I do not have enough information about the events that you are talking
about, so I cannot form a complete picture with the limited information
that you offer. The nature of the job of the TCC seems to suggest that they
should operate with discretion and confidentiality, and answer questions
only to the people involved in the issues. They do not have to explain
whatever they read to any outside party, because even with all the values
of openness and transparency, the privacy of the involved parties should be
guaranteed. I mentioned the CHR because it offers a way to share
information from meetings if needed, not to say that all information should
be shared, because that is not the case.
I do not consider the operation of a common account as hiding, but rather
as a way to distribute the pressure that comes from external parties.
Considering the negative language that you use in your communication I find
it very appropriate.
Micru (also from mobile)
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 4:34 PM Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
If you are going to quote Chatham House Rule, then
look it up first please.
The secretive behaviour of the TCC, along with the habit of choosing to
suppress evidence or answer questions, to the stage where WMF employees do
not want to explain what they read with their own eyes for fear of falling
foul of extream interpretations of the CoC, even when originally the
incident was a public published record, is way more paranoid than applying
CHR.
The top level stated values of our community and the WMF are explicitly to
remain as open and transparent as possible. Recent incidents involving the
TCC and the apparent worsening relationships between unpaid volunteers and
WMF contractors/employees demonstrate a failure to meet those ethical and
good governance considerations. Hiding behind an anonymous email address is
merely the most obvious anti-transparency measure. You would think that TCC
members are worried about putting their names against their own Committee's
actions.
"At a meeting held under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to the
meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed
to reveal who made any comment. It is designed to increase openness of
discussion." See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule
Fae (from a mobile phone)
On Mon, 25 Jun 2018, 11:04 David Cuenca Tudela, <dacuetu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
@Nemo: It could be that the priority change was
not seen as aggressive,
and
probably it was not initially as we have the
"be bold" tradition.
However,
that changes as the issue heats up and becomes an
edit war. In this case
it
didn't get to that point (less than 3
reverts, although the reverts might
be perceived more strongly in Phabricator, and because the person doing
them had a position of power). Linguistically it is also challenging
because maybe the person using the word "troll" was not aware that it
could
have been interpreted as "assuming bad
faith". Even if an act is
qualified
as "troll" there is some judgement
about something that the author of the
action might have not intended.
It is not fair to put all the blame on WMF employees, they might be part
of
the issue, but every coin has two sides. WMF
employees could improve
their
openness with the frustration they get from the
community, and also the
community should be more willing to be constructive and understanding.
Probably neither the WMF employees nor the community is getting the help
needed to collaborate better, but whose role is to provide it?
I agree that normally the weakest suffer the most, and that somebody
(again, who?) should take the lead in this case to explain to the
contributor what happened and offer an apology.
@Fae: indeed friendly mediation seems more appropriate in this case, but
again, by who? The people involved in this case didn't have anywhere to
go,
so I find it understandable that they resort to
their only available
option
right now.
If the TCC wants to create a friendly environment, they cannot tackle
unfriendliness in an unfriendly way (unless there are no other options,
or
the gravity of the situation requires so).
I am not worried about the lack of transparency of the TCC, because
actually it should be done that way to protect its participants (cfr.
Chatham House Rule), but of course they could document how they reached
difficult decisions. It could be useful to assess future cases.
Micru
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 11:19 AM Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> The lack of transparency of TCC actions and assessment processes is
> troubling. TCC was supposed to be a means to handle serious misuse or
> harassment, not to use steel boots to stamp out all "non-positivity".
>
> Trivial cases like this should best be handled firstly by off project
> grown-up mediation, rather than TCC warnings for which the next step
may
be
a global ban.
Honestly, the TCC's actions have looked so authoritarian to my eyes, I
fear
I am adding evidence to a case for a permanent
ban of my account by
writing
> non-positive words here. The TCC is guilty of creating a hostile
> environment that appears unwelcoming and threatens volunteers in all
> "technical spaces".
>
> Fae
>
> On Sun, 24 Jun 2018, 22:46 MZMcBride, <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>
> > >Hello,
> > >Please refrain from name calling, the CoC has received some reports
> about
> > >users being offended by you calling them trolls. While those
comments
> > >might not have been malicious they
are not constructive and do not
> > >contribute to a welcoming environment for contributors.
> > >
> > >Best
> > >
> > >--
> > >This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the
"Email
>
>this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your
email
> >will be sent directly to the original
sender, revealing your email
> >address to them.
>
> Wikimedia Foundation Inc. employees have blocked the ability of new
users
> > to report bugs or file feature requests or even read the issue
tracker.
But yes, please focus on me calling Andre a troll for
resetting the
priority of <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T197550>. My single
comment
> ("andre__: Such a troll.") is clearly what contributes to an
unwelcoming
> environment for contributors, not blocking
them from reading the site
and
> > demanding that they be vetted first. Great work, all.
> >
> > A pseudo-focus on "civility" while you take a hard-line and
skeptical
> view
> > toward outsiders. Maybe these people are auditioning for roles in the
> > Trump Administration. :-)
> >
> > I'm mostly forwarding this garbage here so that there's some better
and
> > more appropriate context when, in a few
months, someone says "well,
the
> > code of conduct committee has dealt
with dozens of incidents! Clearly
> it's
> > necessary!" The people pushing this campaign for more bureaucracy
have
> > repeatedly declined to provide
specifics about incidents because it's
> > pretty obvious that nobody would take them seriously (and
rightfully!)
if
there
were a clearer understanding of what they're actually doing.
Best!
MZMcBride
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Etiamsi omnes, ego non
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