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Clarify relation between Phabricator Etiquette and Code of Conduct for technical spaces
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Description

Now that a CoC committee has been established, I wonder what the relation is between the CoC and the Phabricator Etiquette (which was also written by many folks.

  • Is the CoC in addition to the Etiquette? Does it more or less succeed it? Some Phab-specific disruptive activity listed in the Etiquette, such as repeatedly changing the "status and priority fields" of a task, while "Priority should normally be set by product managers, maintainers, community liaisons, or developers who plan to work on the task, or by the bugwrangler or experienced community members", is likely not covered by the CoC, so I guess it's in addition.
  • Other activity, such as "Criticize ideas, not people. A healthy amount of constructive criticism and vibrant debate helps to improve our software and is encouraged." or "Thoughts unrelated to the topic of the report (for example, meta-level discussions on priorities in general or on whether a new extension is wanted at all) should go to the appropriate mailing lists, wiki talk pages, or separate reports." however touch aspects that I see covered by the CoC. Which makes me wonder whether the Etiquette text welcomes amendment to explicitly mention the applicability of the CoC.
  • Defacto (apart from obvious spammers / vandalism etc) @Aklapper has been the person interpreting the Etiquette ("In the case of persistent disregard of these guidelines, ping a Phabricator administrator") and potentially disabling Phabricator accounts due to violation. For the records, this has happened about 5 or 6 times in the last 3 years.
  • There is no technical possibility to apply a temporary block so once a Phab account is disabled it's by default unlimited.
  • There is no clear path how to appeal. Again this might not be a problem that the CoC committee needs to care about at all, however I'd appreciate thoughts how to improve this. (There have been users whose accounts I have re-enabled after their request and also users whose accounts I have not re-enabled so far.) But it's all personal judgment of a single person (@Aklapper) and it's mostly the same person who also applied the account disabling. Which does not feel like the best setup in the long run.

Event Timeline

Aklapper added subscribers: Nurieta, Lucie, Dereckson and 2 others.

@Dereckson, @Ladsgroup, @Lucie, @Nurieta, @01tonythomas :
There is nothing urgent here; I'm just seeking for (public) thoughts and input on this. If you have any, feel free to add a comment here. Thanks in advance :)

Hi André,

Thanks for your questions about the articulation between the CoC and the Phabricator etiquette.

I sent a mail to the CoC committee mailing list with your thoughts and a link to this task.

@Dereckson: Thanks! Hmm, does the silence mean that there are no opinions from the CoC committee?
Or have their been internal replies that in some way could be shared with me and/or the public? :)

On my side, I hadn't have time to read this and comment. I'm terribly sorry and I will do it ASAP.

The phab etiquette lists " you must follow CoC" so it seems that is the basis and phab specific points are add-on?

As for the permanent blocks versus temporary blocks I really have no words of advice, I can see how a temporary block can be used to not apply more drastic measures if not needed, it will be excellent if phab supported it. Since it doesn't perhaps COC and @Aklapper can consult informally when a block is applied?

From a procedural perspective, wouldn't it be good to post a note in the Talk pages of the CoC and the Etiquette, asking for feedback and pointing to this task?

I feel like the intent of the code of conduct is that in the event of a conflict, it is considered superior to any local policies

I read this and my thought follows:

  • I think the etiquette should stay there as it contains guidelines that are out of scope of the current CoC (and won't be)
  • The process of handling cases based on the etiquette is broken and should be replaced by CoC procedure which is more robust and transparent (to some degree)

My suggestion is that we remove anything that can be covered by CoC and mention that it's covered by it and ask people to read and comply.

Thanks a lot everybody for your input!

I read this and my thought follows:

  • I think the etiquette should stay there as it contains guidelines that are out of scope of the current CoC (and won't be)
  • The process of handling cases based on the etiquette is broken and should be replaced by CoC procedure which is more robust and transparent (to some degree)

My suggestion is that we remove anything that can be covered by CoC and mention that it's covered by it and ask people to read and comply.

The Etiquette says that "You must also follow the Code of Conduct." While this means that sentences like "Criticize ideas, not people." might not be necessarily needed anymore as that's covered by the CoC, I'd also say that it does not hurt to keep them in, as is.

As for the permanent blocks versus temporary blocks I really have no words of advice, I can see how a temporary block can be used to not apply more drastic measures if not needed, it will be excellent if phab supported it. Since it doesn't perhaps COC and @Aklapper can consult informally when a block is applied?

Indeed. Informing and consulting with the CoC committee whenever someone considers disabling a Phabricator account due to unacceptable behavior defined by the CoC (and not due to obvious spamming or vandalism activities) sounds like the way forward.

So I propose to add one additional sentence as the last sentence of the etiquette (appendix to bullet point #2 of "If you see someone not following these guidelines or not being productive"):

"In case the disregard can be seen as unacceptable behavior defined by the Code of Conduct, the Code of Conduct committee will be informed."

Aklapper raised the priority of this task from Lowest to Medium.Nov 6 2017, 12:42 PM

Sentence "In case the disregard can be seen as unacceptable behavior defined by the Code of Conduct, the Code of Conduct committee will be informed." added in https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Bug_management%2FPhabricator_etiquette&type=revision&diff=2616827&oldid=2541306

Thanks a lot to everybody who provided input. Closing task as resolved.