[TriLUG] Code of Conduct

[Cristóbal Palmer]

On 8/13/07, Warren Myers <volcimaster at gmail.com> wrote:
> What was the main reason this was brought about?

You're right to ask for this information, and those of us behind this
idea (chiefly myself and Matt Frye) have been remiss in not
preëmptively answering this.

My motivations and Matt's aren't identical, but let me take a stab at
a short list:

(1) We both attended a session on Community-building at BarCampRDU in
which some principles of healthy groups were articulated. The main
elements are like this:

  * Purpose
  * People in Roles
  * Policy

TriLUG has had the first two fairly clearly articulated for a long
while. For much of its life it really hasn't needed the last one. It
was a small enough and tightly-knit-enough Community that coöperation
without any formalisms was natural. We've grown. We can and should
continue to grow and evolve. Growth will require some Policy, and I
humbly submit that we can have flexible, sensible policies that will
aid in healthy growth.

http://www.metafilter.com/63737/Evolution-and-Cooperation
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/science/31prof.html?ex=1343534400&en=3f231ad9bb2f226c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
(nytimes tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/28clvs )

As groups grow, there need to be additional incentives towards
coöperation. Don't take my word for it. Take it from Martin Nowak
(article above).

(2) We (Matt, Andy, me, and others who may or may not wish to remain
anonymous) have been embarrassed to point people to the mailing list.
When a new person asks me about TriLUG, the easiest way to bring that
person into the group (the lowest barrier to entry) is the mailing
list. The mailing list is how I got my introduction to the group. If
not for the encouragement of my good friend Nathan Conrad I would have
dropped my subscription shortly after I joined. That's a problem. It
means that we're turning away a lot of good people.

(3) Additionally, it means we're losing funding. I know we'd love to
have activities and events that are higher-profile, but these cost
more money, and to pull them off we need sponsors. If TriLUG has a
reputation for being immature and unhelpful, I'm going to have a lot
of trouble convincing potential donors that it's worth their time and
money to help out TriLUG. This is a serious issue that cuts to the
future relevance of TriLUG.

We can argue all day about whether or not the CoC will help to resolve
the list problem, but honestly it doesn't have to. The CoC is meant as
a foundation. I personally think that, in conjunction with the
Leadership Code of Conduct that we'll consider next, this CoC will
help us have a better Community. Even if it does not, I have yet to
hear a cogent argument for how the CoC could be damaging.

> I haven't personally seen any reason to be *adding* things like this to the
> org, but would be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

I don't think all of us need a CoC to be coöperative, but we need to
agree that positive coöperation is the goal and that this CoC
articulates principles we agree with. This CoC can't and shouldn't be
used to "fix" TriLUG.

> In fact, I have found that it is precisely
> the divergent opinions represented on the list that makes for lively
> chatter.

Stifling differences of opinion is NOT what the CoC is about. The CoC
is (to my mind) about gently reminding people what we value and how we
can constructively coöperate. This is called positive priming, and it
works. Here's the top google hit:

http://pos-psych.com/news/elizabeth-peterson/20070226130

Again, I hope the above is helpful.

Cheers,
-- 
Cristóbal M. Palmer
celebrating 15 years of sunsite/metalab/ibiblio:
http://tinyurl.com/2o8hj4