RELEASED: The Fedora Discussion Forum (Self-)Moderation Guidelines and Rules, for all users of all trust levels

News & Announcements
1

Hi Fedorians

After some delays, we finally publish the agreed Fedora Discussion Forum (Self-)Moderation Guidelines and Rules.

The guidelines and rules have been carefully drafted and discussed among the moderation team, including the community-promoted Trust Level 3 users. After a poll (incl. tl3+) and approval of members of the Fedora Council, the guidelines are ready for use.

These Guidelines and Rules shall govern and guide moderation and communications on Fedora Discussion, and they are from now on pinned at each category.

These Fedora Discussion Forum (Self-)Moderation Guidelines and Rules are intended for all users and all trust levels, including moderators.

Our goal is that users moderate themselves as far as possible, and with increasing experience and trust level, help each other to moderate themselves. Actions of formal moderators shall remain exceptions and last resorts.

The Guidelines and Rules also aim to guide users on their journey from basic users to the higher trust levels, up to the point at which they are free to voluntarily engage themselves in moderation activities as far as possible with their respective trust level.

IMPORTANT: While the guidelines are there from now on, we are aware that for some users this is quite new information. Please keep in mind:

  • these guidelines mostly only formalize what is already common for a long time and what you are already used to, but with the formalization, the guidelines and rules add transparency and make things more comprehensible to everybody. Also, they shall make actions of all trust levels up to moderation more predictable and comprehensible, both for those moderating and those being moderated. Daily communications is unlikely to be affected (read for yourself:).
  • being still something not all people are used to, moderators and the higher trust levels know that people cannot adopt within a second: there will be no radical enforcement without warning or anything like that. We aim to offer a smooth experience and to allow people to get used to it and to find out what this means for them. As usual, our first way is always to make people aware and to explain, if necessary at all.
10 Likes
3

Looks like an instruction for AI how to control humans. I asked my AI to summarize it. The AI produced equally long bullet list, from which I could only get that “posts must be on-topic”. :grin:

4

That and the 17 other points pretty muxh sums it up.

2 Likes
5

With respect, Codes of Conduct don’t work in my humble opinion. They are, usually, weaponized against people that don’t think alike.

I recognize the intent is positive but the outcome ends up being terrible. Just take a look at what’s happened in other projects, like Debian and NixOS.

I, with the help of an AI agent, developed this Code of Honor: René Bon Ćirić (Rénich) / Code of Honor · GitLab

I use it in my projects. It’s meant to bring out the best in people. It’s athing to strive for; not a set of rules that limit you in all ways possible.

CoCs foster “fake”, passive aggressive, highly-alerted, tense environments. I don’t like them. I don’t accept them and I discourage the use of those.

Please, consider establishing a Code of Honor. Mine is not suitable, most probably, but it’s what I (and the LLM) came up with. I am sure a Fedora CoH would be something legendary. :slight_smile:

6

Each country, state and website has laws, written or unwritten.
At it’s heart, Fedora Discussion attempts to embody the long standing Fedora Code of Conduct. Our code of conduct enables people to be free in their ideas as it clearly spells out civilised ways of behaving to one another.

Chris and the team put a lot of though and consideration into these Moderator Guidelines, which partly reflect the alreaady reflect the established way of working, and partly make the road to success in the community more visable and transparent.

Are they perfect? Maybe not. In the coming months and years, they can be refined and updated. Our next job is to make visible and transparent and open that change process.

1 Like
7

Again, with all due respect,

The CoC has been abused many times in the past. One example that comes to mind is Brian Lunduke.

Again, as soon as someone voices an opinion that doesn’t harmonize with whatever the status quo is, they get CoCed.

I uderstand that people put effort into the CoCs but that’s not my concern nor is relevant. Putting effort into a set of rules that regulate how one can express himself is not productive.

And conflating state law with a CoCs is not really a good comparison, IMHO. Fedora is not a state; it’s a community. And communities, families, groups of friends, tend to have dissenting opinions and we learn to accept them, listen to them and even compromise sometimes.

I am sorry, I keep picturing LInus Torvalds trying to participate in this forum and can’t help but chuckling, hehe.

I see your point @theprogram but, still, I do not agree with CoCs. They’ve been misused time and again in many of the communities I participate. A ridiculous concept coming directly from 1984 if you ask me; compelling newspeak and all.

8

I appreciate your points and raising a discussion. It is good when rules, norms, guidelines, etc are challenged and not blindly accepted. This is important for a community to evolve, including its informal norms, its interpretations of the formal norms, and also the formal norms as they are written.

If I would engage in this discussion, I would end up writing an essay :classic_smiley: Unfortunately, I currently have to focus my time :frowning: So I restrict myself to one clarification and one very generic point:

  1. clarification: our guidelines are not a new CoC. The CoC of Fedora is unchanged (and unlike the guidelines, not limited to this forums). Our guidelines refer to the CoC, and formalize that the CoC is binding in this forums too. Not sure if that differentiation is clear.

  2. my generic point: you question mostly that this is a CoC, if I get you right (feel free to correct me if I misunderstood you). However, CoC is just a title. It does not say anything about the content: it can contain binding points, but practically, there could be a CoC that has only non-binding points, or that equals mostly what you might consider a Code of Honor, but also vice versa: a CoH from someone could be formulated to be what you would consider a CoC. CoC and CoH means what the content makes of it.

There is no international law or so, which tells you what that always has to mean. So if you discuss a CoC and CoH, two people can have the exact same opinion but end up in a conflict because of them defining the same terms vice versa. Especially with many cultures and different ways of reasoning and different ways of formulation contained, that can lead to misunderstandings.

So imho, emphasizing only on the title is not the most constructive way to have a discussion as its not clear what exactly is questioned. My suggestion would be to focus on exact points that are questioned.

Of course, if it is just about changing the title of our “CoC”, then this topic would be the wrong one, as this would go beyond this topic and the guidelines that can only refer and implement the CoC :wink:

My latter points sounds a little like a joke, but it’s not, it would be indeed ok to question the title CoC: if you think that some cultural backgrounds in this community might misinterpret this title, then you are free to suggest a renaming (please use a dedicated topic or a Council ticket if so). Terms that sound nice can mean very bad things for some cultures, given that especially nice terms had been used in the past for very bad things. But here we have to differentiate between titles and content, and working in all cases with proper definitions :classic_smiley:

Supplement: … seriously… these few points are already half a DIN A4 page? So much for the essay… Discourse doesn’t like me…

2 Likes
9

I dont think that in Fedora we apply the CoC to peoples views. We do apply them to how people are treated.

And we do compromise. Otherwise we wouldn’t get anywhere.

I do hear you though, I understand your point.

1 Like