[META] CWG - Community Health team - "Nudge" templates

Before implementation, I really want to see people trying out the nudges with copy/paste. This will be an additional feature and that brings additional ongoing maintenance. This should be able to be proved out in a lo-fi way, and that will be valuable in helping get the implementation right, and start testing out how the language does in issues.

During our call today, Neil also brought up the importance of initial, low-fi testing (potentially sharing a generic "community health" user account to post nudges from, copy/pasting nudges from a Google Doc, reviewing effectiveness of nudges).

We also discussed the fact that if we decide to allow the option of posting from a "community health" account, then we will need some way to track who posted what/where from that account.

Re-ordered templates.

As a small bit of feedback, having seen the Nudges for the first time yesterday, the Nudges feel kinda 'preachy' (wordchoice. 'preachy' is not my intent, but I can't get the right word).

The reading level and character count both feel a little high in a low-contact interaction where 'less is more' could really apply. Especially the 'Gatekeeping' nudge and the 'Escalating Emotions' nudge.

Maybe if the nudges were some sort of closed accordion that users could choose to open with the extended content? That would provide a path for both low-impact nudges and self-education.

That said, this entire concept is great and I will give a huge affirmative that my own personal growth in many areas can be attributed to people within the Drupal Community educating me on esoteric topics (to me, at the time).

I saw conversation about this in the Slack messages as I caught up on last week's #diversity-inclusion meeting, and @volkswagenchick's request to post feedback here, so thought I'd leave a comment.

I'm in favor of this idea – I think it's a good, low-impact way for everyone to learn and grow, and I love that there are resources linked within them. The style of the nudge makes it feel friendly and approachable as well (it doesn't look like a glaring error message, by contrast). I've seen this in a couple Slack groups before and have mostly seen people be appreciative of the reminders. We brought it to our company Slack last fall, and for the most part, people felt the same way, and we've seen a noticeable decrease in the use of exclusionary language in our workspace.

I also echo feedback in the Slack conversation where people were concerned about those being "nudged" becoming defensive or complaining, and the additional labor that might put on project maintainers. We had a couple people who were upset by the nudges in our own workspace. Part of that, I think, was due to the lack of context that came with automating such a nudge (ours was a Slackbot custom response that triggered upon the use of certain exclusive words or phrases) – rarely, the word/phrase in question makes sense in a particular context, or it gets used while someone's manually discussing or posting a resource with the recommendation to not use it, and the Slackbot would be triggered with each instance. I like that it's being thought about as an occasional de-escalation reminder, rather than something that appears after every instance of ableist language (per AmyJune's Slack message), and I like that it's a general reminder to everyone, rather than being directed at one person in particular.

Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

@cleverington - thanks for your feedback. Keep in mind that the last paragraph of all the nudges is temporary. It will be removed at some point in the future once we feel that things are stable. We are more than open to changes to the text used in all of the nudges. Feel free to make suggestions.

The idea of using a fieldset is interesting - I'm definitely not against it, but it would require us to be clever as to what is inside and outside (visible by default). Suggestions?

@KurtTrowbridge - thank you for your feedback as well. I believe we have talked about all of the potential issues you brought up in your comment - this project is not anything any of us has taken lightly, and we are aware that we must use a "soft touch" for this to be effective.

thanks,
-mike

I just came across a "nudge", my suggestion here is to follow this golden rule:

Praise in public, criticize in private.

Has any post nudge surveying been done? I see there is an open issue for logging of nudges however it appears to never been moved forward.

Would suggest data from those directly involved in the thread, and those who are observing the thread would be useful.

Some questions that come across my mind:

Do they actually defuse the situation or do they raise tensions in the threads?
Does anyone feel that a CWG Nudge was used too soon in a discussion?
Are contributors more aggressive out of concern a nudge will be given on a sensitive topic shutting down discussion before a point can be made?
Are nudges used by 'less experienced' developers or only used by 'well established public figures' of the Drupal Community? (Are they being used to shut-down discussion creating a non-collaborative environment.)

I'm sure others would have suggestions for questions that could be considered in a post incident survey (say 7 days after a nudge is delivered)

Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out.

The Community Working Group's main goal is to make sure the Drupal Community is a welcoming and nurturing community. Though open for use by all, the Community Working Group most commonly posts nudges, and then it is after an incident report is sent and/or when the topic has become escalated or off topic. We use the nudges in hopes of preventing more intrusive interventions by the Conflict Resolution Team.

After talking with the team, we are curious about the “open issue for logging of nudges.” Can you provide a link?

To answer some of your questions:

• Do they actually defuse the situation, or do they raise tensions in the threads?
• They intend to call out the negative behavior, as we know that, in the moment, the authors may not recognize what the community sees. We have not seen an incident where it raises tensions. It will generally defuse the situation. The only negative effect we have witnessed is that the thread goes silent.
• Does anyone feel that a CWG Nudge was used too soon in a discussion?
• We have not noticed this. Again, usually we consider a nudge after an incident report or if we’ve noticed a particular rise in tensions. Assuming the nudge is applicable and can be applied.
• Are contributors more aggressive out of concern a nudge will be given on a sensitive topic shutting down discussion before a point can be made?
• The nudges are focused on bringing the conversation back on topic. Usually, the issue/thread has gone from discussing an issue to personal attacks or other escalating topics.
• Are nudges used by 'less experienced' developers or only used by 'well-established public figures' of the Drupal Community? (Are they being used to shut down discussion, creating a non-collaborative environment?)
• The nudges are commonly used by the CWG, however, they are available to all. Everyone in the community is welcome and encouraged to use them and contribute in the spirit of our open-source community. We are all here to mentor and collaborate and not call out experience level or notoriety as proxies for ‘being right' or 'wrong’.

We are happy to hop on a call with you and discuss this and other issues/threads where nudges were applied.

Posted on behalf of the CWG

After talking with the team, we are curious about the “open issue for logging of nudges.” Can you provide a link

#3177770: Nudge reporting(?) which already attached as a related issue.

My suggestion would be without doing a proper post incident analysis of everyone involved (those warned, those requesting the warning, and those who only observed the warning) the CWG is missing out to understand if the nudges are actually having a positive effect.

I only observe a fraction of the nudges, its possible a majority of the time they have a positive outcome, however without doing proper, data collection an analysis none of us truly know if these should continue in public, moved private, or just be discontinued.

Anecdotal observations:
I've seen a number of incidents where it does inflame the tensions, perhaps not in the thread itself, however every other thread after that will remember the incident. Humans hold grudges and those grudges will make every single discussion after that more tense.

Worse than that, I recall an issue having been silent for an extended period of time when a nudge was posted, this added 'fuel to the fire' of an issue that was otherwise no longer being discussed. Had the nudge never been sent the issue would of likely been forgotten, with the nudge it was remembered much longer and not in a positive view (refer to humans hold grudges).

#3521303: LLM-generated modules have been published may be an example of a 'too soon' nudge, and the chilling effect it may have. Never under estimate the damage of "the thread goes silent". I have observed too many times in my life where continuously internalizing problems has disrupted projects.

Hi everyone,
I'd like to respectfully ask for some clarification about how incident reports and moderation actions are typically handled within the community.

Who is responsible for reviewing these reports, and how frequently does this happen?

Are reports submitted by technically experienced or well-known community members considered with more weight?

In this specific case, I noticed that a report about my actions was mentioned directly here in the issue. I was under the impression that the official process — as described on drupal.org — involves submitting a documented report via email and waiting for a response or action. Could you help me understand why this alternative approach was taken?

For transparency: I had posted a link to a module on Slack, and as soon as I was told it wasn’t appropriate for the channel, I removed it immediately. My intent was never to cause disruption or break any guidelines.
Since this is volunteer work that I do in my free time for the benefit of the community, I simply shared a post in a community channel to get feedback — and it was from that discussion that others decided to escalate the matter and open this issue.

I may or may not appreciate seeing my name mentioned in the issue reported by @cmlara (#3521303: Bulk LLM-generated module publishing by bigbabert), but I believe it would have been more respectful to contact me first to clarify my intentions and actions.

I’m raising these points not to contest anything, but because I genuinely believe in a community culture based on fairness, clarity, and mutual respect. I remain open to feedback and committed to improving based on shared expectations.

Thanks for your time and for all the effort put into maintaining a healthy and supportive community.

Best regards
Alberto