meta: bootstrap the moderation team

[benjamingr]

@nodejs/moderation has been established in order to help enforce the moderation policy:

The Node.js Moderation Team is tasked with enforcement of this policy.

Moderation team members are Collaborators nominated by either the TSC or CommComm and must be approved by both committees with annual recertification. If there are no objections after seven days, the nomination is automatically accepted. If there are objections to a specific nomination, then a simple majority vote of each the TSC and CommComm members in favor of the nomination is required.

An annual recertification vote is required for all moderators. For an individual to continue as a moderator, a simple majority vote of each the TSC and CommComm members must vote in favor of retaining an individual moderator.

A simple majority vote of each the TSC and CommComm members is required to remove a moderator.

Once per month, the Moderation Team must provide a report of all Moderation actions taken by the Moderation Team to both the CommComm and TSC.

This post is to discuss and establish the operations of the moderation team.

I'd like to quote @jasnell about the difference between general collaborators and the moderation team:

The difference, is that general collaborators may do moderation while the moderation team is expected to.

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Things to discuss:

• Meetings (are any needed? I think a first one could be nice to meet everyone)
• Discuss how the team will provide a report to the TSC and CommComm
• Discuss how to make the team approachable.
• Adding people to the team (onboarding, how to communicate the position is voluntary and how to encourage people to step up - I'd love to see more diversity in the team itself).

I would also like to suggest we hold non TSC/CommComm collaborators such as myself to the same standards and restrictions the project imposes on TSC and CommComm members and the way they interact in the project.

I would also love it if other core and community members could share their thoughts here about how the moderation team should conduct itself.

The goal of the moderation team is to help promote constructive and inclusive communication in the project and to be approachable while being objective.

[ryanmurakami]

Hi @benjamingr!

I'd love a meeting to start with. Once we get a full team membership, we can figure out scheduling. I can take point on that if needed. I'm not sure if most of the members plan to be at Node.js Interactive next month, but that may be an option vs. virtual.

As for the report, it seems like we might look for an external tool to help moderation activities. Otherwise, if we could establish a standard issue/pr template, we could just build off the Github API (that might be better, on second thought).

I think making the moderation team members list public and creating some documentation on how the team works and how to contact will help make the team seem approachable.

I'm wondering if there needs to be a target number of members that we're aiming for. That might help us weigh adding new people. The more the merrier, imo.

Thanks for starting this issue!

[mhdawson]

One thing that it would be good for the team to figure out sooner than later is whether the @report email alias should go to a subset of the moderation team members or all team members. Once this is agreed we can reconfigure the alias so that issues reported at the alias get sent to this team instead of the TSC members.

[othiym23]

@mhdawson Speaking for myself, I'd be fine receiving the emails directly, but reading the Moderation guidelines, it sort of sounds like the intent was for emails to report@ to create issues that the moderation team (and other interested observers) could respond to. Is this something we want to do? And do we want to come up with a protocol (not necessarily tooling) for people to indicate that they're handling a given report?

[refack]

I had a few thing I had in mind...

1. Responsiveness (Time Zones and availability)
   Is this issue of high priority for the team? Probably in the short term being on top of thing sounds like a healthy idea.
   Optimally there should be a team member on line at any time. Since this is a best-effort voluntary endeavour I don't think any of us should make any time commitments, so IMHO the best way to get good responsiveness is to have a geographically diverse team.
2. Communication - How will the team coordinate? GitHub/IRC/other? Public/Private?
3. Centralize known policies - IMHO there's a little bit of fragmentation with policies.
   1. The CoC and the moderation policy at the TSC repo
   2. Any guidelines that arise from the Collaborator guide
   3. Ongoing discussion in meta: explicit exclusion for outside social media posts TSC#327 & doc: expections on leadership committees TSC#339

RE: NINA & CollabSummit; I won't be attending 😞, so I'd rather we have a virtual talk sooner
RE: report@ I'm not sure it should go to this team, but I don't have any better ideas.

[refack]

I always get some more after I post:

4. IRC - Is it our responsibility? RE: Moderation shortage community-committee#33 (comment)
5. Mode of action - Is it this team's job to take action, or to make recommendations.
   If we are expected be able to take (specifically editing) action we'll need write access to all repos 🤷‍♂️
   Anyway we should have a decision making mechanism. I'm not sure consensus seeking is the best, as IMHO "Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt". That is if anyone feels something is offensive, it's offensive, so some action needs to be taken. Severity of action IMHO is the part that needs discussion.

[othiym23]

Is it this team's job to take action, or to make recommendations.

I would strongly prefer that the moderation team be empowered to take action directly, and to work as quickly as is practicable. If the idea of this makes members of the community uncomfortable, I think the best way to address that discomfort is to ensure that the moderation policy (and other policies governing community behavior, including the CoC) are explicit and complete enough that enacting that policy is uncontroversial.

This is absolutely a position that requires trust (so I do think that members of the team require write access to all repos), and that trust will be easier to build and maintain if we're all agreed that we're executive agents, enacting policy, and leaving to other teams, like the TSC and CommComm, to define that policy.

[refack]

I totally agree with @othiym23.
I've formulated those points so that their answers will be explicit.

I also think that team members should abide by a more detailed code (similar is spirit to nodejs/TSC#339)

[bnb]

@mhdawson With regard to report@, I believe it should go to the entire team at present. If people would like to opt-out, they can, but the team is currently small enough (seven members, if I counted correctly) that it shouldn't be a massive problem.

For now I believe getting the team set up quickly is important - delegating email access can and should be addressed in more detail later as the group grows, if necessary.

[mhdawson]

Unless anyone objects then, I'll put together a PR redirecting the @report alias to the moderation team (and I guess adding an alias for that).   Can the existing moderation team members send me the email they would like me to use for that ? If there is already an alias (I have not looked yet) just point me at that.  

[benjamingr]

My email is the one listed in nodejs/node and I'm fine with getting the emails.

…

On 13 Sep 2017, at 20:03, Michael Dawson ***@***.***> wrote: Unless anyone objects then, I'll put together a PR redirecting the @report alias to the moderation team (and I guess adding an alias for that). Can the existing moderation team members send me the email they would like me to use for that ? If there is already an alias (I have not looked yet) just point me at that. ----- Original message -----From: Tierney Cyren ***@***.***>To: nodejs/node ***@***.***>Cc: Michael Dawson ***@***.***>, Mention ***@***.***>Subject: Re: [nodejs/node] meta: bootstrap the moderation team (#15366)Date: Wed, Sep 13, 2017 12:07 PM @mhdawson With regard to report@, I believe it should go to the entire team at present. If people would like to opt-out, they can, but the team is currently small enough (seven members, if I counted correctly) that it shouldn't be a massive problem. For now I believe getting the team set up quickly is important - delegating email access can and should be addressed in more detail later as the group grows, if necessary. —You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[ryanmurakami]

@mhdawson ryanharrisonlewis@gmail.com for me.

[refack]

The email that's in nodejs/node/README is good for me.

[othiym23]

@mhdawson othiym23@gmail.com for me