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

[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
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[Robert Mayr]

2015-07-15 15:16 GMT+02:00 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

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.

[Jared K. Smith]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 9:16 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 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