meta: explicit exclusion for outside social media posts #327
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@@ -21,8 +21,9 @@ moderation request, please see [Requesting Moderation][] | |
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| ## Applicability | ||
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| By default, this policy applies to all repositories under all Node.js Foundation | ||
| owned GitHub Organizations, all officially recognized Node.js project | ||
| communications channels, and all Node.js Working Groups. | ||
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| Individual Working Groups and Top Level Projects may adopt an alternative | ||
| Moderation Policy for any repository under their stewardship so long as: | ||
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@@ -75,6 +76,26 @@ subject to Moderation. | |
| The Moderation Team is responsible for deciding what constitutes inappropriate | ||
| behavior that may be subject to Moderation. | ||
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| ## Outside Commentary via Social Media | ||
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| Comments by individuals made in any venue falling outside the explicit scope of | ||
| responsibility of the Node.js Foundation, TSC, or Community Committee are | ||
| explicitly not covered by this policy unless the individual is explicitly acting | ||
| or commenting on behalf of the Node.js Foundation, TSC or Community Committee | ||
| in an official capacity. The statements, views, and opinions contained in such | ||
| comments are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions and | ||
| views of the Node.js Foundation, TSC or Community Committee. | ||
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| Moderation requests based solely on the content of comments made in any such | ||
| venue *may* be ignored. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I have the strong feeling that this will only exacerbate the current situation. The primary critique seemed to be:
@jasnell at the end of the day: non-github, personal social media posts need to be either Selective enforcement is the problem There was a problem hiding this comment. Yes, I absolutely get this. I have a distinct feeling that most people would like to be able to give a blanket statement that says what you post to your own twitter account is your own business, but unfortunately that is just not realistic because people will associate the comments with the entire project no matter what our policy says. So we need to find the right balance and ensure that it is applied equally across the board. This is just a first draft attempt at getting to that. The underlying idea here should be simple. Basically it is: Posts to social media outside the Node.js project are outside the scope of this policy unless they obviously aren't.... Except, of course, defining that unless they obviously aren't part that becomes the most difficult. What is the right threshold? What would the community consider to be the right threshold. There was a problem hiding this comment. Case in point. If we say that posts to social media are out of scope, then I immediately jumped on twitter making high derogatory claims against specific fellow collaborators because hey, those don't count, would I be in violation of the code of conduct or not? By the letter of the law, sure, but definitely not by the spirit. We have to do better than that. There was a problem hiding this comment.
People on twitter making unfounded claims is what started the twitter firestorm with Rod. I support a collaborators right to have a negative opinion about me(in a non-professional space). What do you think someone could say that wouldn't be against Twitters ToS? The problem starts when derogatory claims make their way into a professional space. That's the part you can control.
In a perfect world:
If you do this, people will just make throwaways to post such things...It already happened yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/user/node_in_peace There was a problem hiding this comment. @jakeNiemiec you and @mscdex make similar points (#327 (comment)) so I'll address them both at once here: Yes, you're both absolutely correct. Giving the "out" here and allowing it to be case by case does open a loophole. So does not giving the out, unfortunately. @jakeNiemiec ... your comment "That's the part you can control" is absolutely spot on. Unfortunately, it's not the comments made within the arena we can control that cause the most problems, it's nearly always the comments that are made on Twitter, or Reddit, etc. Those are the channels that most Node.js users pay attention to and have the most visibility on. More people pay more attention to my personal twitter feed than they do my comments in the issue tracker. But then, I know, and I think everyone understands and accepts, that whenever I post something about the current political situation in the United States to my personal twitter that I am expressing my own personal opinion. There's just something fundamentally different about such posts, just as there is something fundamentally different about the various Back when I worked at IBM, a long long time ago I helped write the very first version of the company social media guidelines for employees. The most difficult thing we went back and forth on was the idea about whether an employee tweeting on their personal account represented the company or not, and we landed on it just being a giant grey area. Whatever you say will be associated with whatever organization you are associated with. Period. In a perfect world, that's not fair, but it is the reality. Another reality is that people do not give their words enough consideration or measure. |
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| All Collaborator's are cautioned, however, that any statements made publicly by | ||
| members of the Node.js GitHub Organization *will* be interpreted by readers | ||
| as reflecting on the project as a whole, despite the statement above. It is | ||
| therefore important for Collaborators to remain cognizant of how their | ||
| statements will be interpreted and what impact such statements may have on | ||
| the project. | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Thank you for this line. Humans are not robots and it is unreasonable to expect them to separate the person from their specific role. We've seen how this plays out in other situations. I wonder if this sentence can be strengthened to include something about social posts potentially leading to ramifications for their status on the committee even if it's not a strict CoC violation. Meaning, e.g. you can still be asked to resign, or whatever it is Node does as a punitive action these days, even if it's not under the banner of CoC enforcement. |
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| ## Requesting Moderation | ||
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| Anyone may request Moderation of a Post. Requesting Moderation of a Post can be | ||
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isn't "in an official capacity" anywhere they've declared their affiliation?
In other words, If i were to stick "node.js TSC member" in a social media profile while actually being a TSC member (which i'm not, ofc), isn't that entire profile and its contents acting and commenting on behalf of the foundation?
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I don't think so. I have that I work for Microsoft in my social media, but I don't act on behalf of them at all. I think the 'my tweets do not reflect my employers' bio stuff is just precautionary, because obviously your personal accounts don't have anything to do with the corporate entity you're a part of.
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Hmm - I guess it's surprising to me that social media posts that explicitly mention my affiliation would be exempt from the CoC.
If I wanted to, for example, ensure that my twitter comments were out of scope for Airbnb to be able to have comments on, I'd remove any mention of Airbnb from my profile. I'd expect the same for node affiliation.
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i expect a confusion to exist here as the twitter bio is mutable. for example: i do not usually list npm or node in my bio, however, because of the current situation, i added it, so people would know people to reach out to and why.
twitter does not track what your bio is at time of tweeting. therefore, in a situation where tweets are looked at, say 2-3 years later, there is no way to know what someone's twitter bio said at the time.
in general, i think this is a complicated and flimsy distinction. i totally empathize with ya'll that this is a difficult definition to pin down, but a twitter bio is not an appropriate way to tell, in my opinion.
EDIT: typo, clarify strange wording
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Fair point.
I'm concerned about the loophole for people to be able to violate the CoC in spirit by tweeting their abuse (as opposed to posting it on github), even if it doesn't violate the letter of the policy.
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Same. I think as it is written it's good, really agree with @ljharb's statement above- just wanted to clarify about twitter bios.
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Yes, this should still leave room for the case by case determination. If the language can be strengthened there, please let me know.
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I agree it makes a reasonable balance here and I think we should handle any additional expectations for people in the org in a discussion like #311
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Wouldn't adding an out here ("case-by-case") just be ripe for trolling, like the current situation (e.g. "it says in your policy you can do something about this person tweeting, why aren't you doing anything?", etc.)? IMHO just leaving someone's personal social media messages as their own no matter what, would help to avoid that kind of stuff better.
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I don't think it's practical to do that. If one is affiliated, and one makes a problematic statement anywhere, that can reflect poorly on the project. That doesn't mean there's an easy way to clearly limit it, nor that it's practical to do so, but the reality is that if you want complete freedom to say anything in any arena, then that's just not compatible with leadership in a project that wants to be inclusive.