Re: code of conduct question for Board candidates

[Andrea Veri <av gnome org>]

2015-05-23 17:41 GMT+02:00 Marina Zhurakhinskaya <marinaz redhat com>:

> What do you think about adopting a detailed code of conduct, similar to the one used for GUADEC 2014 [3], 
> for all GNOME events and creating a similarly detailed code of conduct for the GNOME community?

Having a final version of the Code of Conduct (from now, CoC) for the
yearly GNOME events is definitely something the new Board should look
at during the next term. While we can't legally enforce anything - as
we don't have the jurisdiction to do so - it's important for new and
existing contributors to know what they should expect from an event
the GNOME Foundation organizes. The events we promote see the
participation of contributors and users from all over the world coming
from different countries, religions and habits having in common their
love for the GNOME platform and community. One of our duties, as Board
members, is to ensure these people feel comfortable participating at
the events we promote and that no harassment or other inappropriate
behaviour takes place on any of these events. In addition the CoC
should be the document where offended people can find a local contact
to report the inappropriate behaviour they were target of.

There seems to be a misunderstanding [1] on what the purpose of a CoC
is and how enforceable one might be and at what level. The GNOME
Foundation (or any other private organization) does not have the
jurisdiction to enforce a document such as the one proposed for the
GUADEC 2014 edition [2]. A breakage of the CoC does not directly
result in a civil or penal sanction of any form unless the relevant
legal entity (police, local law enforcement) verifies the occurrence
and issues it. The same applies with a different communication channel
such as the Internet where abusers might get a ban for their account
or IP without receiving any other possible legal consequence. That
said breaking any of the "rules" (I would define them as "General
guidelines when participating to a GNOME event") won't result in a
lawsuit or other local law enforcement *unless* the behaviour is
explicitly listed as in illicit (violation of a duty, obligation or
generally considered as harmful for other people) from a law of the
State where the event is taking place. In the case of GNOME's CoC (I'm
looking at the GUADEC 2014 edition) pretty much all the "offending
behaviours" listed there would be considered as illicit from the vast
majority of countries in the world as they truly represent a menace to
people's dignity, integrity and freedom and thus enforceable even by
the local law enforcement.



[1] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2015-May/msg00052.html
[2] https://2014.guadec.org/conduct/

-- 
Cheers,

Andrea

Debian Developer,
Fedora / EPEL packager,
GNOME Infrastructure Team Coordinator,
GNOME Foundation Board of Directors Secretary,
GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee Chairman

Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/~av