Extending the XSF Community Code of Conduct (XEP-0458)
Hi everyone, Going through the CoC again, I notice that it has a few gaps we should probably address. While the current wording explicitly prohibits racist language, there are a lot of other *-isms which are unfortunately quite present in various spaces on the XMPP network and which sometimes roll into XSF rooms. I do not think that we want to be perceived as, for instance, an anti-LGBTQIA+ community, so we should extend the CoC to: a) send the clear message to the world that we won't tolerate behaviour that, and b) give our moderators (that includes me in some places) the necessary holding to enforce when necessary Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or other derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise offensive and bigoted discourse.
In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected.
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I may propose a PR against XEP-0458, but before doing so I wanted to offer this for discussion on this list. kind regards, Jonas
Hi Jonas On 2024/04/25 18:01, Jonas Schäfer wrote:
Hi everyone,
Going through the CoC again, I notice that it has a few gaps we should probably address.
While the current wording explicitly prohibits racist language, there are a lot of other *-isms which are unfortunately quite present in various spaces on the XMPP network and which sometimes roll into XSF rooms.
I do not think that we want to be perceived as, for instance, an anti-LGBTQIA+ community, so we should extend the CoC to:
a) send the clear message to the world that we won't tolerate behaviour that, and b) give our moderators (that includes me in some places) the necessary holding to enforce when necessary
Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or other derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise offensive and bigoted discourse.
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go. One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others. At the end of the day, the tiniest minority is the individual, and requiring that we treat each individual with respect and courtesy is enough, without having to refer to specific (sometimes politically charged) categories.
In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected.
I'm +0 on this. Part of me thinks this is already handled by disallowing harassment.
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I agree and support adding this paragraph. JC
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024, 12:01 JC Brand, <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go. One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical
+1
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I agree and support adding this paragraph.
I like the first and third sentences. The second sentence implies a onus that one shouldn't remain silent when a learner asks a question. Given the volume of unpaid volunteers, I believe that not being actively supportive whilst also not being actively condescending either, by saying nothing at all, is perfectly acceptable. I'd like to reword this to make that clear. -- Dan / Fishbowler
Hi Dan, On Freitag, 26. April 2024 13:40:50 CEST Dan Caseley wrote:
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024, 12:01 JC Brand, <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go. One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical
+1
I will reply to this particular point in the other thread.
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I agree and support adding this paragraph.
I like the first and third sentences. The second sentence implies a onus that one shouldn't remain silent when a learner asks a question. Given the volume of unpaid volunteers, I believe that not being actively supportive whilst also not being actively condescending either, by saying nothing at all, is perfectly acceptable. I'd like to reword this to make that clear.
Thank you. This is a valid point and I wouldn't want anyone to have the impression that they are obligated to help anyone. If you have a concrete proposal for a wording, I'd be curious to hear it (while keeping the "positive" form of supportiveness. I'd like to add more positive examples to the CoC so that it's not just "don't do this", but also "do this"). kind regards, Jonas
On 4/26/24 7:05 AM, Jonas Schäfer wrote:
Hi Dan,
On Freitag, 26. April 2024 13:40:50 CEST Dan Caseley wrote:
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024, 12:01 JC Brand, <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
<snip/>
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I agree and support adding this paragraph.
I like the first and third sentences. The second sentence implies a onus that one shouldn't remain silent when a learner asks a question. Given the volume of unpaid volunteers, I believe that not being actively supportive whilst also not being actively condescending either, by saying nothing at all, is perfectly acceptable. I'd like to reword this to make that clear.
Thank you. This is a valid point and I wouldn't want anyone to have the impression that they are obligated to help anyone. If you have a concrete proposal for a wording, I'd be curious to hear it (while keeping the "positive" form of supportiveness. I'd like to add more positive examples to the CoC so that it's not just "don't do this", but also "do this").
In my experience in leadership roles at the XSF and IETF, the best thing to do in such situations is to say "I'm not an expert on Topic X, but let me introduce you to this person across the room who knows more about it than I do." With that said, I am somewhat skeptical that we can describe every possible circumstance in rules like this - there's a large role for situational judgment in human interactions. Peter
Hi JC, On Freitag, 26. April 2024 13:01:12 CEST JC Brand wrote:
Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on> the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or other>> derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise
offensive and bigoted discourse.
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
I disagree. There are two issues here. Issue 1: From the outside, it is not possible to distinguish two kinds of organisations/groups: - The kind of organisation which has truly engrained that people are people and that discrimination is not to be tolerated and thus does not see the necessity of enumerating marginalized groups it cares for. - The kind of organisation which does, in fact, not care for the well-being of marginalized groups inside of its structures at all. I would like the XSF to be clearly recognizable as an organisation which *does* care, even though we still have a long way to go for that to truly be in effect. Issue 2: With my MUC moderator hat on, I *need* that list. I need it (mostly) not for myself to know what's right and what's wrong, but I need it as a backing for that, when such specific problematic behaviour occurs, I know that I am within my mandate to act on it (and to point people at it, saving me a lot of time and energy). I do not have that if the CoC is handwaivy about equality (notes on that later). However, there surely are different ways to express this. Maybe wording like in the Contributor Covenant [1] are better suited? In fact, they have an excellent FAQ which may give some insights on why all of this is a good idea [2]. I'm not fixed on the specific phrasing; what's important to me is that the message is clear: discrimination and harassment is not being tolerated any number of attributes, and the attributes we're actually aware of need to be written down somewhere.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
They are though, or should be anyway. People from marginalized groups are just that, marginalized. We as an organisation should do the extra effort to support individuals from these groups in order to allow them to be safe in our spaces, to live up to their potential and what they'd like to achieve and contribute.
At the end of the day, the tiniest minority is the individual, and requiring that we treat each individual with respect and courtesy is enough, without having to refer to specific (sometimes politically charged) categories.
Could you clarify "sometimes politically charged"? kind regards, Jonas [1]: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/ [2]: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq/
On 2024/04/26 15:35, Jonas Schäfer wrote: <snip>
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others. They are though, or should be anyway. People from marginalized groups are just that, marginalized. We as an organisation should do the extra effort to support individuals from these groups in order to allow them to be safe in our spaces, to live up to their potential and what they'd like to achieve and contribute.
You're basically advocating for so-called positive discrimination (aka affirmative action), which is a political position advocated for by certain political groupings. I'm on record from previous discussions in saying that I don't think a supposedly neutral standards organization should be instrumentalized for the furtherance of political programmes.
At the end of the day, the tiniest minority is the individual, and requiring that we treat each individual with respect and courtesy is enough, without having to refer to specific (sometimes politically charged) categories. Could you clarify "sometimes politically charged"? There are politically contentious topics surrounding what constitutes marginalized identities and how one (and society) should go about accommodating them. We're running the risk if introducing these politically divisive topics into the XSF, thereby politicizing the organization which will likely introduce the same divisiveness, acrimony and bitterness that characterizes political debates. I don't think this benefits the organization or aids in the furtherance of standards development.
JC
Hello JC, On Samstag, 27. April 2024 09:33:42 CEST JC Brand wrote:
On 2024/04/26 15:35, Jonas Schäfer wrote:
On Freitag, 26. April 2024 13:01:12 CEST JC Brand wrote:
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
They are though, or should be anyway. People from marginalized groups are just that, marginalized. We as an organisation should do the extra effort to support individuals from these groups in order to allow them to be safe in our spaces, to live up to their potential and what they'd like to achieve and contribute.
You're basically advocating for so-called positive discrimination (aka affirmative action), which is a political position advocated for by certain political groupings. I'm on record from previous discussions in saying that I don't think a supposedly neutral standards organization should be instrumentalized for the furtherance of political programmes.
"supposedly" is the key word here. Neutrality does not exist. Let me paint you a picture (pun intended). In photography, an important parameter when baking a picture into something which can be viewed on screen is the so-called White Balance. Most of the time, it controls the shift between red and blue in a picture [^1]. White balance is normally configured by using a piece of plastic which is known to be "neutral grey" and asking the picture processor to calibrate on that. It will then shift the tint of the picture so that the sensor values in the area of the neutral grey card get converted to 50% gray in RGB. The same thing happens in brains, by the way. The (maybe) white wall in your room is by no means emitting "white" light in your direction: it is reflecting whichever colour your room lighting currently has, which is very unlikely to be what some standards committee has defined as neutral white. Now, does anyone remember that dress picture from a couple years back, which divided the internet on whether the dress was blue or golden? That was basically a white balance issue: without a point of reference for the brain to identify "gray" in the picture, people in different contexts will see different colours (because the white balance in your brain gets thrown off). It is the same with political neutrality. The XSF is not "neutral gray". Neutral gray, like neutral white, is an artificial construct which does not stably exist. The XSF is some different shade, but because of your context, it *looks* neutral gray to you [^2]. We accommodate military use (another highly "politically charged" topic) of our products: see for example XEP-0365, which specifies the use of XMPP over some NATO communication standard. This looks like neutral gray only if you live in or are affiliated with NATO countries and are not opposed to NATO or military in general. We have not intervened when people advocated for just ignoring marginalized groups in client development. This looks neutral gray only if you are not marginalized. Looking at the names (and I know that that is a really fuzzy way to look at things, but as a first order approximation it'll have to do) in our membership, it's almost exclusively US or EU. This looks neutral gray only if you are from the US or EU. I haven't been participating in summit recently, but when I did, it was almost all male-looking white people. This looks neutral gray only if you are a white male.
At the end of the day, the tiniest minority is the individual, and requiring that we treat each individual with respect and courtesy is enough, without having to refer to specific (sometimes politically charged) categories.
Could you clarify "sometimes politically charged"?
There are politically contentious topics surrounding what constitutes marginalized identities and how one (and society) should go about accommodating them. We're running the risk if introducing these politically divisive topics into the XSF, thereby politicizing the organization which will likely introduce the same divisiveness, acrimony and bitterness that characterizes political debates.
Oh, the division and bitterness is there. You currently just have the "luxury" to not see it, because the people who are divided away and get bitter are not joining and/or have left the XSF (yes, this is happening / has happened). [I said "you", instead of "we", above, because I in fact do see the division and bitterness. It takes place outside the XSF spaces for obvious reasons.]
I don't think this benefits the organization or aids in the furtherance of standards development.
I disagree. If standards are supposed to work for a wide variety of people, we as a standards organisation need to have representatives from a wide variety of people. This is currently clearly not the case. Of course, one may say that the bits on the wire don't care, and that is certainly true. But it matters what we make these bits do, and what these bits are capable of doing. For example, there is no way in XMPP to express your pronouns, or to do so selectively to a subset of your contacts. This is a very real use case of real people out there. Nobody has brought this use case up, and we need to ask ourselves why that is. This hinders growing the protocol, if growth is what you care about, and it hinders making it a viable alternative for real people to use. Please also consider reading the FAQ of that other CoC I linked earlier: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq/ Now please mind that I'm not advocating to become neutral gray. As I pointed out, I don't believe that neutral gray exists. Instead, we as an organisation need to be come conscious about that and we need to figure out which values we do care about, because not choosing any is also a choice (and I think a particularly bad one). This CoC amendment is a step in that direction: I propose that we consciously adopt human diversity as one of our values. kind regards, Jonas [^1]: In non-natural lighting, green/pink is the other axis it controls. [^2]: And honestly? I get that. It has taken me years (and one really ugly incident) to realize this from the first time someone pointed this out to me. It is *hard* to step out of your own baked-in white balance.
Hi Jonas On 2024/04/27 10:36, Jonas Schäfer wrote:
Hello JC,
On Samstag, 27. April 2024 09:33:42 CEST JC Brand wrote:
On 2024/04/26 15:35, Jonas Schäfer wrote:
On Freitag, 26. April 2024 13:01:12 CEST JC Brand wrote:
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others. They are though, or should be anyway. People from marginalized groups are just that, marginalized. We as an organisation should do the extra effort to support individuals from these groups in order to allow them to be safe in our spaces, to live up to their potential and what they'd like to achieve and contribute. You're basically advocating for so-called positive discrimination (aka affirmative action), which is a political position advocated for by certain political groupings. I'm on record from previous discussions in saying that I don't think a supposedly neutral standards organization should be instrumentalized for the furtherance of political programmes. "supposedly" is the key word here.
Neutrality does not exist. Let me paint you a picture (pun intended). In photography, an important parameter when baking a picture into something which can be viewed on screen is the so-called White Balance. Most of the time, it controls the shift between red and blue in a picture [^1]. White balance is normally configured by using a piece of plastic which is known to be "neutral grey" and asking the picture processor to calibrate on that. It will then shift the tint of the picture so that the sensor values in the area of the neutral grey card get converted to 50% gray in RGB.
The same thing happens in brains, by the way. The (maybe) white wall in your room is by no means emitting "white" light in your direction: it is reflecting whichever colour your room lighting currently has, which is very unlikely to be what some standards committee has defined as neutral white.
Now, does anyone remember that dress picture from a couple years back, which divided the internet on whether the dress was blue or golden? That was basically a white balance issue: without a point of reference for the brain to identify "gray" in the picture, people in different contexts will see different colours (because the white balance in your brain gets thrown off).
It is the same with political neutrality. The XSF is not "neutral gray". Neutral gray, like neutral white, is an artificial construct which does not stably exist. The XSF is some different shade, but because of your context, it *looks* neutral gray to you [^2].
You seem to interpret "neutral" to mean an objective and unbiased view (i.e. picture) of the world. That's not what I mean when I use the word neutral here. Instead, I mean "not getting involved in". The XSF is a technical standards organization, not an activist or political organization. So it should stay neutral by not getting involved in activism, political programmes and attempts at social engineering. Seen in that light, the analogy regarding photography is largely irrelevant.
We accommodate military use (another highly "politically charged" topic) of our products: see for example XEP-0365, which specifies the use of XMPP over some NATO communication standard.
It's an open standard. If you wanted to exclude certain groups of people from using and extending it, it would no longer be an open standard. There's nothing in our bylaws or in any XEP that says you need to support Nato or pay deference to it. In any case, I would not be surprised if the Russian military was also using XMPP on the battlefield.
This looks like neutral gray only if you live in or are affiliated with NATO countries and are not opposed to NATO or military in general.
I don't live in a Nato country and believe there's lots to criticize about it, but both those facts are irrelevant to the XSF's mission.
There are politically contentious topics surrounding what constitutes marginalized identities and how one (and society) should go about accommodating them. We're running the risk if introducing these politically divisive topics into the XSF, thereby politicizing the organization which will likely introduce the same divisiveness, acrimony and bitterness that characterizes political debates. Oh, the division and bitterness is there. You currently just have the "luxury" to not see it, because the people who are divided away and get bitter are not joining and/or have left the XSF (yes, this is happening / has happened).
[I said "you", instead of "we", above, because I in fact do see the division and bitterness. It takes place outside the XSF spaces for obvious reasons.] You make an awful lot of assumptions about me Jonas.
I don't think this benefits the organization or aids in the furtherance of standards development. I disagree. If standards are supposed to work for a wide variety of people, we as a standards organisation need to have representatives from a wide variety of people. This is currently clearly not the case. Anybody in the world can submit a XEP. We don't exclude anybody based on any personal characteristics. Of course, one may say that the bits on the wire don't care, and that is certainly true. But it matters what we make these bits do, and what these bits are capable of doing. For example, there is no way in XMPP to express your pronouns, or to do so selectively to a subset of your contacts. This is a very real use case of real people out there. Nobody has brought this use case up, and we need to ask ourselves why that is. Maybe because other people have other priorities? If you consider this very important, you're welcome to bring it up for discussion and/or create a XEP for it. This hinders growing the protocol, if growth is what you care about, and it hinders making it a viable alternative for real people to use. I personally doubt that support for selectively publishing your pronouns is what's really hindering protocol growth, but the beauty of an open and extensible standard is that anyone can use and extend it as they see fit and we don't all have to agree on the priorities. Please also consider reading the FAQ of that other CoC I linked earlier: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq/ I'm aware of the contributor covenant and have read it multiple times before. I just re-read the FAQ and I think it's largely reasonable. Now please mind that I'm not advocating to become neutral gray. As I pointed out, I don't believe that neutral gray exists. Instead, we as an organisation need to be come conscious about that and we need to figure out which values we do care about, because not choosing any is also a choice (and I think a particularly bad one). This CoC amendment is a step in that direction: I propose that we consciously adopt human diversity as one of our values.
I don't think we disagree that much with one another with regards to values. Diverse opinions are helpful and can result in better standards. I just don't think the XSF should be engaging in political activism and social engineering, Regards JC
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values. As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 21:06, Arc Riley <arcriley@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Thanks for writing this, it really does help. I have to admit, I deliberately avoided using the term "LGBT" anywhere, for fear of ending up ina debate of what other letters were missing. But what do you think is missing from: You are welcome at XSF Activities. Ensure that you are also welcoming of others. We want everyone to feel welcome no matter what the colour of their skin, where they live, or where their ancestors came from. We want to welcome people from all cultures, and religions, and of all sizes and shapes. We want people to be welcome no matter their sexual identity or orientation. We want you to feel welcome no matter your level of experience or ability. And we want you to help us make everyone else feel welcomed, too.
Dave Cridland kirjoitti 28.1.2025 klo 23.23:
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 21:06, Arc Riley <arcriley@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Thanks for writing this, it really does help.
I have to admit, I deliberately avoided using the term "LGBT" anywhere, for fear of ending up ina debate of what other letters were missing.
But what do you think is missing from:
You are welcome at XSF Activities. Ensure that you are also welcoming of others. We want everyone to feel welcome no matter what the colour of their skin, where they live, or where their ancestors came from. We want to welcome people from all cultures, and religions, and of all sizes and shapes. We want people to be welcome no matter their sexual identity or orientation. We want you to feel welcome no matter your level of experience or ability. And we want you to help us make everyone else feel welcomed, too.
As you mentioned elsewhere we are missing the Conduct team to be taken seriously (a Conduct team that has demonstrated it will protect people and that the community trusts to uphold said values). That aside: Some points that are missing are listed in the code of conduct in the contributor covenant that jonas' posted. https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/ for example age or caste. another good example is https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html some points that are not mentioned in the current CoC are: - pronouns - harassment. - No debating the rights and lived experiences of marginalized people in the community. - Deliberate misgendering or use of “dead” or rejected names as some examples. a more complete also CoC can be found in the JoinJabber Project https://joinjabber.org/about/community/codeofconduct/ there is also a list at the bottom of the JoinJabber CoC that links to other CoCs that informed it. Also gnome has a code of conduct here https://conduct.gnome.org/ that says among others The GNOME community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort, for example in situations involving: * “Reverse”-isms, including “reverse racism,” “reverse sexism,” and “cisphobia” * Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.” * Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions * Communicating boundaries or criticizing oppressive behavior in a “tone” you don’t find congenial Lastly you can see also https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Community_anti-harassment/Policy and https://kit.pyladies.com/en/latest/policies/coc.html that say among others also: * *Using welcoming and inclusive language.* We’re accepting of all who wish to take part in our activities, fostering an environment where anyone can participate and everyone can make a difference. * Unwelcome physical contact, including simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop last one is especially interesting because i doubt a lot of us have seen it happen but it is one of those cases where we should trust the marginalized communities that have it there as a rule instead of our own privileged. MSavoritias
On 2025/01/29 07:11, MSavoritias wrote:
Some points that are missing are listed in the code of conduct in the contributor covenant that jonas' posted.
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/
for example age or caste.
another good example is https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html
some points that are not mentioned in the current CoC are:
- pronouns
- harassment.
- No debating the rights and lived experiences of marginalized people in the community.
I find this particular rule problematic for various reasons. What determines whether someone is marginalized or not? For example, I can claim I'm marginalized because I'm part of an ethnic minority living in the global South. Does this mean my rights and lived experience are not up for debate? As a marginalized person, what rights do I have that non-marginalized people don't have? Can we debate the rights and "lived experiences" of non-marginalized people? If so, why are their experiences up for debate, but not others? If not, then this rule doesn't make sense. Debate and discussion are means for people to figure things out, to develop a nuanced understanding of things, and it helps people to think and form their thoughts. An argument could be made that such a debate is off-topic for XSF events and rooms, and should be taken elsewhere, and I'd be 100% on-board with that, but that's a different argument. JC
On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 at 05:11, MSavoritias <email@msavoritias.me> wrote:
Dave Cridland kirjoitti 28.1.2025 klo 23.23:
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 21:06, Arc Riley <arcriley@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Thanks for writing this, it really does help.
I have to admit, I deliberately avoided using the term "LGBT" anywhere, for fear of ending up ina debate of what other letters were missing.
But what do you think is missing from:
You are welcome at XSF Activities. Ensure that you are also welcoming of others. We want everyone to feel welcome no matter what the colour of their skin, where they live, or where their ancestors came from. We want to welcome people from all cultures, and religions, and of all sizes and shapes. We want people to be welcome no matter their sexual identity or orientation. We want you to feel welcome no matter your level of experience or ability. And we want you to help us make everyone else feel welcomed, too.
As you mentioned elsewhere we are missing the Conduct team to be taken seriously (a Conduct team that has demonstrated it will protect people and that the community trusts to uphold said values). That aside:
To my mind, that's the key here. XEP-0458 can trivially be updated to
include additional examples of both good and bad conduct, but if it's not being enforced even to the extent of having a Conduct Team in place, let alone an active one, then the entire thing is moot (that is, a discussion point rather than an action point).
Some points that are missing are listed in the code of conduct in the contributor covenant that jonas' posted.
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/
for example age or caste.
Can you give me some text that covers those, in a similar style?
another good example is https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html
some points that are not mentioned in the current CoC are:
- pronouns
What exactly would you say here?
- harassment.
Harassment is right there in the list in 2.5.
- No debating the rights and lived experiences of marginalized people in the community.
I'm not entirely sure what this means. That could easily be my ignorance - for the most part, I am not marginalized. But assuming it means what I think it means, it doesn't sound respectful, friendly, or supportive, and certainly not welcoming.
- Deliberate misgendering or use of “dead” or rejected names
I would hope this is overly specific - that is, it can't possibly be seen as respectful or friendly or supportive. And for what it's worth, we've had multiple members change their names
as some examples. a more complete also CoC can be found in the JoinJabber Project
https://joinjabber.org/about/community/codeofconduct/
there is also a list at the bottom of the JoinJabber CoC that links to other CoCs that informed it.
Also gnome has a code of conduct here https://conduct.gnome.org/
that says among others
The GNOME community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort, for example in situations involving:
- “Reverse”-isms, including “reverse racism,” “reverse sexism,” and “cisphobia” - Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.” - Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions - Communicating boundaries or criticizing oppressive behavior in a “tone” you don’t find congenial
Here be tygers - there's a risk, here, that the kinds of criticism that certain people raised in the first round of this turns into a valid one - that is, that bad behaviour can be justified if it's done "for a good reason".
That kind of pitfall was what prompted me to write section 2.2, actually.
Lastly you can see also https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Community_anti-harassment/Policy
and https://kit.pyladies.com/en/latest/policies/coc.html
that say among others also:
-
*Using welcoming and inclusive language.* We’re accepting of all who wish to take part in our activities, fostering an environment where anyone can participate and everyone can make a difference.
I think XEP-0458 covers this, in most if not all its sections.
- -
Unwelcome physical contact, including simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop
last one is especially interesting because i doubt a lot of us have seen it happen but it is one of those cases where we should trust the marginalized communities that have it there as a rule instead of our own privileged.
I agree it's not explicitly called out, and in this case, I think it's worth adding something. Dave.
Hi Dave, First of all, if any of this has been discussed further at summit, I would love a summary to be posted to the mailing list. For now, I am replying as if no such thing has happened. Please forgive my ignorance if I'm missing any progress that was made there. Replies inline. On Mittwoch, 29. Januar 2025 09:45:48 MEZ Dave Cridland wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 at 05:11, MSavoritias <email@msavoritias.me> wrote:
Dave Cridland kirjoitti 28.1.2025 klo 23.23:
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 21:06, Arc Riley <arcriley@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Thanks for writing this, it really does help.
I have to admit, I deliberately avoided using the term "LGBT" anywhere, for fear of ending up ina debate of what other letters were missing.
But what do you think is missing from:
You are welcome at XSF Activities. Ensure that you are also welcoming of others. We want everyone to feel welcome no matter what the colour of their skin, where they live, or where their ancestors came from. We want to welcome people from all cultures, and religions, and of all sizes and shapes. We want people to be welcome no matter their sexual identity or orientation. We want you to feel welcome no matter your level of experience or ability. And we want you to help us make everyone else feel welcomed, too.
As you mentioned elsewhere we are missing the Conduct team to be taken seriously (a Conduct team that has demonstrated it will protect people and that the community trusts to uphold said values). That aside:
To my mind, that's the key here. XEP-0458 can trivially be updated to
include additional examples of both good and bad conduct, but if it's not being enforced even to the extent of having a Conduct Team in place, let alone an active one, then the entire thing is moot (that is, a discussion point rather than an action point).
So I think there's a chicken-egg problem here. A Conduct Team needs volunteers, and volunteers need to want to do the job. The reason I initially raised this thread was because I felt that the CoC wasn't suitable to use in operators@, for instance. We then resorted to making room access more privileged (by requiring XEP-0157-based vouching), which has its downsides, but made moderation load bearable. What I am trying to say is: I'm certain that if we have a CoC which is good (enforcable, actionable, acceptable), we might find volunteers for a proper Conduct Team, at least for remote "work".
Some points that are missing are listed in the code of conduct in the contributor covenant that jonas' posted.
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/
for example age or caste.
Can you give me some text that covers those, in a similar style?
another good example is https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html
some points that are not mentioned in the current CoC are:
- pronouns
What exactly would you say here?
- harassment.
Harassment is right there in the list in 2.5.
- No debating the rights and lived experiences of marginalized people in the community.
I'm not entirely sure what this means. That could easily be my ignorance - for the most part, I am not marginalized. But assuming it means what I think it means, it doesn't sound respectful, friendly, or supportive, and certainly not welcoming.
I suppose MSavoritias can explain that better than me. What I think it means is that if a marginalized person (such as Arc or JC Brand in the other part of the thread) recounts their lived experiences, you take that at face value and do not debate the actuality or relevance of it.
- Deliberate misgendering or use of “dead” or rejected names
I would hope this is overly specific - that is, it can't possibly be seen as respectful or friendly or supportive.
I'm going to use this as a hookpoint to reply to this and the explicit LGBT mention that was made in the other thread. Speaking as a moderator, having a very explicit, even though never exhaustive, list of -isms to enforce against helps a friggin lot. Every moderator action is a burden. You will face backtalk from the people you enforce against, and potentially even from people who haven't even been directly involved in an incident. Every bit of room for interpretation which is removed from the CoC helps us moderators to take action and keep the rooms nice. I suggest we take one good CoC (contributor covenant, JoinJabber, or GNOME or whatever) and ratify it. The procedures laid out by the GNOME folks also make sense to me, maybe we should adopt these, too. The CoC won't be a static document. It will have to evolve to adapt to real world situations. But I would very much like us to start with something which already has a lot of evolution behind it instead of going through (presumably) the same issues and mistakes other organizations already had to face.
And for what it's worth, we've had multiple members change their names
As I am one of these, I'd like to make it clear that I do not want to compare the feelings I get when someone uses my "maiden" name vs. the feelings a trans person has when someone uses their dead name. (I'm spelling this out explicitly, because I am not aware of a name change beyond my own which happened due to marriage.)
as some examples. a more complete also CoC can be found in the JoinJabber Project
https://joinjabber.org/about/community/codeofconduct/
there is also a list at the bottom of the JoinJabber CoC that links to other CoCs that informed it.
Also gnome has a code of conduct here https://conduct.gnome.org/
that says among others
The GNOME community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over
privileged people’s comfort, for example in situations involving: - “Reverse”-isms, including “reverse racism,” “reverse sexism,” and “cisphobia” - Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.” - Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions - Communicating boundaries or criticizing oppressive behavior in a “tone” you don’t find congenial
Here be tygers - there's a risk, here, that the kinds of criticism that certain people raised in the first round of this turns into a valid one - that is, that bad behaviour can be justified if it's done "for a good reason".
That kind of pitfall was what prompted me to write section 2.2, actually.
I think the pitfall is severely reduced by the "safety over comfort" part of it. If it involves more than comfort being impacted, or if it's not anyomre about safety, then the behavior is not exempted. All over all... Yes, there are pitfalls and things which don't seem intuitive. Yet, other organizations have adopted CoCs in the past with these and it seems to have mostly worked. Perfection is never going to be achieved. kind regards, Jonas
Hi everyone, The CoC that we have now has been publicly created in the community, and has gone through our approval process. I'm (very) open to accept that it's not perfect, and I'm not against applying changes at all, but abandoning it in favor of a different one is drastic, and, from what I'm reading here, would have little chance to result in something for which there will be more consensus than for what we have already in place. Although Jonas did suggest the CoC would be a topic for discussion in the Summit, it was not offered up by anyone as an agenda item during the event itself in a room full of members. I did discuss it with a couple of individuals over the weekend, and possibly others have done the same, but nothing of consequence from that was brought up in a more public setting (like this mailinglist, or as part of a larger group discussion). To me, these are indications that there is little motivation to dramatically change things. Can we, pragmatically, adjust the CoC with changes to address Jonas' concern about having explicit lists directly usable by moderators to base their actions on, with an explicit side-note (clearly stated in the CoC) that these lists are not ment to be exhaustive (and possibly even document the motivation of having documented lists that may be considered 'partial' in the first place, based on the motivation that Jonas provided)? I fully expect the above to not be considered a good solution by many people from every side involved in the discussion. Perhaps that makes it one of the better compromises that is achievable today. Kind regards, Guus On Mon, Feb 3, 2025 at 5:26 PM Jonas Schäfer <jonas@wielicki.name> wrote:
Hi Dave,
First of all, if any of this has been discussed further at summit, I would love a summary to be posted to the mailing list. For now, I am replying as if no such thing has happened. Please forgive my ignorance if I'm missing any progress that was made there.
Replies inline.
On Mittwoch, 29. Januar 2025 09:45:48 MEZ Dave Cridland wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 at 05:11, MSavoritias <email@msavoritias.me> wrote:
Dave Cridland kirjoitti 28.1.2025 klo 23.23:
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 21:06, Arc Riley <arcriley@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Thanks for writing this, it really does help.
I have to admit, I deliberately avoided using the term "LGBT" anywhere, for fear of ending up ina debate of what other letters were missing.
But what do you think is missing from:
You are welcome at XSF Activities. Ensure that you are also welcoming of others. We want everyone to feel welcome no matter what the colour of their skin, where they live, or where their ancestors came from. We want to welcome people from all cultures, and religions, and of all sizes and shapes. We want people to be welcome no matter their sexual identity or orientation. We want you to feel welcome no matter your level of experience or ability. And we want you to help us make everyone else feel welcomed, too.
As you mentioned elsewhere we are missing the Conduct team to be taken seriously (a Conduct team that has demonstrated it will protect people and that the community trusts to uphold said values). That aside:
To my mind, that's the key here. XEP-0458 can trivially be updated to
include additional examples of both good and bad conduct, but if it's not being enforced even to the extent of having a Conduct Team in place, let alone an active one, then the entire thing is moot (that is, a discussion point rather than an action point).
So I think there's a chicken-egg problem here. A Conduct Team needs volunteers, and volunteers need to want to do the job. The reason I initially raised this thread was because I felt that the CoC wasn't suitable to use in operators@, for instance. We then resorted to making room access more privileged (by requiring XEP-0157-based vouching), which has its downsides, but made moderation load bearable.
What I am trying to say is: I'm certain that if we have a CoC which is good (enforcable, actionable, acceptable), we might find volunteers for a proper Conduct Team, at least for remote "work".
for the most part, I am not marginalized. But assuming it means what I think it means, it doesn't sound respectful, friendly, or supportive, and certainly not welcoming.
Some points that are missing are listed in the code of conduct in the contributor covenant that jonas' posted.
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/
for example age or caste.
Can you give me some text that covers those, in a similar style?
another good example is https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html
some points that are not mentioned in the current CoC are:
- pronouns
What exactly would you say here?
- harassment.
Harassment is right there in the list in 2.5.
- No debating the rights and lived experiences of marginalized people in the community.
I'm not entirely sure what this means. That could easily be my ignorance
I suppose MSavoritias can explain that better than me. What I think it means is that if a marginalized person (such as Arc or JC Brand in the other part of the thread) recounts their lived experiences, you take that at face value and do not debate the actuality or relevance of it.
- Deliberate misgendering or use of “dead” or rejected names
I would hope this is overly specific - that is, it can't possibly be seen as respectful or friendly or supportive.
I'm going to use this as a hookpoint to reply to this and the explicit LGBT mention that was made in the other thread.
Speaking as a moderator, having a very explicit, even though never exhaustive, list of -isms to enforce against helps a friggin lot.
Every moderator action is a burden. You will face backtalk from the people you enforce against, and potentially even from people who haven't even been directly involved in an incident. Every bit of room for interpretation which is removed from the CoC helps us moderators to take action and keep the rooms nice.
I suggest we take one good CoC (contributor covenant, JoinJabber, or GNOME or whatever) and ratify it. The procedures laid out by the GNOME folks also make sense to me, maybe we should adopt these, too.
The CoC won't be a static document. It will have to evolve to adapt to real world situations. But I would very much like us to start with something which already has a lot of evolution behind it instead of going through (presumably) the same issues and mistakes other organizations already had to face.
And for what it's worth, we've had multiple members change their names
As I am one of these, I'd like to make it clear that I do not want to compare the feelings I get when someone uses my "maiden" name vs. the feelings a trans person has when someone uses their dead name.
(I'm spelling this out explicitly, because I am not aware of a name change beyond my own which happened due to marriage.)
as some examples. a more complete also CoC can be found in the JoinJabber Project
https://joinjabber.org/about/community/codeofconduct/
there is also a list at the bottom of the JoinJabber CoC that links to other CoCs that informed it.
Also gnome has a code of conduct here https://conduct.gnome.org/
that says among others
The GNOME community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over
privileged people’s comfort, for example in situations involving: - “Reverse”-isms, including “reverse racism,” “reverse sexism,” and “cisphobia” - Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.” - Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions - Communicating boundaries or criticizing oppressive behavior in a “tone” you don’t find congenial
Here be tygers - there's a risk, here, that the kinds of criticism that certain people raised in the first round of this turns into a valid one - that is, that bad behaviour can be justified if it's done "for a good reason".
That kind of pitfall was what prompted me to write section 2.2, actually.
I think the pitfall is severely reduced by the "safety over comfort" part of it. If it involves more than comfort being impacted, or if it's not anyomre about safety, then the behavior is not exempted.
All over all... Yes, there are pitfalls and things which don't seem intuitive. Yet, other organizations have adopted CoCs in the past with these and it seems to have mostly worked. Perfection is never going to be achieved.
kind regards, Jonas
Some points that are missing are listed in the code of conduct in the contributor covenant that jonas' posted.
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/
for example age or caste.
Can you give me some text that covers those, in a similar style? sexual
I would change it to: You are welcome at XSF Activities. Ensure that you are also welcoming of others. We want everyone to feel welcome no matter what the color of their skin, where they live, their socioeconomic status or where their ancestors came from. We want to welcome people from all cultures, tribes and religions, and of all sizes, shapes and ages. We want people to be welcome no matter their gender identity and expression or sexual orientation and identity. We want you to feel welcome no matter your level of experience, ability or visible and invisible disability. We want people to be welcome no matter their education, caste, citizenship or immigration status. And we want you to help us make everyone else feel welcomed, too.
another good example is https://lgbtq.technology/coc.html
some points that are not mentioned in the current CoC are:
- pronouns
What exactly would you say here?
I would say three things: 1. as https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/ and https://conduct.gnome.org/ say use inclusive language in rooms. no "guys", "he/she". you can see https://heyguys.cc/ for an example. 2. Asking before assuming. For example what someone's preferred pronoun is, if they want to be touched, whether they know anything about a subject. If we are unsure, we ask for clarity. We also understand that not all questions are OK, or need answering. Don't assume what another person's pronouns are. 3. Require pronouns in Events/Summits/Sprints/etc. next to name tags.
- harassment.
Harassment is right there in the list in 2.5.
Ah right sorry i missed that ^^
- No debating the rights and lived experiences of marginalized
people in the community.
I'm not entirely sure what this means. That could easily be my
ignorance - for the most part, I am not marginalized. But assuming it means what I think it means, it doesn't sound respectful, friendly, or supportive, and certainly not welcoming. It basically aims to avoid situations like (substitute this as any other marginalized person, this is from my own POV): - Hey I am trans person and I have had hate crimes happen to me when I walk down the street because of my hairy legs. - "Hate crimes" don't exist or - I have friends that are trans people and I don't treat them like that. or - Maybe you misunderstood.
- Deliberate misgendering or use of “dead” or rejected names
I would hope this is overly specific - that is, it can't possibly be
seen as respectful or friendly or supportive.
And for what it's worth, we've had multiple members change their names
Basically what jonas said in the thread already. There are a lot of cases where a trans person goes through transition to some other sex. This happens because trans people have *a lot* of dysphoria about their birth bodies (voice, reproductive organs, hormones etc.) because they don't feel like they are that. So when transition happens they are becoming the person they *are*. This is why "dead" naming is offensive. Because its at best what i was forced to be not what I am.
as some examples. a more complete also CoC can be found in the
JoinJabber Project
https://joinjabber.org/about/community/codeofconduct/
there is also a list at the bottom of the JoinJabber CoC that
links to other CoCs that informed it.
Also gnome has a code of conduct here https://conduct.gnome.org/
that says among others
The GNOME community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over
privileged people’s comfort, for example in situations involving:
“Reverse”-isms, including “reverse racism,” “reverse sexism,”
and “cisphobia”
Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.” Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions Communicating boundaries or criticizing oppressive behavior in a “tone” you don’t find congenial
Here be tygers - there's a risk, here, that the kinds of criticism that certain people raised in the first round of this turns into a valid one - that is, that bad behaviour can be justified if it's done "for a good reason".
That kind of pitfall was what prompted me to write section 2.2, actually.
I agree :) Which is why in JoinJabber we added
Basic expectations for conduct are not covered by the "reverse-ism" clause and would be enforced irrespective of the demographics of those involved. For example, racial discrimination will not be tolerated, irrespective of the race of those involved. Nor would unwanted sexual attention be tolerated, whatever someone's gender or sexual orientation. Members of our community have the right to expect that participants in the project will uphold these standards.
which gives us also something to fall back to.
Lastly you can see also
https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Community_anti-harassment/Policy
and https://kit.pyladies.com/en/latest/policies/coc.html
that say among others also:
Using welcoming and inclusive language. We’re accepting of
all who wish to take part in our activities, fostering an environment where anyone can participate and everyone can make a difference.
I think XEP-0458 covers this, in most if not all its sections.
"inclusive language" specifically no. It could be moderated according to the line you wrote
The purpose of a Code of Conduct is to ensure that our community is as welcoming and inclusive as possible.
but I feel like a lot of people would argue it doesn't mean that.
Unwelcome physical contact, including simulated physical
contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop
last one is especially interesting because i doubt a lot of us
have seen it happen but it is one of those cases where we should trust the marginalized communities that have it there as a rule instead of our own privileged.
I agree it's not explicitly called out, and in this case, I think
it's worth adding something. Gnome has a nice section Unwelcome physical contact. This includes touching a person without permission, including sensitive areas such as their hair, pregnant stomach, mobility device (wheelchair, scooter, etc) or tattoos. This also includes physically blocking or intimidating another person. Physical contact or simulated physical contact (such as emojis like “kiss”) without affirmative consent is not acceptable. This includes sharing or distribution of sexualized images or text. MSavoritias
On 2025/01/28 23:05, Arc Riley wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Our CoC already deals with "behaviour that poses a clear and present threat of physical harm", not to mention that assault is also illegal, regardless of the reason it happens. I'm sure if someone was assaulted at an XSF event, the perpetrator would be removed and ideally criminally charged with an offense. Also, it's not only LGBT people who get assaulted. I've been assaulted, more than once. So why should we delve ever more deeply into ever expanding categories of marginalization instead of just saying we won't tolerate behaviour X (e.g. "physical harm")?
On 29 Jan 2025, at 07:01, JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
On 2025/01/28 23:05, Arc Riley wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com <mailto:lists@opkode.com>> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Our CoC already deals with "behaviour that poses a clear and present threat of physical harm", not to mention that assault is also illegal, regardless of the reason it happens. I'm sure if someone was assaulted at an XSF event, the perpetrator would be removed and ideally criminally charged with an offense.
Also, it's not only LGBT people who get assaulted. I've been assaulted, more than once. So why should we delve ever more deeply into ever expanding categories of marginalization instead of just saying we won't tolerate behaviour X (e.g. "physical harm”)el?
Reluctant as I am to put words in Arc’s mouth, I don’t believe Arc was suggesting that only LGBT people get assaulted. I may be over-simplifying this, but if people from these groups are saying that they feel safer, because of experiences elsewhere (or, worse, here), if we have a simple statement that we want them to be safe here, such a statement seems like a small price to pay and it’s not clear to me what benefit we would gain from not making it. /K
On Wed, 29 Jan 2025 at 08:50, Kevin Smith <kevin.smith@isode.com> wrote:
On 29 Jan 2025, at 07:01, JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
On 2025/01/28 23:05, Arc Riley wrote:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:01 AM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
FWIW, I don't think coming up with ever more fine-grained categorization of what constitutes marginalized persons and putting that in the CoC is the right way to go.
One can always come up with more categories of marginalized people, and trying to enumerate all of them in a CoC is IMO impractical, while mentioning only some of them can create the impression that some categories of people are "more equal" than others.
It isn't always about practical enforcement, it is a statement of values.
As a member who belongs to at least three of the typically listed groups, including LGBT, and I have been assaulted for this, I rarely read the lists but it makes me feel safer in new groups.
Our CoC already deals with "behaviour that poses a clear and present threat of physical harm", not to mention that assault is also illegal, regardless of the reason it happens. I'm sure if someone was assaulted at an XSF event, the perpetrator would be removed and ideally criminally charged with an offense.
Also, it's not only LGBT people who get assaulted. I've been assaulted, more than once. So why should we delve ever more deeply into ever expanding categories of marginalization instead of just saying we won't tolerate behaviour X (e.g. "physical harm”)el?
Reluctant as I am to put words in Arc’s mouth, I don’t believe Arc was suggesting that only LGBT people get assaulted.
I think JC was concerned with ensuring that physical violence is against the CoC, rather than worrying over the precise definition of the victims. I think this is absolutely right,
I may be over-simplifying this, but if people from these groups are saying that they feel safer, because of experiences elsewhere (or, worse, here), if we have a simple statement that we want them to be safe here, such a statement seems like a small price to pay and it’s not clear to me what benefit we would gain from not making it.
As I said, I'm personally very reticent of using the term "LGBT", because there are multiple variants which include (or exclude) various groups and sub-groups. I avoided this by explicitly stating about "sexual identity or orientation", which I hoped would cover this without having to list every variation by assigning them a letter. I am generally against any attempt to make an exhaustive list of people who are welcome, because of the risk of leaving some group out implicitly, but I tried to encompass all of L, G, B, T, and other letters in that section. That said, that is my opinion, and if people with more experience than I will ever have want a list, then their opinion outweighs my concerns. But to reiterate a point I feel I've made several times, this is rather a moot point if we haven't made any moves to enforce it, by appointing a Conduct Team, making reference to the CoC at official events and in official channels, and so on. Dave
On Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 11:01 PM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
Also, it's not only LGBT people who get assaulted. I've been assaulted, more than once. So why should we delve ever more deeply into ever expanding categories of marginalization instead of just saying we won't tolerate behaviour X (e.g. "physical harm")?
I feel this is a worn out point so I dislike having to share it, but this is the difference between a personal assault and a hate crime; If somebody you got into conflict at a bar assaults you for something you did or said, it's horrible but it's just between you two. Somebody watching the fight is unlikely to fear being assaulted themselves. When I as an LGBT person (and I agree about alphabet soup) learn about another LGBT person being assaulted because they are LGBT I fear that I or somebody I love will be assaulted. This is why we call these "hate crimes". If a person on a group chat calls another person a f** they are not insulting that other person only, regardless to if that other person is LGBT, they are stating to the entire group that their group does not include LGBT. The word itself is used this way by enough people to include this meaning by its utterance. This is why I post YouTube videos with LGBT people doing tough work on my land, it shows LGBT people being tough which is essentially the opposite of hate crimes. These silly little 15 second shorts are watched on repeat by thousands of people who need to see other LGBT people being strong. And that is why I hobble down to record and post these moments despite needing a walking stick and often help walking. This is why I founded the world's first transgender rugby club and posted all the videos of transmen playing rugby, people tell me these videos helped them. That is who I am. I just ask you to not be indifferent to these issues. It's not just about punishing people who write unkind words in group chat, it's about the marginalized people who read our CoC. Latest video https://youtube.com/shorts/R1H1gGdUKMc <https://youtube.com/shorts/R1H1gGdUKMc?si=ZuLrxg5wrAMOfMg8> (only a few hundred views so far) Example of a recent video https://youtube.com/shorts/bwWLNB2jnOU
Hi Arc I appreciate your thoughtful response. On 2025/01/29 15:02, Arc Riley wrote:
On Tue, Jan 28, 2025, 11:01 PM JC Brand <lists@opkode.com> wrote:
Also, it's not only LGBT people who get assaulted. I've been assaulted, more than once. So why should we delve ever more deeply into ever expanding categories of marginalization instead of just saying we won't tolerate behaviour X (e.g. "physical harm")?
I feel this is a worn out point so I dislike having to share it, but this is the difference between a personal assault and a hate crime;
If somebody you got into conflict at a bar assaults you for something you did or said, it's horrible but it's just between you two. Somebody watching the fight is unlikely to fear being assaulted themselves.
When I as an LGBT person (and I agree about alphabet soup) learn about another LGBT person being assaulted because they are LGBT I fear that I or somebody I love will be assaulted. This is why we call these "hate crimes".
There are many areas in my country where I cannot safely go to due to heightened risk of being attacked due to my ethnicity. We have high profile politicians and civil servants calling for people like me to be tortured and killed. But then we have people here calling this false claims of "reverse-racism" and therefore invalid. So the fact that I'm at heightened risk of being attacked or killed because of my ethnicity is irrelevant to them. This demonstrates a narrow American and European-centric view of the world. The world is much bigger than that.
If a person on a group chat calls another person a f** they are not insulting that other person only, regardless to if that other person is LGBT, they are stating to the entire group that their group does not include LGBT. The word itself is used this way by enough people to include this meaning by its utterance.
This is why I post YouTube videos with LGBT people doing tough work on my land, it shows LGBT people being tough which is essentially the opposite of hate crimes. These silly little 15 second shorts are watched on repeat by thousands of people who need to see other LGBT people being strong. And that is why I hobble down to record and post these moments despite needing a walking stick and often help walking. This is why I founded the world's first transgender rugby club and posted all the videos of transmen playing rugby, people tell me these videos helped them.
That is who I am. I just ask you to not be indifferent to these issues. It's not just about punishing people who write unkind words in group chat, it's about the marginalized people who read our CoC.
I'm not indifferent. I have gay family members and one of my best friends of almost 30 years is gay. I would be horrified if they were attacked for their sexual orientation. I am however wary of the risk of creating special categories of people that may not be criticized and the potential for this to be abused by machiavelian and manipulative people to make themselves beyond reproach. What textual change do you propose in the CoC?
Hi Jonas, In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected.
While I understand where this is coming from, I think the text as-is is problematic. It seems a Bad Thing to require everyone in XSF venues to stop a discussion when one person wants it to stop... ...and I'm not interested in hearing anyone disagree with me, so I don't want people to discuss this topic further. /K
Hi Jonas, In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected.
While I understand where this is coming from, I think the text as-is is problematic. It seems a Bad Thing to require everyone in XSF venues to stop a discussion when one person wants it to stop...
...and I'm not interested in hearing anyone disagree with me, so I don't want people to discuss this topic further.
/K This is, hopefully obviously but just in case, an example of how this can be abused.
/K
On Montag, 29. April 2024 09:41:00 CEST Kevin Smith wrote:
Hi Jonas,
In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected.
While I understand where this is coming from, I think the text as-is is problematic. It seems a Bad Thing to require everyone in XSF venues to stop a discussion when one person wants it to stop...
...and I'm not interested in hearing anyone disagree with me, so I don't want people to discuss this topic further.
Thanks for pointing this out, I'll reply to this particular point (which Dave also brought up) when I look through and reply to Dave's email in more detail. kind regards, Jonas
On Thu, 25 Apr 2024 at 17:01, Jonas Schäfer <jonas@wielicki.name> wrote:
Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or other derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise offensive and bigoted discourse.
I think this would belong in 2.3, actually, but in any case, I tried very hard to avoid explicit lists of what is acceptable. The research I did didn't give me a clear guide on this strategy - some people wrote that you absolutely should list everything that's unacceptable, but other people wrote that such a list essentially becomes a licence to do anything not explicitly listed. Loosely, I felt that anything in a CoC can and will be weaponized against you, which is why everything is - mostly, anyway - written as broad principles rather than lists of examples. (And yes, there is a school of thought that says that the reverse strategy is more effective at deweaponising). In addition, I tried to write section 2 in particular in a friendly, calm, encouraging manner - rather that a stern list of rules which one must not violate. I actually think all your examples here are covered by 2.3 already, in as much as "subjects and expressions that may offend" is deliberately broad; and in common with the bit in 2.2 where if I accidentally used a castist slur (I genuinely have no idea what those might be) someone points it out and I take it as a learning experience and move on, I'd like to think we're covered. As a particular example, I avoided the term "anti-trans" because that subject is heavily contentious; I did in 2.1 explicitly include "sexual identity", which might well be the wrong term, but that's (part of) what I'm aiming for there. I don't think this needs debating here - the goal is presumably to ensure that people from any and all backgrounds are equally welcome in this community, with the sole proviso that they too must be welcoming to everyone else. To wax philosophical for a moment, we are all bigots, but we are exhorted in XEP-0458 to avoid showing it. If you wanted to change or add to cover your concerns, I'd suggest doing so in 2.1 in similar broad terms, rather than trying to police individual phrases.
In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected.
I think I understand what you're trying to achieve here, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it. If I understand correctly, you're trying to avoid someone aggressively continuing a conversation when someone else is trying to disengage because the discussion is making them uncomfortable. I get this, but "She should have said if it made her uncomfortable", "Hey, they didn't say I should stop", etc. I do wish that I could have unilaterally stopped discussion of Carbons several times, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean either. Let me ask this question: Under what circumstances do you think a discussion would enter the state that concerns you without having transgressed some other guidance in XEP-0458?
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I tried to capture this sentiment in the penultimate sentence of 2.1. Do you think it needs more? Dave.
Hi Dave, On Montag, 29. April 2024 11:18:57 CEST Dave Cridland wrote:
On Thu, 25 Apr 2024 at 17:01, Jonas Schäfer <jonas@wielicki.name> wrote:
Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on
the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or
other
derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such
groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise
offensive and bigoted discourse.
I think this would belong in 2.3, actually,
I was torn on this, no strong opinions on the exact placement.
but in any case, I tried very hard to avoid explicit lists of what is acceptable.
The research I did didn't give me a clear guide on this strategy - some people wrote that you absolutely should list everything that's unacceptable, but other people wrote that such a list essentially becomes a licence to do anything not explicitly listed.
Loosely, I felt that anything in a CoC can and will be weaponized against you, which is why everything is - mostly, anyway - written as broad principles rather than lists of examples. (And yes, there is a school of thought that says that the reverse strategy is more effective at deweaponising).
I agree that everything in a CoC is bound to be weaponized by malicious actors. However, as pointed out in my original email with my moderator hat on, I find explicit lists more useful. I also like that they send a clear message (not to the malicious actors, but in fact to those seeking protection under the CoC from malicious actors) that some thought was spent on this topic instead of just a vague, blanket statement.
In addition, I tried to write section 2 in particular in a friendly, calm, encouraging manner - rather that a stern list of rules which one must not violate.
Maybe the wording from the contributor covenant [1], which I only learnt about recently but which I find very positive, would be a source of inspiration then? To quote: | We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our | community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body | size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, | gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio- | economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, | religion, or sexual identity and orientation. I find this a very positive wording at least.
I actually think all your examples here are covered by 2.3 already, in as much as "subjects and expressions that may offend" is deliberately broad;
(see above about the vagueness issue)
and in common with the bit in 2.2 where if I accidentally used a castist slur (I genuinely have no idea what those might be) someone points it out and I take it as a learning experience and move on, I'd like to think we're covered.
I like 2.2, it is a good addition. I think it works very well once we as an organisation have demonstrated that it is in fact a safe space for an oppressed group to bring such issues up.
As a particular example, I avoided the term "anti-trans" because that subject is heavily contentious; I did in 2.1 explicitly include "sexual identity", which might well be the wrong term, but that's (part of) what I'm aiming for there.
Understood, I think that the C-C wording is more fitting here (sexual identity, gender identity and sex characteristics are included, which should cover that sufficiently AFAIK).
I don't think this needs debating here - the goal is presumably to ensure that people from any and all backgrounds are equally welcome in this community, with the sole proviso that they too must be welcoming to everyone else.
Exactly, tolerance paradox etc.
To wax philosophical for a moment, we are all bigots, but we are exhorted in XEP-0458 to avoid showing it.
:-).
If you wanted to change or add to cover your concerns, I'd suggest doing so in 2.1 in similar broad terms, rather than trying to police individual phrases.
Then, copy&paste the first paragraph from the Contributor Covenant there?
In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the
internet,
but boundaries are there to be respected.
I think I understand what you're trying to achieve here, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it.
If I understand correctly, you're trying to avoid someone aggressively continuing a conversation when someone else is trying to disengage because the discussion is making them uncomfortable. I get this, but "She should have said if it made her uncomfortable", "Hey, they didn't say I should stop", etc.
I do wish that I could have unilaterally stopped discussion of Carbons several times, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean either.
Oh, don't get me started on the markup wars ;-).
Let me ask this question: Under what circumstances do you think a discussion would enter the state that concerns you without having transgressed some other guidance in XEP-0458?
I'm not excellent at phrasing, so I'll put this down as a list of rfc-esque requirements of what I was aiming for. When person A indicates boundaries (e.g. "I don't want to discuss this any further"), then: - Another person X MUST NOT ping (mention, directly address) person A about that topic, unless A explicitly expresses interest - Another person X SHOULD NOT repeatedly ask person A to re-evaluate their stance - Other people MAY continue a discussion of the topic in public spaces where person A is also present (i.e. A does not get to police that Carbons is not to be discussed anymore) (assuming that the topic is not in violation of XEP-0458 already.) And a second case (which I do not think is covered by '458 already, but if it is, let me know) would be if A says to X "I do not want to discuss with you any further": - X MUST NOT ping (mention, directly address) person A, unless person A explicitly states otherwise. (you could argue that A should just block X in this case, but given that our venues are email and XMPP, where blocking in public fora is not really a thing which works well, I don't think that's enough) Wording suggestions which cover these cases welcome.
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the
first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born
an
expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive
of
newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I tried to capture this sentiment in the penultimate sentence of 2.1. Do you think it needs more?
Yes, a little. It says "We want to be welcoming […]", but it doesn't quite paint a picture of what newcomers may expect. I think my wording makes that clearer ("if you are new you can expect supportiveness and no patronizing or condescending comments"). kind regards, Jonas [1]: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/
On Mon, 29 Apr 2024 at 10:58, Jonas Schäfer <jonas@wielicki.name> wrote:
Hi Dave,
On Montag, 29. April 2024 11:18:57 CEST Dave Cridland wrote:
On Thu, 25 Apr 2024 at 17:01, Jonas Schäfer <jonas@wielicki.name> wrote:
Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on
the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or
other
derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such
groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise
offensive and bigoted discourse.
I think this would belong in 2.3, actually,
I was torn on this, no strong opinions on the exact placement.
but in any case, I tried very hard to avoid explicit lists of what is acceptable.
The research I did didn't give me a clear guide on this strategy - some people wrote that you absolutely should list everything that's unacceptable, but other people wrote that such a list essentially becomes a licence to do anything not explicitly listed.
Loosely, I felt that anything in a CoC can and will be weaponized against you, which is why everything is - mostly, anyway - written as broad principles rather than lists of examples. (And yes, there is a school of thought that says that the reverse strategy is more effective at deweaponising).
I agree that everything in a CoC is bound to be weaponized by malicious actors.
However, as pointed out in my original email with my moderator hat on, I find explicit lists more useful.
Yes, and I understand that point of view, but as I say I ended up persuaded by the competing argument somewhat more, and as a result that's not how 458 is written.
I also like that they send a clear message (not to the malicious actors, but in fact to those seeking protection under the CoC from malicious actors) that some thought was spent on this topic instead of just a vague, blanket statement.
I hope that's not how it comes across. Obviously I know how much I worked (and reworked) the phrasing, but also I know a lot of thought into specific bits came from others.
In addition, I tried to write section 2 in particular in a friendly, calm, encouraging manner - rather that a stern list of rules which one must not violate.
Maybe the wording from the contributor covenant [1], which I only learnt about recently but which I find very positive, would be a source of inspiration then? To quote:
| We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our | community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body | size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, | gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio- | economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, | religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
I find this a very positive wording at least.
I do, but it's almost a bullet-pointed list, and does that mean things not on the list are a reason not to be welcoming? I also have issues with "harassment-free" - I mean, yes, obviously, but I rather hoped than 2.1 conveyed a higher bar than merely not being harassed. I don't think the community has ever harassed people; but it's most certainly made them feel less than welcome before.
I actually think all your examples here are covered by 2.3 already, in as much as "subjects and expressions that may offend" is deliberately broad;
(see above about the vagueness issue)
I would take some issue with "vague"; it's not intended to be vague, but broad, and there is very much a distinction.
and in common with the bit in 2.2 where if I accidentally used a castist slur (I genuinely have no idea what those might be) someone points it out and I take it as a learning experience and move on, I'd like to think we're covered.
I like 2.2, it is a good addition. I think it works very well once we as an organisation have demonstrated that it is in fact a safe space for an oppressed group to bring such issues up.
As a particular example, I avoided the term "anti-trans" because that subject is heavily contentious; I did in 2.1 explicitly include "sexual identity", which might well be the wrong term, but that's (part of) what I'm aiming for there.
Understood, I think that the C-C wording is more fitting here (sexual identity, gender identity and sex characteristics are included, which should cover that sufficiently AFAIK).
I don't think this needs debating here - the goal is presumably to ensure that people from any and all backgrounds are equally welcome in this community, with the sole proviso that they too must be welcoming to everyone else.
Exactly, tolerance paradox etc.
To wax philosophical for a moment, we are all bigots, but we are exhorted in XEP-0458 to avoid showing it.
:-).
If you wanted to change or add to cover your concerns, I'd suggest doing so in 2.1 in similar broad terms, rather than trying to police individual phrases.
Then, copy&paste the first paragraph from the Contributor Covenant there?
Well, I'm possibly biased, but 2.1 was the bit that in terms of tone I was happiest with, despite the fact that it broke the rule that I mixed examples with the primary text. And worryingly, this seems to be the root of much of your concern. We could add more examples around there, though I hoped that it was sufficient, or we could actually remove some of the examples out to an actual bullet-pointed list; this is one of the few sections that doesn't have one.
In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the
internet,
but boundaries are there to be respected.
I think I understand what you're trying to achieve here, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it.
If I understand correctly, you're trying to avoid someone aggressively continuing a conversation when someone else is trying to disengage because the discussion is making them uncomfortable. I get this, but "She should have said if it made her uncomfortable", "Hey, they didn't say I should stop", etc.
I do wish that I could have unilaterally stopped discussion of Carbons several times, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean either.
Oh, don't get me started on the markup wars ;-).
Oh, and I'd managed to forget about those.
Let me ask this question: Under what circumstances do you think a discussion would enter the state that concerns you without having transgressed some other guidance in XEP-0458?
I'm not excellent at phrasing, so I'll put this down as a list of rfc-esque requirements of what I was aiming for. When person A indicates boundaries (e.g. "I don't want to discuss this any further"), then:
- Another person X MUST NOT ping (mention, directly address) person A about that topic, unless A explicitly expresses interest
So you're blocking all 1:1 messaging?
- Another person X SHOULD NOT repeatedly ask person A to re-evaluate their stance - Other people MAY continue a discussion of the topic in public spaces where person A is also present (i.e. A does not get to police that Carbons is not to be discussed anymore)
(assuming that the topic is not in violation of XEP-0458 already.)
Right, I think I understand what you're trying to say here. But I think your "rules" are not really practical.
And a second case (which I do not think is covered by '458 already, but if it is, let me know) would be if A says to X "I do not want to discuss with you any further":
- X MUST NOT ping (mention, directly address) person A, unless person A explicitly states otherwise.
(you could argue that A should just block X in this case, but given that our venues are email and XMPP, where blocking in public fora is not really a thing which works well, I don't think that's enough)
Wording suggestions which cover these cases welcome.
I think we're looking at 2.4 as being where to put this, since it covers disagreements in general, and say something along the lines of, "It's OK to agree to disagree", perhaps after the second sentence, "Sometimes these differences won't be resolved, and that's OK - if your argument isn't convincing someone, let it stand - and don't continue a debate after someone 'agrees to disagree'."
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the
first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born
an
expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive
of
newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I tried to capture this sentiment in the penultimate sentence of 2.1. Do you think it needs more?
Yes, a little. It says "We want to be welcoming […]", but it doesn't quite paint a picture of what newcomers may expect.
I think my wording makes that clearer ("if you are new you can expect supportiveness and no patronizing or condescending comments").
I think even if you're not new you should expect that, but I understand what you're saying. I think patronising/condescending belongs in a bullet point of things to avoid in 2.3, doesn't it? And maybe expand on the newcomer aspect in 2.1?
kind regards, Jonas
[1]: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_conduct/
Hi, me again, I'd like to propose this as input to summit. I think we should drive this forward and make progress, which means: 1. adopting a more modern CoC (as linked within this thread) and/or adapting our CoC to more explicitly promote safety of marginalized groups, 2. AND: actually enforcing the CoC in our venues (these days mostly jdev@ sticks out as potentially problematic; switching operators@ to moderated with auto-voicing of actual operators definitely helped there, even though it's not perfect). If either of these two things does not happen rather soon-ish, the already existing invisible division I mentioned in the thread will become very very apparent, potentially causing a fork in the community. Mind that I am *not* available for driving this forward (except by copying a (to me) known-good CoC into XEP-0458 with minor changes to be immediately approved by Board), for one simple reason: I am tired of fighting windmills in this organization. I have tried as Editor, and I've tried here. Maybe we have a silent majority which supports the change this organization needs (in my opinion, anyway), but maybe not. If we do have that majority, I would love for the people to raise their voices in threads like these. kind regards, Jonas On Donnerstag, 25. April 2024 18:01:20 MEZ Jonas Schäfer wrote:
Hi everyone,
Going through the CoC again, I notice that it has a few gaps we should probably address.
While the current wording explicitly prohibits racist language, there are a lot of other *-isms which are unfortunately quite present in various spaces on the XMPP network and which sometimes roll into XSF rooms.
I do not think that we want to be perceived as, for instance, an anti-LGBTQIA+ community, so we should extend the CoC to:
a) send the clear message to the world that we won't tolerate behaviour that, and b) give our moderators (that includes me in some places) the necessary holding to enforce when necessary
Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or other> derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise
offensive and bigoted discourse.
In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add:
Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected.
To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph:
This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending.
I may propose a PR against XEP-0458, but before doing so I wanted to offer this for discussion on this list.
kind regards, Jonas
for enforcing the CoC and have less burden on members or council the GNOME online Code of Conduct committee can be seen as a well documented and a good example to adopt -> https://conduct.gnome.org/reporter-guide/ they account for problems of power (council members breaking CoC for example) and for problems of access (sysadmins breaking CoC that can read messages on the server) MSavoritias Jonas Schäfer kirjoitti 28.1.2025 klo 17.44:
Hi, me again,
I'd like to propose this as input to summit. I think we should drive this forward and make progress, which means:
1. adopting a more modern CoC (as linked within this thread) and/or adapting our CoC to more explicitly promote safety of marginalized groups, 2. AND: actually enforcing the CoC in our venues (these days mostly jdev@ sticks out as potentially problematic; switching operators@ to moderated with auto-voicing of actual operators definitely helped there, even though it's not perfect).
If either of these two things does not happen rather soon-ish, the already existing invisible division I mentioned in the thread will become very very apparent, potentially causing a fork in the community.
Mind that I am *not* available for driving this forward (except by copying a (to me) known-good CoC into XEP-0458 with minor changes to be immediately approved by Board), for one simple reason: I am tired of fighting windmills in this organization. I have tried as Editor, and I've tried here. Maybe we have a silent majority which supports the change this organization needs (in my opinion, anyway), but maybe not. If we do have that majority, I would love for the people to raise their voices in threads like these.
kind regards, Jonas
On Donnerstag, 25. April 2024 18:01:20 MEZ Jonas Schäfer wrote:
Hi everyone,
Going through the CoC again, I notice that it has a few gaps we should probably address.
While the current wording explicitly prohibits racist language, there are a lot of other *-isms which are unfortunately quite present in various spaces on the XMPP network and which sometimes roll into XSF rooms.
I do not think that we want to be perceived as, for instance, an anti-LGBTQIA+ community, so we should extend the CoC to:
a) send the clear message to the world that we won't tolerate behaviour that, and b) give our moderators (that includes me in some places) the necessary holding to enforce when necessary
Concretely, I propose that we add to 2.4 Be respectful, the following items on the list of things to avoid:
- Use of racist, misogynistic, anti-trans, anti-gay, ableist slurs, or other> derogatory pejoratives for oppressed identity groups against such groups.
- Blatantly racist, casteist, ableist, sexist, anti-trans, or otherwise
offensive and bigoted discourse. In addition, before the list of things to avoid, I would like to add: Respect others requests for space. That includes to disengage from a discourse if your partner(s) indicate that they do not want to discuss a topic any further. It is not easy to let someone be "wrong" on the internet, but boundaries are there to be respected. To section 2.5 ("Be friendly and supportive"), I would like to add after the first paragraph: This includes being mindful of the abilities of others; nobody is born an expert in anything and we all had to learn at some point. Be supportive of newcomers and learners. Do not be patronizing or condescending. I may propose a PR against XEP-0458, but before doing so I wanted to offer this for discussion on this list.
kind regards, Jonas
------ Original Message ------ From "Msavoritias" <email@msavoritias.me> To members@xmpp.org Date 28/01/2025 15:55:39 Subject [Members] Re: Extending the XSF Community Code of Conduct (XEP-0458)
for enforcing the CoC and have less burden on members or council the GNOME online Code of Conduct committee can be seen as a well documented and a good example to adopt -> https://conduct.gnome.org/reporter-guide/
they account for problems of power (council members breaking CoC for example) and for problems of access (sysadmins breaking CoC that can read messages on the server) Nothing on that page jumps out as stupid to me.
/K
On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 15:55, Msavoritias <email@msavoritias.me> wrote:
for enforcing the CoC and have less burden on members or council the GNOME online Code of Conduct committee can be seen as a well documented and a good example to adopt -> https://conduct.gnome.org/reporter-guide/
they account for problems of power (council members breaking CoC for example) and for problems of access (sysadmins breaking CoC that can read messages on the server)
XEP-0458 does have a bunch of text about Board appointing a Conduct team, and reporting going to them, and so on. This is definitely clearer, better written, and more refined. But it still needs Board to appoint a Conduct team. My concerns with XEP-0458 isn't what precise words it uses where and when, it's that there's still no Conduct team. Without that, it's easy to suggest we don't take it seriously. Dave.
Maybe we have a silent majority which supports the change this organization needs (in my opinion, anyway), but maybe not. If we do have that majority, I would love for the people to raise their voices in threads like these.
I think these are difficult issues to get right, but I'm in favour of us trying. /K
participants (11)
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Arc Riley -
Dan Caseley -
Dave Cridland -
Guus der Kinderen -
JC Brand -
Jonas Schäfer -
Kevin Smith -
Msavoritias -
MSavoritias
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Peter Saint-Andre -
Stephen Paul Weber