Looking for feedback on Fedora Code of Conduct Draft

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 22:54, Christoph Wickert
<christoph.wickert at googlemail.com> wrote:
> First of all I't like to thank everybody who has been working in the
> Code of Conduct. What I've seen looks good so far, however I have two
> questions.
>
> Am Dienstag, den 01.03.2011, 20:35 -0500 schrieb Brian Pepple:
>
>>       * Be respectful. People volunteer to work on Fedora.
>
> Wat about the people who do not work in Fedora voluntarily but because
> they are paid? Do we set different moral standards for them?

I have no idea how you parsed that out of it, but if you can I guess
others will too :). I can't see a way to cover all corner cases though
without making the sentence unreadable.

>>         Not all of us
>>         will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor
>>         behaviour and poor manners. We might all experience some
>>         frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration
>>         to turn into a personal attack. It's important to remember that
>>         a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not
>>         a productive one. Members of the Fedora community should be
>>         respectful when dealing with other contributors as well as with
>>         people outside the Fedora community and with users of Fedora.
>
> We are spending a lot of words on personal attacks and such, but I think
> there are other ways of poor behavior: What about ignoring people or
> their work? This isn't excellent ether and will not make us a productive
> community ether.

That is a completely different area though that what this group was
tasked with. When they get to a leadership code of conduct (which
explains now why various groups seem to have seperate documents for
that.. it would probably be covered.

> Combining these two questions I'd like to add something: If you are in
> control of people or their work, whether it is because you are elected,
> appointed or employed or you just happen to do work that is
> fundamentally important for others, you have a special responsibility
> for others. Deal with their issues in time. Make decisions based on
> facts and not your assumptions. If you have questions, don't be afraid
> to ask. Please make sure that all your decisions are not only right for
> you but also healthy for our community.

1) Facts tend to be what the observer thinks they are. I think we have
had more than one set of kerfluffles in the last year where what
everyone thought were the "facts" turned out to be wrong all the way
round. Even worse, even after it is pointed out that the facts were
wrong, people (in and out of leadership postiions) still refer to
their events as the right ones.
2) When people make decisions fast, they tend to get it wrong
3) When people take their time to get the facts as best they get seen
as not doing anything.
4) "Healthy for our community" is undefinable and mostly unknowable.
What peeves off one group and is "unhealthy" may not be a big deal to
the rest. I have seen quite a few "Fedora will be dead because of
this" in the last 6 years... and in many cases the people who posted
it are still here :). [Heck I am ...]

All I can say is that my way of dealing with it is pretty much
"Forgive and forget" as much as possible and just walk away when I
can't.

-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
"The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance."
Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University.
"Let us be kind, one to another, for most of us are fighting a hard
battle." -- Ian MacLaren