list
>  ambassadors(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors 
		Amit
-- 
http://log.amitshah.net/