Proposed Conflict Resolution Policy

I think this is mostly very good and very clear.

Two small points:

a) In the section about resolving conflicts yourself, I would put "Move to real-time" first, before you start to list grievances etc. It seems like starting with making a list of grievances could fan the flames (just make you more angry the more you think about it), whereas an immediate ping in IRC could just get the situation resolved. I have been on the receiving end of such a ping in the past when I got impatient or was perceived as insulting/rude in the issue queue, and I felt like it was a Very Good Thing to be given an immediate chance to make amends.

b) In the escalation section, ... It kind of looks like the order is *mostly* from least severe to most severe. But then I got to "apology" item, which seems to belong before the ban item and maybe even before the "imposed vacation" item? Not sure.

c) (ok, three). In "Move to a more real-time medium", this might be clearer if after that it said: "For example, if the conflict happened in the issue queue, move to IRC. If it happened in IRC, move to a Hangout, phone, or Skype. ..." And maybe make it clear the idea is to contact the person gently in the new medium, and see if you can resolve the problem?

I would remove the entire first paragraph because it's not needed and has a bunch of tangential, dated information. It doesn't really matter what the conflict is about. We should just get to the policy.

Step 3 might be a little ambiguous. It seems to say that the CWG might not step in if one party is just stalling out or stonewalling on step 1 and 2. Like it didn't exactly "fail" but we couldn't really engage with the other party. I would suggest changing to something like "Escalate to the CWG only if the previous steps fail. You will be required to submit evidence that at least one of the parties has made a good faith effort towards resolving the issue (through steps 1 and 2) without success:"

Step 4 shouldn't be part of the numbered steps. It's related to steps 1 through 3 but it's technically not "the next step" (i.e. it's something that's happening on its own schedule).

In the note change "meets on only a weekly basis" to "meets only on a weekly basis". Slightly more idiomatic.

"Escalation policy" doesn't read like an escalation policy at all. How about calling it "Remedies" which has exactly the right legal and medical connotations. In other words, "This is what we can do to make it better" rather than "This is how we plan to kick the turd up the hill"

The bit "they may enforce a number of consequences, including but not limited to:" would be better without the words "enforcing" and "consequences".

How about "In the event the CWG has to intervene in an issue, here are some of the ways that the CWG might respond:"

I would change "Taking no further action (if we determine no violation occurred)." to something like "Take no action. For example, if the CWG determines the complaint has not been substantiated or if it is deemed to be outside the purview of this group."

The rest of the text looks good.

But I have one more big problem in that we haven't at all defined the scope. Where do we draw the line? I think we have to say somewhere that the CWG will only review issues that involve interactions that have arisen within the context of the Drupal community meaning on drupal.org and all other formal and informal communication channels that are used to develop Drupal core and its contributed modules. This would include both live and online interactions. And I think it would be good to specifically exclude any other conflicts such as between employers and employees, customers and service providers etc. (Unless we actually do intend to deal with those issues, in which case we should say so.) It might be difficult to nail this down but it's probably worth thinking about. How about if I have a Drupal shop and my competitor is telling my customers that I don't my node from a hole in the ground. Do I take it to the CWG because we're both part of the community even though the dispute is not otherwise spilling into the community?

I agree, the first paragraph can be removed. A brief history on how it was formulated seems less relevant

@LeeHunter's point on the boundary is a great one and I see a hint in his comment.
The ultimate reason we need the CWG and Conflict Resolution Policy is, I believe, to keep the community healthy so we can continue to collaborate and make Drupal even more awesome. This in turn maintain Drupal's positive reputation and momentum as a project, which is crucial for the community. A bit of recursion there.

Every case is unique and therefore would need to be evaluated individually. But if my assumption above is not far off, a decision on whether a case should be handled by CWG could be made based on whether a reported incident would cause notable damage to the community and/or the project. Notable damage would include but not limited to:

• an individual / group of people leaving the community
• making the community seem hostile or unattractive

If a conflict is between employee and employer, or between businesses, then a recourse to civil law may be more appropriate (but again, it depends on what type of conflict they are having).

Also one more thing on @LeeHunter's last paragraph: I would say that it's not only about development of the core / contrib, but also other activities involving / initiated by the community including local groups, event organisation, translation, documentation etc.

The CWG's charter has a lot to say about the scope of activities within the CWG, but we might indeed want to repeat some of it here.

Actually a link to the charter would be better than repeating the content. A link to the charter should be there anyway.

+1 to what has been said previously

and with a few additions:

Context; Content; References. I'd actually keep the introductory paragraph to set the context of when / why it's appropriate to read this policy. Move the reference to the Django code of conduct to the footer of that section....and add headings per Lee's suggested changes to make it easier to skim the content. It feels like there's a mixing-and-matching of a HOWTO and a policy document. I don't know much about policy writing, but it seems like it's trying to be too much all in one doc?

Simplify the language and move examples to an appendix. Although I'd keep a "context" paragraph at the beginning, I recommend having something like "a list of examples which would trigger this policy" as an appendix. Either after the main text, or as a linked page (such as the Prague link), but not expanded in the introduction. I would also remove the "suggestions for ways to resolve an issue". It feels a little bit patronizing. By the time I get to this page, I probably don't want suggestions on how I should be nice to people. ;)

I suggest reworking the following escalation policy to be a more direct affirmation of what is "desired" behaviour and defining who "we" refers to. Sample re-write begins from For the vast majority of issues [....]

If you are experiencing, or witnessing, conflict the Drupal Community asks you to use the following escalation strategy to address the conflict:

1. Address the perceived conflict directly with those involved. Here are some conflict resolution resources that might be helpful.
2. If this fails, get a third-party (e.g. a mutual friend, and/or someone with background on the issue, but not involved in conflict) to intercede.
3. Escalate to the CWG if the previous steps fail using the incident report form: https://drupal.org/governance/community-working-group/incident-report

[update] minor edit to add the link back into point 1

2 cents

re: Address the perceived conflict directly with those involved.

Sometimes this is a bad idea - especially if either of the people are still hot from the incident.

My suggestion would be to perhaps have a way to contact "dis-interested parties" that could take a moment to look at the issue with you, before you contact the person directly. The dis-interested party is NOT AN ADVISER, and could be anonymous -just an impartial ear with some empathy:) --- This is similar to the developers "rubber duck" practice - Place a rubber duck on your monitor and describe your problems to it.
There's something magical about stating your problems aloud that makes the solution more clear.

The drupal.org team must be more active on this issues, just an example: https://drupal.org/node/1222002 almost 3 years without any real action from d.o.

I think the 2nd draft looks good! The only thing I wasn't sure of was this link at the top: https://drupal.org/node/1493430 -- I don't think that should be there? Or if it is, maybe explain why?

Thanks @kattekrab and everyone involved in reviewing the draft, as well as producing the second draft. The second draft looks great. It would have been really helpful if we could compare the second version with the first one so we could see what changes were made. I tried doing so with the revisioning feature, but was unable to.

I believe, in the first version, there was a suggestion about contacting law enforcement themselves if the threat seems imminent. Was it removed or am I just dreaming?... If there was, I think it would be a good idea to keep it.

The last item in the list of possible responses says 'escalation to law enforcement . . .', but would CWG actually do that, or would it only advise the reporters to do so? If it's the latter, I think the last item should be amended. Since it's a list of possible responses, CWG is not obliged to do so every time when it's deemed necessary, but I'd imagine CWG would be contacted from different parts of the world where CWG have no representatives in so it would be difficult for CWG to actually take that escalation path because of proximity / language issues. It might be better to just say something like 'advise the report to escalate the case to law envorcement'. This is just to manage reporters' expectations.

+1 @#21

Note: If the behaviour is threatening/harrassing and requires immediate escalation, use the CWG incident report form directly. However, because the CWG is a volunteer group that meets only on a weekly basis, we have limited capacity to act in these circumstances.

Does this mean that one should skip the first two ways of resolving the conflict, and jump straight to the third? Because that's not 100% clear from:

use the CWG incident report form directly

At least, in my reading it's not clear.

Something like this might work:

Note: If the behaviour is threatening/harrassing and requires immediate escalation, use the CWG incident report form immediately, before trying other steps. However, because the CWG is a volunteer group that meets only on a weekly basis, we have limited capacity to act in these circumstances.

Also 'harrassing' is spelt incorrectly, no?

Awesome, thanks all!

Since I anticipate us needing to link to this from various prominent places I went ahead and gave it a "pretty path" of https://drupal.org/conflict-resolution so it's easier to remember/pull up.

Fixed link in summary