Clarify process and follows it, with oversight of ombudsman/watchdog

The CWG's policies and processes can be found on drupal.org: https://www.drupal.org/node/1985696

Currently, the CWG is accountable to the Project Lead, but this may change in the future. The CWG has discussed the possibility of partnering with similar groups from other projects to share resources and potentially act as an oversight body, particularly for issues that may span multiple projects.

Marking this Postponed pending further governance discussions.

Thanks aburke626 and sacarney. I apologize for the delay in responding; a similar question came up earlier in https://www.drupal.org/node/2893945 as well.

We are very aware of the value and importance that informal backchannels and whisper networks hold in providing a safe place for women and other marginalized people to share information about harassment and abuse.

If and when a CWG member becomes aware of something that is circulating through these informal channels, we will usually reach out to those involved and ask them to submit a report. While our preferred way of receiving reports is via the Incident Report Form to the group as a whole, we have also accepted reports submitted via email and other channels to individual members in the past.

As discussed in https://www.drupal.org/node/2910109 we are also working on finding better ways for people to make reports anonymously to the CWG (regardless of how reports are made, the CWG always treats them as confidential).

There are several reasons why it is important for the CWG to have a report “on the record” in order to take action:

• We simply are not and cannot be present in all channels at all times. Something which is widely known within one group may be completely unknown outside of it. No matter how large and how diverse our group is, it is inevitable that there are places where things will be discussed where we will not be present to find out about them.
• The membership of the CWG changes over time, and having reports on file is the most effective way to make sure we have an institutional memory, particularly in cases where it may take a while for an individual’s pattern of behavior to become apparent.
• It is very important to us to make sure that individuals have full and complete agency over how incidents they report are addressed. When we field a report, one of the first questions we ask is “What would you like to have happen next?” In some cases, a reporter may not want us to take action on a specific incident, but wants to make sure we’re aware of it in case the perpetrator engages in similar behavior again in the future.
• Information spread through informal backchannels can sometimes be unreliable or be missing important context, e.g., a single incident being confused for multiple incidents. It’s important for the CWG to be able to understand the provenance of an issue as much as possible before taking action on it.
• We are also aware of cases where bad actors have tried to “seed” false or misleading rumors about others in the Drupal community. Having documented reports makes it easier for the CWG to sort fact from fiction.

We appreciate your feedback and definitely welcome any suggestions for how to make it easier and for people to share information with the CWG in a safe and actionable way.

Updating this issue as we now have a concrete proposal for changes to the CWG charter that would change the group's point of escalation and oversight: #3011215: Proposed Changes to the Community Working Group Charter

Closing this issue, as the CWG's new charter changes oversight to a three-person Review Panel consisting of the two community-elected Drupal Association board members plus an independent representative from a different open source project.