Akademy/2013/ConflictResolution

After 15 years of KDE, our community is now one of the largest in the open source world. Sadly, our problems have scaled just as much; but our processes to deal with them didn't.

In this BOF we want to address this problem by establishing new ways to deal with conflicts in our community. We will be looking at defining a process to deal with violations of our code of conduct and how we can discourage such activities without hampering constructive criticism.

This session is mainly aimed at mailing list, and forum moderators and IRC channel operators, but everyone interested in improving communication within KDE is welcome to join.

Primary focus for listowners and Chanops will be prevention. Only once their most important efforts to cool the discussions and channel the discussion into productive conversations have failed, do CoC enforcements begin.

What procedures do we follow once these first-line efforts have failed?

When should you call in the Community Working Group (CWG), and how does one do that?

What can the CWG do? Should this role expand to "enforcement"?

What is the role of the e.V. Board?

Valorie's thoughts:

* new IRC channel for KDE chanops? #KDE-ops perhaps; link to KDE docs about how to conduct oneself as a chanop
* new listowners list, or even KDE-leadership list, for all listowners, forum mods, and channel operators

Both these places can be used to share information and enforce the catalyst role important in all FOSS leadership. Catalyst: http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml . The Code of Conduct is a statement of our ideals, which leaders need to model. It is also a standard, which can lead to enforcement if the leadership fails to change the bad behavior.

When bad behavior occurs, it's important to keep records: logs and bans in IRC, emails on lists (and privately), and on the forum. (forum team issues several warnings before a ban is considered. forum bans are logged in the backend, together with the reasoning. Indications for the ban can be seen, as such bans don't result in the deletion of posts, unlike spam bans) If the bad behavior doesn't stop, it's time to share the records with the CWG so they can communicate directly with the person.

If that doesn't work, it will be time for a formal warning. (by CWG? the Board?)

Then and only then is it time to consider expulsion, and how that should be handled. -v