Dear Board, Codes of Conduct (CoC) and especially the policies surrounding them are a very political issue (which easily becomes emotional). Unfortunately, in my view, the CoC Working Group (WG) was unable to set these politics aside enough to create a proposal that finds a balance in the wide spectrum of different viewpoints, legal consequences, required resources, rights, freedoms and the ability to deal with issues when they occur. I would have very much preferred if the WG had succeeded in this task. Unfortunately, it seems like it was too political and too biased (considering the political and regional spectrum that was represented) for the whole time. That compounded to inter-personal issues that could never be resolved as neither the session chair nor other members (or the ED for that matter) were able to create an environment where these issues could have been sufficiently addressed and a viable way to work together been developed. On top of this, it has recently come to my attention that members of the WG who are also on the Foundation Board have decided to continue working outside of the scope of the WG, thereby silently excluding me from the proceedings. At the current point in time, I believe that the proposal below is the best way forward. The idea to address it in a WG was good, but it turns out it was too political to be an adequate forum. This proposal however creates a forum that can legitimately resolve this political issue for years to come. I would like the board to adopt the proposal for a referendum below and I am happy to work on revising it. Failing to do so, I am intending to ask for support from foundation members to enforce this to be a referendum as per the bylaws. Should you have an alternative proposal on how to move forward, I am happy to hear about it. Regards, Benjamin ----- DRAFT: Event CoC and Policy Referendum Timeline (in weeks before vote): * Announce referendum (13w) * Proposal writing phase (6 weeks overall) * Deadline for initial proposals (7w) * Discussion phase (6 weeks overall) * Last updates to proposals based on feedback (1w) * Vote Proposals should generally include a main CoC document and important pieces of the policy. If a proposal e.g. requires creating a Committee then it may define policy parts that are intended to be created or proposed by this body after adoption and are therefore not part of the proposal. Proposals should include elaborations and take into consideration the impact that policies have on affected parties (e.g. GUADEC or hackfest organisers, the Foundation Board). Proposals should be endorsed by 3 foundation members to be considered, however a foundation member may endorse multiple proposals. Proposals should be kept in Git or another GNOME hosted system that easily allows any changes to be followed. This is in order to ensure that voters can easily check modifications done during the discussion phase. Foundation employees must remain neutral. The voting system is the single transferable vote (STV) system, which is also used for the board elections.
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