Re: [gentoo-project] RFC: Expanding Foundation Bylaws, section 4.9 Termination from Membership

[zlg <zlg@gentoo.org>]

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On Thu, Feb 08, 2018 at 02:34:33PM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> I think the "rules" as it stands give the trustees the ability to remove
> any member that they feel is disruptive or not good for the project. They
> don't need to provide a reason or justification. It is at their discretion.
> So disruptive people can be removed. If I am misunderstanding this, let me
> know.
> 
> I understand what you are getting at though, but to make it sound better I
> would take a positive stance, and list expectations in the Code of Conduct.
> I'll will give you an example:
> 
> "Foundation members are expected to act in good faith to cooperate with
> others and resolve problems constructively, including the use of our
> official channels for dispute resolution. The Foundation reserves the right
> to remove anyone's membership who they feel is being disruptive to the
> project or not acting in the spirit of cooperation, and depending on the
> severity of the behavior, this may not even include a warning. Therefore,
> it is important that as a Foundation member that you are aware of this. We
> expect that you will not only cooperate but act in a way that models
> professionalism and respect -- that is our standard."
> 
> That's a friendly warning, and if people read it, I think they will feel
> "Cool - the Foundation is trying to maintain a professional environment. I
> can get behind that. And I know that they expect that from me and if I
> deviate from that, I know what the consequences might be." Then I really
> don't feel like the Trustees have any hoops they need to jump through to
> remove people -- they can exercise their rights as described in the bylaws.
> 
> -Daniel

That's something I can get behind, in spirit. Perhaps examples could aid
understanding.

I like the angle of better establishing our expectations, but maybe we
could be a little more precise so there's less room for interpretation.
(it seems to be a shared goal) I understand that we vote Council and
Trustees in to do this interpretation for us, but who among us can nail
down what it means to act "professional"? It's a loaded term that means
different things to different people and even different cultures. I've
seen too many instances of people accused of "unprofessional behavior"
and ignored due to said judgment, with no supporting reasoning or even a
working definition of the phrase. I would argue that accusations of
unprofessionalism without supporting reasoning is unprofessional in
itself, but others may disagree. If we can't establish a shared
understanding, the text you laid out may not be as effective as we hope.

We must also consider that what we do is volunteer work rather than
work-for-hire. In that context, none of us are professionals unless a
company pays us to work on Gentoo. If we can unpack "professional", we
could likely describe the conduct we're after without resorting to such
an unclear umbrella term.

Additionally, someone could use official conflict resolution
channels to overwhelm Comrel or whoever is handling the situation, and
try to force engagement with their target using the guise of
"cooperation". That, too, needs to be defined. Otherwise, we're giving a
free pass to people who use our bureaucracy against other members to
force confrontation.

I don't mean to nitpick; it's just stuff that I've seen in action, where
well-meaning standards of conduct are perverted to suit agendas. Every
community will run into that monster sooner or later, so I figure it's
better to be explicit than to expect others to intuitively understand
what we mean.

Comrel? Council? Trustees?

> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 2:18 PM, zlg <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Feb 07, 2018 at 10:41:11PM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> > > The current bylaws are sufficient.
> > >
> > > Threats should not be tolerated. It seems like right now, all it takes
> > are
> > > the trustees to vote on it to remove that member. Your addition leaves it
> > > up to interpretation whether specified events fit the criteria you
> > define,
> > > which just make it more confusing than a simple vote of trustees in the
> > > first place.
> >
> > All of our policies are written in a natural language, which leaves them
> > open to interpretation by a human. How would you improve the wording of
> > the criteria?
> >
> > >
> > > So I don't think any of this helps; and with the videos at the end, it
> > just
> > > kind of seems paranoid.
> >
> > The intent was to show that the phenomenon is real and poses a threat to
> > us. The all-caps warning was being respectful of the circumstances that
> > people may be reading the list under. I thought I put enough thought and
> > effort into my recommendation to not be written off and disregarded as
> > paranoid. In an age where information is gathered en masse and
> > often misused against people, I hardly consider it paranoid to be
> > concerned about the safety of our members.
> >
> > Which bylaw(s) already cover legal threats? 4.9 is a bylaw with broad,
> > general language that is also subject to interpretation. Our Code of
> > Conduct does not cover this behavior, either. The closest thing is
> > "mean-spirited", which is actually *less* specific than what I outlined.
> >
> > It comes down to this: these events *can* and *do* happen, and some of
> > our members *have* threatened legal action in response to situations
> > they didn't like. There is no denying any of that. What will Gentoo do
> > about it when it's one of our own who loses their job or their life at
> > the hands of an angry person with a phone?  Should we stand by and wait
> > until damage is done before acting?  I think we can do better than that.
> >
> > As mentioned in my prior mail, it's a draft. Patches welcome.
> > >
> > > -Daniel
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 9:50 PM, zlg <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > >[snip]
> > > >
> >

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