[Bigbang-dev] BigBang project code of conduct

Fri Apr 13 22:56:19 CEST 2018

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for doing this! I think it is a great way to experiment with getting
it just right.

I put some suggestions in git.

Best,

On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 10:39 PM, Sebastian Benthall <sbenthall at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've made some tickets to sum up some things that have come up in this
> discussion:
>
> https://github.com/datactive/bigbang/issues/325
> https://github.com/datactive/bigbang/issues/326
>
> I hope you'll forgive me if these seem like pedantic points.
>
> I've spent the past year working for an ethicist among many lawyers, and
> so find the nuances here intellectually interesting.
>
> As an aspiration, I would hope that a team of PhD scholars on Internet
> Governance, Human Rights, etc. etc. could get their own self-governance
> process *precisely* right, and maybe even publish on it one day.
>
> I don't intend for these questions to detract in any way from the
> *spirit *of the Code of Conduct, which I expect is absolutely clear to
> everybody.
>
> I've assigned these tickets to the 0.3 milestone, so we can focus on
> getting version 0.2 "Tulip Revolution" out the door as fast as possible.
>
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 8:27 AM, Sebastian Benthall <sbenthall at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I do like the idea of Nick and Corinne being an ombudsteam.
>>
>> Taking a close look at the code of conduct, a key thing about it is that
>> it is a pledge of contributors and maintainers to participants in the
>> project and community.
>>
>> It would be good if the code of conduct was consistent with the roles
>> specified in the Governance document. (This may mean ammending the
>> Goverance document, or the Code).
>>
>> Here's what the current Governance document says about Community and
>> Contributors:
>>
>> "The Project Community consists of all Contributors and Users of the
>>> Project. Contributors work on behalf of and are responsible to the larger
>>> Project Community and we strive to keep the barrier between Contributors
>>> and Users as low as possible."
>>
>>
>> The first thing I want to say is that we don't yet have a Users
>> community. It would be great if we had one, and leadership for it.
>>
>> Another thing is that we do not have a category of "maintainers". Maybe
>> we should have one.
>>
>> A key aspect of consensus based democracy is that the governance
>> mechanism only really comes into play when there's a breakdown in consensus
>> and things come to a vote. This is a rare event in open source projects
>> because a breakdown in consensus can also result in a fork.
>>
>> Fogel has a good section on why voting rights should sometimes be
>> extended to a category of 'Maintainers' which is different from the
>> category of 'committers'. The latter is roughly what we've been after with
>> the 'Core Developers' category.
>>
>> https://producingoss.com/en/consensus-democracy.html#electorate
>>
>> The definition of 'committer' loops back to "maintainer of the software
>> code".
>>
>> The main thing I would want before making a category for Maintainers is a
>> better sense of what responsibilities a maintainer of something that's not
>> the software code is committing to, and what metrics could be used to
>> evaluate their activity.
>>
>> I hope this question of metrics does not come as a surprise. It is sort
>> of the whole point of BigBang to develop a more refined quantitative
>> understanding of the relationship between different activities in open
>> collaboration.
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 4:51 AM, Niels ten Oever <niels at article19.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Perhaps we can have something like an ombudsteam with one core
>>> maintainer and one non-core maintainer?
>>>
>>> Perhaps Nick and Corinne? We could indicate their addresses so that if
>>> someone has issues with Nick, they can take it up with Corinne?
>>>
>>> I agree it is odd that if someone has issues with me, their complaint
>>> lands in my mailbox.
>>>
>>> Happy to discuss.
>>>
>>> Niels
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 12, 2018, at 23:09, Nick Doty <npdoty at ischool.berkeley.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks for the note, Corinne.
>>>>
>>>> I think it's an inherent issue in handling code of conduct issues
>>>> within a small group. There need to be project maintainers to contact with
>>>> issues because project maintainers are the ones who are responsible for
>>>> managing participation in the project, but especially with a project with a
>>>> small group of maintainers, complaints might be about those maintainers or
>>>> someone they're close to. The code of conduct is explicitly intended to
>>>> apply to the maintainers as well.
>>>>
>>>> I would be fine with decreasing membership on the owners/complaints
>>>> list so that it isn't all of the most recent developers (four dudes),
>>>> although I think having at least 2-3 people is good so that issues don't
>>>> just get dropped if someone is offline. I think it would be ideal to have
>>>> some diversity of gender on that list, but I'm also hesitant to immediately
>>>> put a burden on incoming participants like Corinne.
>>>>
>>>> I'm open to suggestions. I think we can continue to make changes over
>>>> time, including while the code of conduct process is in place.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Nick
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 12, 2018, at 8:58 AM, Corinne Cath <corinnecath at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi both,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for taking the lead on this. The code seems very reasonable and
>>>> comprehensive. My only concern is around setting up an email address that
>>>> links back to the core developers. This might create a thorny situation if
>>>> the complaint is lodged against someone of that group and also sending a
>>>> complaint to four dudes might make some people uncomfortable.
>>>>
>>>> Do you think there is any way around? For instance by picking 2 people
>>>> that deal with such issues and making sure there is a bit of a gender
>>>> balance there? (Happy to volunteer btw).
>>>>
>>>> Let me know what you think.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>
>>>> Corinne
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Bigbang-dev mailing list
>>>> Bigbang-dev at data-activism.net
>>>> https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/bigbang-dev
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>
>

-- 
Corinne Cath
Ph.D. Candidate, Oxford Internet Institute & Alan Turing Institute

Web: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/corinne-cath
Email: ccath at turing.ac.uk & corinnecath at gmail.com
Twitter: @C_Cath
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