Managing Community Conflict in Drupal and Beyond

so recording hi there George met

welcome to managing conflict and group

whole and beyond a little bit of

background for folks who don't know me

I'm the founder and CEO of Hamilton F or

for the service digital agency based

here in Chicago but kind of distributed

all over the country we work with your

bowl obviously another open source

technologies ok thank heavens systems

still working we had a little flicker

there so you know in addition to you

know to work penalty are very involved

in a Drupal community and one of the

ways I'm helping out right now is I

chair the Drupal community working group

so I'm going to be talking a little bit

about that work later in the

presentation but also kind of talking

about conflict that's sort of a kind of

broader level as well so first that

looks well for that question out there

and this can be interactive if people

have answers ready what is what do you

think of what do you think of conflict

you don't wanna oh come on people have

different opinions yep any of those

things

that's good what do we think about when

we when we hear the word like what kind

of feeling in studio attention attention

yeah okay some some negative emotions so

I'm going to have any positive feelings

and I picked up kind of quick

like that solution solutions okay so

there's some good answers

so what purposes of this presentation

and defining conflict was something that

arises from an incompatibility between

two or more opinions principles or

interests right and and conflict can be

either positive or negative so let's

talk a little bit about what positive

conflict is right positive conflict can

contribute to a cross-pollination of

ideas right we talked about that for

discussion can challenge people's

pre-existing conceptions about things

right if you're in an organization where

you know folks are doing things cuz

that's kind of the way we've always done

them and someone wants to challenge that

that is actually a form of conflict can

help people find creative solutions

Leslie said solutions to pattern two two

problems and generate innovation right

we can help clear the air between team

members raise issues for clarification

resolution increase communication so you

know if you're working on a team

you know and there's and there's just

something that people aren't saying

right there's like some kind of

attention you know mistrust and

sometimes you just need to get it out in

the open and that also is a form of

conflict and ultimately you know if

conflict is him well it can help people

find common ground build trust and

improve relationships and I and I think

you know the key here is you know

understanding what that means right and

and

and just because one has a conflict

doesn't mean that they can't engage in

that discussion in a in a respectful way

right so Margaret Heffernan says four

good ideas and true innovation you need

human interaction conflict argument and

debate right this is fundamentally about

human being sharing ideas when on the

other side we have negative conflict

right and so this can be a waste of time

resources and productivity if you're

arguing instead of doing very frequently

with when conflict is driven out of

self-interest it can it can derail

larger goals of your organization and

that's not good if conflict is not

handled in a any positive and respectful

way of damages relationships between

colleagues and ultimately that leads to

a toxic working environment right so

these are the things we want to avoid

and in my experience negative conflict

is fundamentally about unmet needs right

I don't feel heard I don't feel like my

contributions are valued my interests

aren't being represented where I feel

hurt by something that someone else said

or did and these are all things that you

know I can tell you that with our group

work in the community working group we

care all of those things today and I

think anyone who has probably worked in

the Drupal project for any amount of

times you know probably at some point or

other experienced one or more of those

feelings right but you're in an

environment where we're you know we have

to make decisions right about you know

are we are we going to accept this patch

are we going to you know choose this

framework over another you know

decisions have to be made and if there

are two competing interests you know

often you know one is going to prevail

over the other so

so if you don't feel hurt if you don't

feel like your contributions matter

you're going to feel left out you're

gonna feel frustrated and that's going

to lead to forms negative conflict right

so these are literally the kinds of

issues that come up all time this is how

negative conflict manifests in group 1

and in other open source projects as

well right so a technical disagreements

that end up turning into personal

attacks right you only want to do you

know that framework because you know it

benefits your business interests for

example or work something like that work

you know you're always you're against

this because you're against anything

that I ever bring to the table no matter

how technically you know correct it

might be right

frustration with the amount of time it

takes review patches or project

applications have actually been making a

little bit of progress on this on this

front of the drupal.org team and others

in the community have been working to

put you go to the project application

side to make it easier to to create new

new projects on drupal.org you know what

we still see frustration particularly

look like patch reviews right we have a

you know comes up all the time right

it's it's like you know someone some

didn't didn't approve my patch quickly

enough so I wouldn't walk to their

module right and that leads to hurt

feelings

you know people lashing out at each

other in the issue queues again another

kind of form of frustration could be for

technical reasons could be for any kind

of reason and then what we also see is

is you know when people are angry or

frustrated that often manifests outside

of the immediate project space right so

you know whether that's on social media

or you know sometimes in slack you know

we we see people you know getting

thanks with eachother harassing trolling

having negative interactions

so this slide record this is from a 2016

survey that community working group took

of Drupal contributors we asked them

about their experiences during the

Drupal 8 developments like we asked him

a whole bunch of questions but you know

this was one that I thought was

particularly relevant so was it just

over 60% of folks who responded to our

survey this was a little over a hundred

people but it was a lot of you know sort

of high-profile Drupal Warnken trip

contributors and just a shade over sixty

percent said that they had experienced

or observed some sort of conflict you

know in drupal.org Anish accuser in

slack during the Drupal 8 development

cycle look I'm really interesting about

that is that it actually matches fairly

closely with another study that the

folks that get up did last year and they

actually it's not just projects on

github but they actually worked with

academic researchers and brought in data

from a lot of different projects and

they found that eighteen percent of

folks in their survey had personally

experienced a negative interaction with

another user an open source but that

fifty percent had witnessed one that

occurred between other people so this is

a you know conflict is everywhere

and you know as a result that we see

some consequences right

that we see a decline in contributor

morale decline obviously in productivity

people leaving the project right we

don't have numbers for group whole but

again from that github survey about 21

percent of the people who's had

experienced or witnessed negative

behavior said that they actually stopped

contributing to the project because of

it right and it can also deter people

from joining Drupal or other open source

projects so this is a problem that we

need to address we need to be aware we

need to talk about it we need to address

it and it has an impact on you know

ultimately what the what the picture of

people who are contributing to our

project looks like right so in that

github survey they found that only 3% of

open source code contributors were women

so in Drupal we're actually doing twice

as good because we have 6% you know

which I'm not celebrating that but but

it's it's it's interesting and even at

our in-person events right with Drupal

con and other events you know we're

lucky they have 20% of attendees are

women right so we have a major gender

balance issue we also literally have and

I spent a lot of time preparing for this

trying to find some good numbers on

percentage of people of color in open

source and and couldn't find and there's

like no idea the best data I could find

was again from that github open source

survey where 16% of people though this

is an

national survey so 16 percent of people

in that survey identified themselves as

racial or ethnic minorities in the their

own country right so in the United

States so that somewhere between you

know 38 to 40 percent of people identify

as as minorities which you know so if

it's only 16% an opensource you know

assuming those are primarily folks from

the United States so one of the reasons

we have such an imbalance right is that

women are far more likely than men to

experience to encounter language or

contents that makes them feel

uncomfortable they're far more likely to

encounter stereotyping and they're far

more likely to encounter unsolicited

sexual advantages right there fancies

sorry

as a result unsurprisingly women are

also far more likely than men to seek

out help from people that they already

know as opposed to asking for help from

strangers in a public forum or Channel

right there any of you who are working

in open-source contribution you know

that collaboration between strangers is

kind of one of the fundamental things

you know that makes open-source so

remarkable right and and and and we're

all striving to build these communities

where everyone can feel welcome to

participate and it's even more striking

when you consider that getting a pull

request by women are far more likely to

be merged the nodes made by men but

that's true I think Kelsey's probably

seen this study that's true only if

their gender can't be easily identified

their profile right so it's also really

important you think about this in terms

of what open source means for people's

careers right so half of contributors

say their open source work with some

what we're very important and getting

their current role open source helps

people build a professional reputation

and it helps you know build their

careers build their resume so improving

contributor representation actually

helps create can help create a more

representative tech sector overall the

big point I'm trying to make here is

that reducing negative conflict helps

make open source more welcoming more

inclusive and more innovative so how do

we do that so one thing that a lot of

open source projects have is a code of

conduct right and it needs the up on the

side here right that I have a picture of

a code of conduct this is not from an

open source project this is actually the

assignment that they have up at Navy

Pier here in Chicago so they have a code

of conduct that's posted it actually you

know almost any venue that serves the

public has some sort of code of conduct

posted that's that's expectations for

people so that they don't engage in

unsafe behavior that interferes with the

ability of others to use that space

right and it's simplest norm a code of

conduct is a policy used by an

organization to establish standards for

behavior and appropriate conduct when

interacting with others in a defined

space be that you know conference be

that a workplace in a project we had an

event venue whatever right we're here at

mechanic camp has you know code of

conduct it's on the website posted at

the registration desk and you know that

makes it clear that you know harassment

won't be tolerated at this event

if tells folks how they can let

event staff organizers know they've been

subjected to harassing behavior right so

it's a really important role not just as

sort of physical spaces where people

interact with each other but also in the

context of technology communities which

are virtual in nature the decodes have

kind of helped create inclusive spaces

where people can feel safe and welcome

to contribute right and and again we

know from the research that's been done

the documentation that clearly explains

a project processes such as how to

contribute what the code of conduct is

are incredibly valued by those groups of

folks who are traditionally

underrepresented in open-source like

women like people of color right so a

well-written and well implemented code

of conduct can help address those issues

right by making it clear the community's

value openness and diversity and are

committed to providing an inclusive

space that's free of harassment for

everyone contribute right now just

having that just saying that isn't

enough and it won't get rid of every

issue but it's a way to make sure that

everyone understands the ground with us

right but code of conduct is worthless

if there are no structures to support it

or mechanisms to enforce it right and we

see this come up with a fairly often at

events so events will be like oh yes we

have a code of conduct because we know

we're supposed to have a code of conduct

because you know a lot of folks will say

I'm not going to speak at an event that

doesn't have a code of conduct so

they'll you know find something you know

off the internet slap it up on their

website and then when an issue comes up

they will have no idea what to do so so

it's really important to make sure that

you have people at your event who

understand what the code of conduct is

who are empowered to handle reports and

who understand and appreciate that

responsibility right and where the

who are folks who attendees you know can

feel safe talking to you can feel safe

approaching right and you know I mean in

some cases it's really clear-cut

right if if someone is endangering the

physical safety of another attendee or

if they're doing something that's

breaking the law rules of venue the

event staff can should immediately

remove the person from the premises and

you know all the authorities if

necessary but often the answers are not

always so clear cut and so it's really

important that you have people who

understand how to handle situations know

how to listen we aren't going to try to

troubleshoot or problem-solve on the

spot who put her here and say okay I

need to know what happened who was

involved you know it's everyone okay and

then take that time and take that space

and go and deal with it appropriately so

within the purple community we have a

community working group so there's me

the chair I've been part of the

community working group since its

inception which was actually back in

March of 2013 I've been the chair since

March of 2016 and so I replaced Donna

Benjamin who

the previous chair also in the group we

have my Canelo who many of you may know

from the Drupal easy podcast is from

Florida they have Adam Hill who runs a

company in the UK called consulting

design does a lot of work in both the UK

and Europe emic Arianna's who is an

awesome Drupal developer also from the

UK and our newest member Jordana um who

is a group developer based in surinam

which is for those a small country on

the north coast of South America and and

you know in the past Anja Byrant web

chick was a member the community working

group Rachel Lawson who is now the

community liaison the Drupal Association

was a member and world an Easter who was

one of the early leaders in the Belgian

Drupal community who is also a part of

the CWG

so in addition to the five of us we also

have a matter of number of subject

matter experts right so these are folks

like maybe a lawyer or someone who is a

mental health consultant who we can talk

with on an as-needed basis right if

issues come up that require some kind of

specialized knowledge that's not in our

wheelhouse we have folks we can go and

talk to and get some kind of additional

advice and perspective on you know

issues that might require specialized

knowledge right another thing we do is

you know at Drupal cons whenever there's

we find whenever there's a group of time

in a different part of the country or

different part of the world we try to

connect with someone who is local to

that to that region and so if something

comes up if an issue comes up where

there might be a question of whether or

not you know

under understanding the incident in the

context of the local culture we can ask

that person for their place in

perspective so Canadian working group is

tasked with maintaining a friendly and

welcoming contributor community to their

full project we do that by helping

community members resolve conflicts

through an established process we act as

a point of escalation mediation or final

arbitration for the Drupal community in

case of intractable conflicts so you

know that's essentially upholding the

Google community code of conduct that's

the code of conduct that you can find

under the law organ I want to be clear

it's distinct from the code of conduct

that is in place at google town or other

events the Drupal con code conduct is is

enforced by the Drupal Association staff

they're the ones who run the event but

we consult with each other on issues as

appropriate you know so something comes

up at durable con that might have a

larger community impact they're probably

gonna loop us in on that we recognize

community leadership every year through

the Aaron Winkler award Aaron when

Warren was a very well-known Drupal

developer who passed away a couple years

ago at ALS and so in his memory in honor

of his memory what we do is we find

someone in the community who just

demonstrates kindness kind of goes above

the beyond for the

community demonstrating leadership and

we take nominations from the community

at large and then the community working

group in combination with the past award

winners get together and we vote on who

gets recognized at the north-american

DrupalCon and actually gets a free pass

and stipend for the event so in the past

we've recognized Cathy T's got more

plate she and Nikki Stevens so so I

talked a little bit before about

providing conflict resolution resources

and guidance right so sometimes you know

we have we have folks who might be

engaged in a conflict where they're not

necessarily looking for us to guide them

through the process or engage in

mediation they're just kind of want some

help or advice right so we can help

point that to them

when possible we we try to publish stuff

though we don't get to do that as often

as we might like you know and in general

we we do whatever we can to try to help

improve the overall health health of the

Drupal community yeah that's a big job

and what's important to keep in mind is

that you know the five of us are

volunteers right we don't have any

funding we don't have any staff we don't

have a formal relationship with the

verbal Association

we're actually an independent group

that's chartered directly by juries who

who currently appoints or approves its

members who reviews any appeals of CW

decisions now it's been a lot of talk

over the last year about improvements

and changes and streamlining community

governance so it's quite possible that

that might change in the future but at

least for the last five years or so

that's how it's done there's anything

change from the last year Aboriginal so

so yeah I could do a whole other

presentation on that but I'll give you

the short short version okay on time so

the big community so there's been a lot

of conversations about what governance

means in the community right and so for

those folks who were at the pecan

Nashville last year the ripple

Association hired what it has to come in

and she kind of let some kind of

facilitated some group conversations in

person and then she also facilitated a

few online the following up on that she

kind of released a series of kind of

high-level bullet points of kind of

areas that needed you know she was

hearing needed to focus wanted to look

at and address so that was a really

great process and I think it helped

people really get their get their

feelings and frustrations out and kind

of get them into a form where we could

kind of process that month all of the

community but it wasn't necessarily

particularly actionable right it was

kind of like hey this is what I'm

hearing

so the Drupal Association actually kind

of did a survey it's like should we like

have maybe some kind of a community

elements summit and ask some questions

around that and you know and again the

answers they got weren't super clear so

they actually came to us the community

working group and said hey you know can

you guys you know sort of take the lead

on that and they said well we can't take

the lead on community governance but

what we can do is is help kind of

facilitate some additional discussions

online discussions that are really

focused around the very specific areas

of

do we need to do next with community

governments right and so so we had those

those happened last fall we put up the

others a blog post on drupal.org which

kind of goes through the list of bullet

points and you know and so you can kind

of read all those and again I could do

an X Y or if you have trouble come we

actually have a session about it - all

of us were there are going to talk about

it I will say that kind of our our first

level recommendation type recommendation

was that in order to be able to make

changes to community governance we need

to really kind of understand you know we

need the leadership of the project right

so that's essentially dreams that's

that's the Drupal Association to kind of

provide provide a framework right in the

sense of you know what are one of the

values or principles that the project

towards what are we trying to solve for

and and based on that and and what will

does not just our contributor community

but the other communities that are

within Drupal you know whether that's

the business community or the you know

the user community what role do they

have as well in that process right so

that's not something that the

contributor community can answer on its

own whenever you have an organization

and values and principles those really

need to be kind of driven from the top

they need to be true and authentic to

the lived experience that people have

within the project which is why they're

really often very hard to come up with

and I think

where things are stuck right now it's a

very long way of answering your question

but the direct answer is come to

DrupalCon and we'll talk more so yeah so

that's that's governance so so I think

this you know talk a lot of folks and I

I will occasionally have conversations

with people about the community working

group with people who don't know I'm on

the community working group and so I

will get a very sort of unvarnished

understanding of what they think the

community working group is it very often

it's this right so you know this is from

Phoenix right one of my favorite kind of

bumpers series of video games and and so

you know this is this is the judge

sitting in their in their bench up on

high who's kind of like here to hear the

evidence on both sides and you know hand

down a decision right decide who's right

and who's wrong who's wrong right now

because what a lot of people think that

that we do but it's actually not our

role to decide necessarily who's right

or who's wrong it's our role to help

resolve conflicts between community

members in a calm measured and

respectful way right so to be clear we

don't go out and proactively investigate

community members we do not contact law

enforcement on behalf of community

members were actually prevented from

doing so by our Charter and we don't

respond to requests to take specific

punitive action right so if somebody

it's like I don't like someone so please

ban them like we're not gonna just do

that okay we're gonna say well let's

talk some more and understand why you're

frustrated right so we're not as we like

to say we're not the Drupal police and

again we're not here to decide who's

right or who's right so much as just

making sure we're able to help people

they're community work together in a

mutually respectful way right so well

and well it but I do want to be clear

that well you know many of the items

that we tackle are initiated by reports

that are made to us our process is not

exclusively complaint driven right so if

we see that there's a lot of a certain

kind of issue that's coming out we're

probably going to make some

recommendations to go after the root

cause of whatever that thing is as

opposed to you know just handling every

single issue sort of whack-a-mole right

so again not the Drupal judge there's

it's pretty cool I don't look which

which to me I think encapsulate sort of

the the central question that we deal

with a lot and go ahead and read it says

for me forgiveness and compassion are

always linked how do we hold people

accountable for wrongdoing and yet at

the same time remain in touch with their

humanity enough to believe in their

capacity capacity to be transformed and

and this is this is this is what we deal

with a lot right and I want to be really

clear you know we're not not everyone

who engages in harmful behavior it's

going to be transformed but we have a

responsibility to to show compassion to

to hear them to talk with them to

understand and before you know and and

to try to see if we can get them to

understand the impact of their words or

actions behavior and be accountable for

them right at the end of the day what

I'm interested in the other

since being working group are interested

in but for people to basically just be

take responsibility for your words and

actions and the impact they have on

others right and so we're always trying

to do that sometimes we're successful

sometimes we're not so sticking into the

nuts and bolts of our process lies

that's very small text Italy very

difficult to read for everyone in the

room but essentially the way it works is

that when an issue is filed when

something is brought to our attention

whether that's true we have an incident

report form under blood org whether it's

through email or whether it's something

that gets sheriff the Cerner public

issue queue it goes on the agenda for

our next weekly meeting maybe once a

week we have a Google hangout you know

where we basically say okay what are the

things that we're working on one of the

new things that have come in since you

know last week and if we have time what

are some of them kind of longer-term

things that we want to be working on so

again to be clear if this is a matter of

that require that's a serious and

immediate attention we're also in slack

we have our own private slack so we do

have the ability to to kind of need to

take action and do what needs to be done

in between our regular meetings yeah so

that may essentially what we do then is

we go through each issue we discuss a

gentleman as a group come to agreement

on next steps assigning someone or a

couple people in the group to

essentially follow up with the

individuals in question right so you

know if it's a dispute between two or

more individuals our general approach

again is just to kind of gather as much

information as possible from the

involved parties right and and in order

to ensure that that people are able to

share their stories with us and open it

honest man

we're and you know maintain strict

confidentiality we do not share any

names or other sensitive details outside

the group without the permission of the

person involved right so once we have a

sufficient level of detail we've meet

then again as a group to decide how to

proceed right so depending on the

situation this could involve you know

one or more cwg members providing

aviation between the parties and

conflict or suggesting ways that they

might result themselves in cases where

there's a very clear code of conduct

violation we will talk directly to the

person or persons who engaged in the

violation try to help them understand

the impact of their words and actions in

to take responsibility for them one way

that that can manifest as a manifest

itself in the case of a sort of really

serious incident or whether there is a

recurring pattern of a certain kind of

behavior by by an individual so it may

be that you know each individual

incident is not necessarily you know

severe but the combination adds up one

way we might address that is through

kind of an action plan so that's again

sitting down with the person helping

them understand too much as we can what

the impact that their words actions have

on the other person to say to try to get

them to see that to take responsibility

for that and say what do you think we

should do next right and and and that is

a long and difficult drive out an

emotionally draining process and

sometimes it doesn't work but when it

does it's amazing the other kind of

thing that might might come in we may

receive an after-the-fact report about a

situation that's already been resolved

the word one or more of the parties

wants to basically have it

on the record of this thing happened so

we'll review it will will decide whether

further action or involvement is

necessary and basically just keep it on

file for reference in case something

similar happens in the future or whether

you know one of the individuals involved

again so again this is this all sounds

very long and drawn-out that's

intentional right unless an issue

requires immediate action our processes

decide to slow things down as much as

possible in to enable resolutions that

are as thoughtful and as permanent as

possible so we don't do all of this

humid Ark we do share with the community

as often as possible we we post the

minutes of our of our regular meetings

we put those up in a publicly shared

Google Drive folder those have you know

again redacted names and other personal

information you know and then we post

that up on our twitter account at

durable community we will occasionally

issue published statements regarding

issues that are of importance or

relevance to the broader community you

know sort of clarifying our

understanding of the situation what's

going on we would respond in our public

issue queue hundred org you know to feed

back to the questions so again last

summer after the community conversations

that Whitney helped facilitate

there were a number of pieces of kind of

questions and feedback that were

specifically directed at the community

working groups so we're like okay let's

post those as issues

you and let's you know respond to them

some cases you know we're like well

people think it's this but it's actually

that or okay yep this is an issue we'd

love to hear some suggestions or were

even just asking for clarification so we

really are you know as much as possible

trying to hear and listen to the

community the broader community at large

we present sessions a DrupalCon here

events like this right now to kind of

help people understand who we are what

we do we provide consultation and advice

as I said before to the Drupal

Association other folks in the community

who you know need help with an issue or

a conflict or directed to resources you

know as a sign before about the

community governments we've been working

with community members we've been

working with trees and the Drupal

Association to really try as much as

possible to to find that framework for

you know ongoing evolving community

governance we'll be doing an eight

workshop at Drupal con Nashville this

has not been publicly announced yet but

work that's in our minutes of you know

minutes but very few people do that so

we'll be we'll be doing a workshop on

the Tuesday afternoon in Nashville we're

reaching out to an abiding but then

we'll also have open for registration

this is a workshop for sort of current

and emerging leaders in our community to

kind of provide some basic groundwork

and sort of what does it mean to work in

a team with other people what does it

mean to lead a team particularly as it

applies to not just leadership in

general but very to people's very

specific experiences in Drupal that is

going to be

led by Adam Goodman who is the incoming

Drupal Association Board Chair professor

Northwestern University where he runs

the Center for leadership there so that

is very exciting took a lot of work but

we finally got him to agree to donate

some time we'll also have a group of you

know other folks who are established

leaders in the community helping to

facilitate that as well so it should be

an awesome event and you'll be hearing

more about it in the next week or two

and then yeah and then you know the

other thing that we do is we

occasionally have conversations with our

counterparts and other open source

projects right you know we've been doing

this for a really long time longer than

most projects we don't necessarily do it

better with other projects but we we

have a lot of you know a lot of

experience under our belt and you know

so when so occasionally you know we will

we will reach out and talk about share

share ideas and experiences that they've

had just with issues that come up in

their own projects and that's something

I'm hoping to do a lot more of as well

so some of the things that we have

learned some big lessons that we learned

in our work is really really important

to ensure that expectations are set and

managed during at the conflict

resolution process communication is key

again if you have people coming in to

the process thinking that their their

goal is to you know essentially

prosecute the other person that's

probably not going to be a successful

process and we need to make it really

clear that what we're just here to here

hears

your perspective and then you know we'll

go and engage in that mediation but it's

not you know it's not to prosecute the

other person so communication is really

key there again in order for any kind of

mediation to be successful all the

involved parties need to agree to accept

the outcome of the process right which

can be hard you know if it's it can be

hard to admit when you've made a mistake

and so that's but that is something that

you know if we're going to have a

positive outcome we need a cab and we

can't one of the things that we've

learned is that we can't always assume

that everyone going in the process is

necessarily doing so in good faith you

know we've had we've had times when

people come in and you know say one

thing but not be really honest you whip

up usually not with themselves either so

so that's one of those things that we

try to focus on escalation and appeals

processes need to be well defined and

well communicated you know if if we go

through the process and you know someone

is unhappy about it they need to

understand that you know this is how it

works if you don't like what's come out

of this you can take it to juries and

Greece may decide not to weigh in and

what he may not is up to him over the

last year's is that we need to keep

talking with everyone and what you keep

doing sessions like this and explaining

who we are and what we're about and and

how our process works and you know and

we need to we need to address questions

and concerns really valid ones that have

come up about like you know what is our

role in in drupal's governance

structures how are we accountable these

are all really important things that the

conversations that we need to be having

with

at large so I want to go back again to

this this unmet needs right you know the

question of you know because so much

many of the issues right allies of unmet

needs and and in our community how can

we and these are these are things all of

us have a responsibility right to to

help out with right we need to continue

to streamline code and project review

processes right we've made some great

progress but we're not there yet you

know that's that's empowering enabling

more people who conduct reviews making

the process more transparent to avoid

you know parents of favoritism making it

easier for reviewers to find and work on

unreviewed projects and making it easier

for reviewers to say thank you for that

review my improvement right then

improving our communication channels

we're going through kind of a shift in

Drupal right now we used to all be on

IRC and irc2 clunky but you know we had

to have like you had to figure things

and do things and they work like great

clients on every platform you know so

now you know a lot of folks in the

Fieri's in slack which is very familiar

very easy to use but has its own

challenges because it's not an open

platform and you know and it doesn't

because the community slack is a pretty

slack it only keeps the ten plus ten

thousand messages which means basically

any conversation disappears after a day

or two right and so so you know but we

need to kind of continue to make it

easier for newcomers in particular to

have a place where they know where they

can go they connect with other

contributors so they can get knowledge I

could probably need to do more mixing in

of some real time you know technology's

not just using you know slack you know

or the issue queues but also you know

bringing in some face-to-face video

stuff you know that person who you're

having a conflict with in the issue

queue wouldn't be great if you could

just like get on some kind of call of

them and just like talk it through and

maybe you know things would be a lot

easier and we also need to understand

appreciate the work world international

community English is not everyone's

first language we have had several

issues come up where you know somebody

who is not a native English speaker has

has used English in a way that has come

across as as it's less elegant or more

you know blunt right because you know

very often it you know there's one

example but there was someone who's

native French speaker and they were

making a press in their life I'd like to

demand you know such and such and if you

know French right that's actually a very

polite way to ask don't have that

experience it's like Oh what are you

demanding this of me right it's like

that's it and so so those kinds of the

misunderstandings can arise once our

hand gestures - yeah yeah

considered super rude and French to us

it's like in here exactly right so so

that's that's important and better

communicating Drupal's direction purpose

and technical roadmap we talked a little

bit earlier in the governance process

about how we need to have a really good

understanding of what you know drupal's

non-technical goals and principles are

but we also you know need to do a better

job of creating easy to find summaries

of active initiatives under blood or

making it easier like hey I'm gonna

Drupal where do I go to get involved how

can I do that in a streamlined and easy

way as possible we're doing these things

we need to continue to do them and and

providing you know documentation and

architectural overviews for you know

future contributors there's some like

Drupal system with subsystems that you

know there's not as the documentation

for it if you're somebody who's coming

in is brand new you're gonna have no

idea what this thing is so as much as we

can we need to just provide some some

good high-level documentation in

architecture before you know as many new

contributors as possible again I know

this is tough stuff that people are

doing you know and what I'm saying is

that we just need to provide those

people with more support to do that

mentorship this is huge we have a group

of amazing mentors in our community you

know we have folks here who are helping

out with Sprint's every time go Drupal

con it's you know let's let's help

people get involved given that that

mentorship they need what we need to add

support provide more support as for

mentors to be able to go

just oncoming onboarding newcomers and

and and the core mentorship hours but

also find those people who have that

passion we have that commitment pair

them up with with people for long term

one-on-one mentorships one of the things

when we give the survey last back in

contributors people who are like durable

famous people and and and almost every

single one of them when we talked with

more like I wouldn't be here if it

wasn't for so-and-so donating so much of

their time and helping me up we don't do

a great job of recognizing and

supporting that and or and is that's

something we need to do we need to

provide more non-code mentoring

opportunities right running a camp like

this is a lot of hard work and you know

and it's and it would be great if we

were able to to have opportunities for

people who may not be interested in

doing but who want to learn how to run

an event like this and they could shadow

and work with and learn from the people

who have been running camps you know and

have a proven track record of success so

again it's all about just providing that

support providing that training

promoting those success stories right

when they occur again you know I talked

a little bit earlier about community

leadership development so this is a

workshop we're doing and at Nash yeah

Nashville and this is just the start

right we need to continue to focus on

developing skills like creative

problem-solving conflict resolution

effective advocacy and visioning to be

able to give folks one a broader

understanding of the Drupal community as

assets and challenges understanding

where you fit in the picture rather than

just your narrow a little piece of it

and really blogging and creating a

greater Network

of leaders within the Drupal community

as someone who's kind of seen you know

what what sort of you know how the kind

of half of leadership the folks of

habitant the Drupal community we don't

do a great job of documenting or

communicating or establishing what that

latter looks like so that's another

thing I think we can do that will help

out a lot so so these are some of the

kind of new challenges that have come up

for us that we've been seeing more of

and we need to to work on more we need

better tools and procedures to address

online harassment that refers outside of

a project spaces right so it's become a

huge issue particularly social media in

the last clears there are there are

people who take the position that no

matter what they do outside of the

project space only their behavior inside

the project space should matter how this

is clearly absurd because if you are

harassing and attacking someone on

social media well you can't then go and

be like oh but let's go over here and

pretend none of that happened and just

work together it does not work that way

this is not about free speech or

political correctness this is this is a

treating those around with basic human

decency and respect right the shared

values of our code of conduct apply

regardless of your personal political

social religious views but they're not

an excuse to avoid accountability for

the impact of your words and actions

right we need to address the fact that

there are larger issues with sexual

harassment and assault that have been

lying below the surface and not just our

community but many open source meetings

and many communities elsewhere for years

and and that they've gone unreported and

unaddressed

I mean what we know is that people

often don't feel safe discussing these

things openly because the fact that

they've that much the fear will result

we need people to be able to feel safe

talking about them otherwise the problem

is is that if if people don't feel

comfortable reporting things that have

happened incidents that have occurred we

have no way of knowing that they

occurred we have no way to address those

issues and people will just know hey

something happened and nothing happened

to that person and it undermines all the

faith all the trust that that you know

that folks have in the effectiveness of

our code of conduct of our working group

structures and it means that we're then

less likely to get more reports so we

need to find better ways to make it

easier and safer for people to report

incidents of this kind of harassment we

need to keep out of records of incidents

of occurs that we can more quickly catch

patterns of conduct and and then you

know I think we need to talk about

vacuuming alcohol is a component and

many of the incidents that are referred

to so we need to have you know we need

to take a look at what that impact is we

need to have an honest discussion about

the fact that while many of us spend a

lot of time together socially we're also

a professionally driven community of

businesses not just what we do for fun

this is our job we get paid for doing it

and you know there's there's certain

expectations that come from that right

and then you know we need to develop

better relationships across projects to

mitigate the impact of individuals who

may engage in toxic behavior and then

you know when they're kicked out there

just jump to another

object I would love to see some kind of

like United Nations of open source that

could address you know these kinds of

cross project issues so then close out

here this is a panels from one of my my

favorite comic books this is the

unbeatable Squirrel Girl she has all the

covers of most swirl and girl and she is

what's wonderful about her humanity and

compassion you know she she can defeat

almost anyone but she always tries you

know to to find the humanik a humane way

to solve problems and so she's facing

that Victor Von Doom Doctor Doom who you

know it's his ghost name don't go marvel

right one of the greatest villains in

the Marvel Pantheon he's he's a dictator

who demands you know complete loyalty

and he likes to name things after

himself so yeah anyone she's up against

Emma and I'm gonna just kind of come

over and read it because it's too small

so doom designers nothing less than

world domination unless you wish for the

same there could be no common ground and

you know Squirrel Girl says I don't

believe in monsters beneath that cold

metal mask you're still human you would

like me I believe you listen to reason

and I don't believe that humans stop

being human

when they pretend to be monsters dude

says then you will die

she says I'm trying here but you know

really not making this easy and that's

gotta how it is for us and it can be a

fucking trip as well so I am that time

let's get started let's make this

community a better place we can't do it

without you thank you very much I know

we're at time but I'll stick around

folks have any questions or so that's a

hard question to answer because because

really really you know it's I think I

think I wouldn't answer a better job by

sort of what what is the outcome of the

result right I know what your projects

have a better documentation I know which

projects have better resources I you

know Ruby's done a lot of work

the we borrowed a lot of our

documentation from blanking on a new

project but it's another framework there

there are folks out there there's some

amazing work coming out of Mozilla right

now they're doing a ton of research and

and I think they're hoping to sort of

establish some kind of common standards

and best practices for folks to use so

you know and there's actually a lot of

work coming out of a lot of the projects

at Google sponsors now Google has a ton

of resources and they also have the

advantage that they employ a lot of

people who work on their projects so if

an issue comes up and it's someone on a

Google project chances are it's probably

not it's really it's an employer issue

right and so they can they can

that way so yeah so it's it's a question

it's a very very complicated question

yes thank you Thanks anyone else yes I

always wanted the government yeah and I

will tell you this I I would love to

have every event have the consistent

code of conduct I did not want to be

fielding issues from every single Drupal

camp that happened we had something

occur last year

Germany that had they that was public

I'll tell you about it they posted a

picture they were gonna be distributing

Playboy magazines in their in their hand

out bags to attendees so playboy

magazine by the way in Germany still has

nudity in it and but they also run

gerbils so and and the publisher was a

sponsor and everything so that issue

because the time offset I became aware

of it about 6 o'clock at night reached

out to the organizers we didn't hear

back from them until the next morning by

that time they completely blown up all

over the internet and you know and they

did the right thing they did not

distribute the magazines but it's it's

it's simply a matter of like timing

resource like we are 5 community

volunteers who already have a ton on our

plate there is no way in heck that we

are going to be able to address every

single issue what I would rather see is

one is that is a commonly agreed-upon

set of standards for work events and

resources places where camp organizers

can go to get training and now

and information so that when you're

throwing an event you know you have all

the tools you'll have to look for them

you don't have to find you don't have to

come up with them from scratch scratch

they're already there and they're

basically just handed to you said hey

something comes up to your head

here's process you go through here's

what you do and it's easy as pie

right yes but in situations away from

one to describe you we're not the

typical judgment isn't that kind of what

the community wants yeah

yes sometimes we're not the Drupal

police sometimes we need the Drupal

police you know that's not what we are

and that's that's a great question and I

think that's what we need - we've been

talking about it like we don't want to

become the Drupal police

so if we're not the Drupal police you

know if if something goes down where

it's like yeah we need we need somebody

to be kind of the frontline enforcers

right whose role is that we go what it

looks like for gripple Khan because that

is an event that's run by the Drupal

Association are physically and legally

responsible for that event so it is

therefore legal responsibility to ensure

that that is a safe well run event right

so if something comes up at Drupal con

we have

really clear you know why

if something comes up in Drupal

community slack there's a wonderful

amazing group of volunteers who run that

slack but it's not it's not owned or run

by any entity so what does that who is

the police for that and there's great

volunteer moderators and they that's the

Rolaids oh yeah right but those

questions are not always easily

answerable consequences right so yeah I

didn't talk about that right so we have

a whole tool bag of consequences it can

range all the way from hey a warning hey

knock that out don't do that that's our

kind of art my favorite one when that

works and some and very often that's

enough right the it all the way to you

know you need to be removed from this

space in the community because your

presence in this space is you know is

damaging right and so you know it again

right that that is a matter of community

working group coordinating with

whoever's responsible for that space

right so if someone if we recommend

someone you know be banned from

drupal.org that's something we have to

coordinate with the Association likewise

DrupalCon

if it's something like Drupal slack

that's a conversation we have with the

moderators of slack you know I mean one

of the most frustrating things right are

are and and where there's a lot of gems

like just online harassment and Twitter

or Facebook or whatever we don't have

any control over those and quite

honestly they're crap that's dealing

with it themselves so you know that's

that's the place where we struggle

so I mean yeah I mean we could say look

yeah hey you know don't interact with

this person anymore don't you know

you're out of Drupal suck but then they

can just go on Twitter and just like we

can't stop them have you ever found

yourself in a situation where someone

you told someone to that they couldn't

be a part of it but then they like yeah

yeah we found out about that we

addressed it yeah they're not yeah yeah

it's fun anyone else

all right let's go get what wins our

party let's go legged ties very much

thank you