On 3/20/20 9:37 PM, Pierre Böckmann wrote:
We should at least agree that all members of the community should feel safe to contribute to the project without fear of abuse from other members of the community. With that in mind the code of conduct needs to apply in all ways that members can interact whether they be publicly or privately online or face to face at events etc.
Absolutely.
Currently it is the boards role to resolve all such complaints / matters with the amount of detail being shared being up to the boards discretion. If you feel this is not the best way to deal with such issues then you can suggest amendments to https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules (which will likely be used as the basis for any foundations constitution) and all members can then choose to vote on whether to adopt such changes during an upcoming election or earlier at the election officials discretion.
Maybe we should be oriented towards the common separation of powers and establish a council dedicated specifically to handling cases of Code of Conduct violations and alike - kind of an Ethical Review Committee.
This way there we could at least avoid potential conflicts of interests in the board or reduce speculations that a majority of the board might misuse their power to remove unpleasant board members as they see fit or forcing them off the board because they have the power.
As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread there is a very specific set of circumstances where the board can remove a member, not just because someone is unpleasant. The chairman also needs to agree with the removal. What would prevent an "Ethical Review Committee" from having the same issues and wanting to remove a member? how would such a committee be formed / elected? Would the boards current power to "Resolve conflicts" within all other parts of the community also apply to an "Ethical Review Committee" or would it have a special exemption? How would such a special exemption fit in with legal requirements for foundation governance which may require the board elected by the community to fill such a role. But if you can answer all these questions I look forward to seeing a proposal for how this should work for members to vote on even if I personally see resolving code of conduct issues as something that can be handled within the existing board. Given that the main issue you seem to be trying to resolve is better handling of disagreements within the board not CoC issues maybe there are other alternatives such as modifying the current rules to appoint an independent moderator or two or three for such issues ie whether something meets the definition of "Serious Misconduct" that warrants removal from the board. Cheers -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B