[TriLUG] Code of Conduct

[Phillip Rhodes]

Matt Frye wrote:
> As was announced at the August 2007 meeting, I have proposed a code of
> conduct for TriLUG, based on the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.  The proposed
> Code of Conduct can be viewed at http://trilug.org/codeofconduct .
<snip>>
> Matt Frye


-0 for me.

I don't think implementing this is going to have any
practical impact one way or the other.  The intent is good, but
I don't think it's going to help.  It may even make things worse.  I say
this based on many years of experience in other volunteer organizations
(primarily a volunteer fire department) during which we fought the same
issues (mis-behavior by certain members, or at least a perception by
some of misbehavior by those members) and tried similar solutions
(explicit codes of conduct, code of ethics, various rules and policies,
etc).

What we found time and time again was this: If you have a fairly loose /
vague "code of conduct" then it provides little or no guidance to the
leadership ( a Board of Directors in the case of the FD, it would be the
Steering Committee in the case of Trilug) and they still ultimately
just wind up relying on their subjective assessment(s) anyway.

Make the policy very explicit with detail lists of things that are and
aren't allowed and the misbehaving folks become armchair lawyers
overnight and find ways to violate the intent of the policy while being
technically within the letter of it.  Then if the leadership tries to
discipline them, it gives them ammunition to fire back "hey, I got
punished for $FOO but $FOO isn't prohibited by the Code of Conduct,"
etc.   So now you have constantly amend the code to deal with every
little edge-case that comes up.   This is not, IMO, a good use of
valuable volunteer time.  This stuff also tends to turn into nasty
political battles within the organization.

Now granted Tri-LUG is a different beast from my old VFD back in
Brunswick County.  Maybe the result of implementing this code
would be different here.  But I really suspect that the result
will be the same.  It'll get talked about a lot for  maybe
a year, will cause a few big blowups and arguments, and will
eventually be forgotten and will disappear into the dust-bin of
history until somebody decides to resurrect it a few years later.
Lather, rinse, repeat.


TTYL,


Phil