Updating the Drupal Code of Conduct - Draft for Community Review

I like it overall.

I have 2 questions, emphasis mine:

1. A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one.

   I get the intent but the wording is very "capitalist". That whole section is making a direct link between "respect" and "productivity", doesn't sit very well with me. It seems to imply that we want people to feel comfortable and secure because they'll be more efficient at some kind of task, not because it's the right thing to do. Most of the text is written as "we want X" and here we switch to a passive voice that feels strange. Saying: "We do not want a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened" is a whole other can of worm so not sure it's better without a lot more context.

   Having respect tied to productivity could be avoided at least?
   Maybe "constructive", "collaborative", or "lively" instead of productive would be more appropriate? Or even "respectful".

2. Conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting. Such cases will be reviewed by the conflict resolution team

   Could that be "public setting" instead? We don't have to bring jobs into it, no? I'm pretty sure an abusive behavior in a professional setting would also be abusive in a public setting. I don't have an example of something that would be abusive in public but not professionally.

In regard to nod_’s first point, I suspect that people who need to be told not to make others feel uncomfortable or threatened don’t care about being nice but may care about getting things done. The contributions of people who don’t care about being nice can be valuable, so a statement that expresses the value of being nice in terms that they do care about is helpful. If the current wording gives the impression that our community exists only to serve business interests, maybe it could be reworded to, A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened discourages the contributions upon which we all depend.

I wish there was a way to add inline comments around specific text. Any reason we should not put this draft into a google doc and invite people to comment on the doc?

I went ahead and created this as a Google doc in any case

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YZcJCVPOTHgapgXwwEpd_lxLQDeesmoQXMBc...

We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. We are committed to fostering a safer, more inclusive, and harassment-free environment for everyone, regardless of their race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, color, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, professional experience, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, tribal affiliation, caste, religion, appearance, or mental and physical ability.

Shouldn't nationality be listed as well? Also personal or technology preferences?

Is there any way to compare this to the current CoC ?

Threatening to quit if your demands are not met
Blocking access to other community members who do not agree with you
Abandoning or quitting in a disruptive and/or destructive manner (“rage quitting”)

No-one is obligated to contribute on Drupal.org, and it seems reasonable to decide to stop contributing if something about the community makes it unreasonable for you to continue. People also can and have stepped down from specific roles for multitudes of reasons.

I remember resigning (with no notice) as a Drupal.org moderator when a malware company had their account unilaterally reinstated by another site moderator about 12 years ago (when the original decision had been taken by multiple people in a d.o issue). Should I have been sanctioned for that?

There is nothing in the updated CoC about handing over control of projects to bad actors (for example selling commit access to a popular project which then adds spam), but volunteers stepping down in a possibly not graceful way is listed as bad behaviour. 'Blocking access to other community members who do not agree with you' could include not making someone a co-maintainer of a d.o project, and this happens all the time.

Repeatedly instigating conflict and baiting people into arguments

This also seems ripe for abuse, if someone is posting 'bait' constantly (but not necessarily directed at anyone specific) an then people reply to that, who is 'instigating conflict' in that situation?

Been meaning to review this for a while. I'll organize my questions / concerns below, but first let me say that I appreciate the effort that's gone into this so far! Thanks to all the contributors - I know it's not easy, and I really don't expect my every point below to be responded to. Take what you want and ignore the rest.

Additionally, the new introduction and is stronger than the old one. I like that we're linking to our values - it sets the tone of the document as being in service to our values, not as an arbitrary behavioral control experiment. I did notice it used to include a link to discuss the CoC with its governance body - might be good to relocate that to the footer.

That said, my main concerns are that it's maintains or introduces new ambiguities and is saying too much. By saying too much, I mean that it's so long I had to force myself not to skim it. Past a certain point, any long document like this is going to be another "Terms and Conditions" checkbox that is skimmed or blindly consented to without actually setting the tone for productive engagement. That's as much a problem as saying too little. (Below, I recommend ways to shorten the initial document while retaining detail, but I understand the areas I indicate may be included in the main body on purpose.)

My concerns and / or questions are enumerated below ... take or reject at will, I'm not expecting to be engaged on these but am happy to provide follow-ups if needed.

Introduction:

1. The long list in the intro re: types of discrimination can never be exhaustive but reads like it wants to be. I read them all, but my brain wanted to glide on by. It would be more effective to replace this with the "We are here for each other" conclusion. We can footnote "everyone" and include the current list as reference material that "may be subject to change" if we need such a list.
2. We say "This code applies to digital and physical spaces where community members interact with each other, both publicly and privately." but then say "Violations inside or outside of community spaces may affect a person's ability to participate in the community." -> Which is it? If something I said in an intentionally transgressive subreddit affects my ability to participate in the Drupal community, then we actually mean the CoC governs my behavior at all times. (Nothing in the CoC even provides a framework for assessing what a "violation" outside of a community space is, how it would be reported, or how it would be dealt with. I think this wording comes from one of the revision goals, "Explicit when applicable to personal lives and non-Drupal spaces", and this is anything but explicit.)
3. "This code of conduct governs how we behave when we interact with other members of the community." -> If my significant other and I are both in Drupal, and I leave them, claiming psychological abuse, can I petition to have them removed from Drupal events I'm attending?
4. "It also applies when others see us as representatives of the project or community." -> Every time? Does that not make, "And I thought you were a representative of the Drupal community! 😱" a means to police behavior outside of Drupal community spaces? If a prominent contributor joins a political cause or platform unrelated to their work that people in the community find unconscionable, can they work to see them blocked from our midst? (I think this language comes from the revision goal, "Explicit higher standards for people in leadership roles, local organizers", but there is a real lack of detail re: what it means to be a representative of Drupal.)
5. "Access to community spaces may be restricted or removed as a result of a code of conduct violation." "Repeated or extreme violations may result in indefinite removal from some or all community spaces." -> Italicized words in these statements are open to interpretation; e.g. who decides what's extreme if it isn't defined?

I think continuing to work on this section in general, striving for fewer, definite, declarative sentences would make it stronger.

We are considerate of the needs of others:

1. "It is important to remember that some community members participate in the community as part of their jobs while others choose to volunteer their time." -> I don't know why this needs to be said. It's just another example among many of the kinds of differences between us; we'll never be able to list them all, but we can reference a footnote list or something. This could just be a sentence moved to the prior paragraph, "We value all community members equally and we treat everyone with respect."

We treat each other with respect, even when we disagree:

1. "When we observe arguments getting heated" -> "getting heated" is an English idiom we might remove for clarity. "When we observe such behavior..."

We are collaborative:

1. "We work in the open and invite others to collaborate with us whenever possible." -> My company works in the open and loves collaboration, but we do reject proposals or deny co-maintainers based on our own development priorities or for practical business reasons. How would I defend our practice against a claim that we're not working collaboratively? Could we be compelled to take a feature request?
2. "Deliberately inflating contributions to benefit yourself or your organization" -> I don't see what this has to do with us being collaborative. (A better example would be intentionally not crediting a contributor because of who they work for.) It may be poor form to "game" the credits system, but I don't think the CoC should be policing the use of a system the DA has created that is open to interpretation. (e.g. the CWG should never be in the place of determining if a contribution was real or not...) The DA giving contribution credits financial equivalence all but guaranteed people will find novel ways to secure those benefits for themselves and their companies. A fair retort by a "gamer" of the system could be, "You're just gatekeeping against new contributors, because our team is not experienced enough yet to solve 5 year old Drupal core issues or write wildly popular modules."

We do not tolerate abusive behavior:

1. "Incidents of bullying, harassment, and abuse should be reported using the Incident Report Form." -> By whom? I get harassed in Drupal Commerce channels every now and then, and I've never had a problem dealing with it. If we expect reports to be made by the objects of bullying, harassment, or abuse, we should say so. If not, we should say who else might and why.
2. As with the intro, the list of unacceptable behaviors appears to be trying to be comprehensive without ever being able to foresee all situations. (I'm also not sure how "Abusive language" is different from the next bullet point.) Perhaps we provide a shorter list with a link to forbidden behaviors? If we do want the main text to be exhaustive, maybe a different format is advised - simply make this section a bullet point list of behaviors that we consider abusive.

We ask for help when we need it:

I don't think this new section belongs in a CoC at all. This moves beyond mere conduct to prescribing an acceptable process of asking for help. This is fundamentally different from the other sections - it's begging for debate about whether or not RTFM is abusive language or a principle of conduct. 😅

"When others have questions, we help point them in the right direction to find the answers they need." Sometimes I ignore them on purpose. I may not have the time. They may already have used up an inordinate amount of my time. etc. etc.

Just kinda feel like if we're going to this prescriptive, why not include a section called, "We write automated tests for our patches." Might be polite behavior in open source circles, but I don't think anyone would argue that should be in a CoC.

We step down considerately:

Re: "Blocking access to other community members who do not agree with you" +1 to catch, but I also don't see how this is an example of leaving unless you're blocking them on your way out the door. 😅

I would love if we could take into account that the final code of conduct policy could be shipped with some tools to translate it to several languages.

"This code applies to digital and physical spaces where community members interact with each other, both publicly and privately. These include, but are not limited to:

Drupal.org and other community websites
Chat rooms and forums
Social media
Mailing lists
Issue queues
Physical and virtual events
Video conferences and other virtual meeting places
Any other places where community members gather to communicate or collaborate
Violations inside or outside of community spaces may affect a person's ability to participate in the community. Access to community spaces may be restricted or removed as a result of a code of conduct violation."

While I see the thinking behind this, I think that it is introducing a barrier rather than a safeguard to the community.

There are perfectly "ordinary" situations where people from different belief structures, parts of the world, even just which city in a country - where their views may drastically differ and potentially cause offense or hurt to another. A high profile recent example could be abortion rights in the US. This is extremely divisive IN the US, but if you then factor in opinions from people in say, the UK... it's even more complex. An issue like this isn't isolated or uncommon today, and even if a person holds no ill will or malice to another, their views could be deemed (by another) as such.

It also slightly contradicts the precept that the community welcomes all people regardless of what they believe (within reason... but that is that reason?).

I understand that this is completely separate from an argument in an issue queue, that then can overspill into the wider world, but why would people sign up to a CoC that polices their personal beliefs on a social media platform on an unrelated topic. Either the CoC needs to explicitly take a viewpoint on what is morally acceptable or they need to become morality police on a case by case basis.

Would I personally want to abide by CoC... sure thing. But would I respect being banned from participation in an open source project because I held a viewpoint that someone else disagrees and shouts louder about... I would not.

Thanks to everyone who worked on the review! It is much appreciated that you doing this. And for working to use plain language as well.

I read the proposal and the comments. In spirit, the document is on the right track.

The document should be an easy read and inviting. As is, it is not there yet. It is doing much more than is needed in a Code of Conduct. I think everything that is not the important information, the expected behavior, should be removed.

If that were done we would have a simpler document for everyone. And it is more likely to be translated and then be accessible to more members of the community.

I did thoroughly read comment #15 and agree with the points raised there. Well, expect for #15.1 which is about
We are committed to fostering a safer, more inclusive, and harassment-free environment for everyone, regardless of their race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, color, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, professional experience, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, tribal affiliation, caste, religion, appearance, or mental and physical ability. .
I agree the list must go. I suspect others, not just me, can provide ways they have been excluded from participation due to reasons not in the list. If we are to keep the sentence then how about "We commit to fostering a safe and inclusive for everyone." I removed 'more' because it was not clear what the environment is being compared with and harassment-free because 'safe' means that to me.

@gdemet I think a way for the community to provide translations and have a mechanism in place for an external review to verify (crowdsourced or others) that the translation is accurate and the spirit or intentions are not lost.

Do we actually mean “ Fostering brave spaces”? Or do we mean fostering safe spaces?

I'm very grateful for the work that has gone into this and the continued commitment to ensuring a positive and safe community for all.

Similar to @catch in #14, I feel that the "We step down considerately" section goes too far for a CoC.

It states "Examples of unacceptable behaviors"

• Threatening to quit if your demands are not met
• Blocking access to other community members who do not agree with you
• Abandoning or quitting in a disruptive and/or destructive manner (“rage quitting”)

I feel this obligates us to continue contributing on projects we no longer are committed to, or no longer feel comfortable working on. For example, the following scenarios seem pretty ordinary to me but would to fall afoul of this CoC:

• I'm not comfortable with the direction of this project, and won't volunteer my time on it anymore if it continues this way
• Someone keeps raising issues on my project even though I've asked them to stop asking for features I don't want to build in that project
• Personal circumstances mean that I have no ability to maintain this project, and there are no volunteers to take it over, so I have abandoned it

Community members should be able to walk away from projects, or state their intention to, without worrying that doing so will be regarded as poor conduct.

I understand the intention behind this guideline (avoiding bullying behaviour used to manipulate people and projects) but I believe this is well covered in other parts of the CoC (namely "We are collaborative").

I have been involved in the writing and policing of several codes of conduct for social partner dance events which come with an extra level of touch-related challenges not normally faced by our Drupal community, none of this is easy to do.

I love how much care and effort is going into this issue. Thanks to *everyone* who is putting their time into it, from those driving for change, to those showing up to manage the initiative, to everyone taking time to provide feedback.

My 2c:

As it stands, this Code of Conduct (CoC) undermines itself. I can see where the goal of writing in plain language has paid off, but a CoC needs to use an active voice to be effective.

Instead of "We are considerate of the needs of others" (passive/descriptive) my opinion is it should say "Be consderate of the needs of others" (active/prescriptive).

Instead of "This code of conduct governs how we behave when we interact with other members of the community." my opinion is it should say "This code of conduct describes how we expect community members to behave when interacting with each other".

It's a subtle change, but if it isn't done, the community members who most need to check their behaviour will not see a call to action to do so. Such people can often look at the passive messaging and believe "yes, I am all of those things" without really scrutinising their behaviour. Spelling out expectation can help break through that self-blindness. It also makes dealing with violations a bit easier, speaking from experience.

The positive/unacceptable behaviours sections do a bit to mitigate this risk but the framing matters a lot if you ask me.

Given the fundamental importance of this to the whole community, not very many people are aware it is happening.

We need to ensure nobody who participates in the project is unaware.

As it would be a “change of terms” of participation, it is absolutely okay under GDPR to mass email all users. And it really needs to happen - we can’t make changes on the quiet…

The TYPO3 Code of Conduct has an interesting layout that could help us keep the details and examples without overwhelming a casual reader.

"We need to ensure nobody who participates in the project is unaware."
When we changed our CoC on Opensource.com, on the user's next sign in, users had to agree to the new CoC.

Attributions.

Thanks to all who commented.