Snake Island Code of Conduct
[Article 2 years old]
Reprinted with permission from the Free Software Fellowship.
(Warning: as there is a war in progress, aspects of this story may have been embellished, in other words, propaganda or fake news)
There has been widespread news coverage of an incident on Snake Island, Ukraine this week. A Russian warship approached the island and made a radio call asking the Ukrainian occupants to submit to the Russian CoC:
Russians: This is a military warship. This is a Russian military warship. I suggest you lay down your weapons and surrender to avoid bloodshed and needless casualties. Otherwise, you will be bombed
Ukrainians: Russian warship, go fuck yourself.
The Russians behaved like Google attacking a free software community, shooting and bombing anybody who refused to obey.
To honor the defiance of these Ukrainian victims, we created a new sticker in the Ukrainian national colours and we are publishing examples of fascism in the FSFE: █
FSFE Fascism at 34C3 exposed
Subject: Re: [GA] Fwd: Konsequenzen
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 14:12:54 +0100
From: Erik Albers <eal@fsfe.org>
To: ga@lists.fsfe.orgHi Mirko, everyone,
please excuse my brevity as I am on vacation. I wonder why this should be handled by the GA but your call for action now drives me to explain the situation briefly and put in my 2 cents. Please respect that I am on vacation and that I cannot follow up the discussion properly.
Subject: Re: [GA] Fwd: Konsequenzen
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 14:12:54 +0100
From: Erik Albers <eal@fsfe.org>
To: ga@lists.fsfe.orgHi Mirko, everyone,
please excuse my brevity as I am on vacation. I wonder why this should be handled by the GA but your call for action now drives me to explain the situation briefly and put in my 2 cents. Please respect that I am on vacation and that I cannot follow up the discussion properly.
On 02.01.2018 07:59, Mirko Boehm wrote:
> Hello,
>
>> On 2. Jan 2018, at 02:02, Albert Dengg <albert@fsfe.org> wrote:
>>
>> does anybody actually know what she is refering to?
>>
>> (i spennt only very little time at the fsfe assembly, but i would
>> have thought if something really grave happend somebody would ahve
>> mentionend something?
>
>
> I know nothing more than the original mail sent to the Berlin list. I believe that a) we need to make sure we are all on the same page regarding to what happened,
one of our supporters was acting like a wolf in sheep's clothing. While he was on one hand behind the booth to sell merchandise, he on the other hand spread self-made print-outs about "#fuckgooglefsfe" to criticise that FSFE accepts donations by google. (the print-outs were fortunately so bad and cryptic I doubt someone could understand what they are saying)
Despite him insisting on his freedom of opinion, I forbid that person to spread these print-outs around the booth.
The person in question is member of the local FSFE group. This local FSFE group has been forming half of the assembly-crew. I tried to integrate their thoughts/feelings in my decision. All of them did not see harm in his presence himself but only in the print-outs. Some of them were even saying is doing a good job behind the booth.
The next day I got aware that there have been print-outs at the tea-house which was like 20m away from our assembly. I then gave the person in question order to stay away from the booth because I told him before to not spread his print-outs around the assembly.
As a compromise ("you have to use violence to get me away from here" ...) I did let him stay around the booth but I did not allow him anymore to be behind the assembly as a booth-team-member.
I was told however, that in the next morning, when I was still away from the assembly, the person in question was acting behind the booth for a while together with someone else from the Berlin local group. But as long as I was there he was not allowed to participate anymore and he did not.
So much about what happened.
Now to the criticism brought up by Susanne: Already at the event, Susanne complained about his behavior and that he is harming the FSFE. I agreed with her and did what I was explaining above.
As a sidenote, Susanne is in personal care and was at the CCC with a professional assistant. Both of them - Susanne and the person in charge - are very emotional. I now feel very sad that Susanne feels like having to take such consequences. But I also think that this is the consequence of a pre-existing personal conflict between the two persons and actions during CCC were simply the last straw.
After my vacations I am open for discussions and suggestions about how to handle this situation best. But after reviewing it now after three days I still think I was handling the situation to the best of one's knowledge.
The situation required to balance the group spirit (as said, I consequently asked the other team members about the person behaviour and got zero support for throwing him out) former reactions of the person in charge (so I only forbid him to act as a team-member but not to generally not be present around the booth) and things he actually is allowed to do (well ... yes, he is allowed to spread print-outs on the tables around the booth).
Other or more dramatic reactions from my side could have made the situation better - but they also could have made the situation worse.
> and that b) any such situation needs to be reviewed and possibly handled by the GA.
can you please explain me why you think so?
We have a CARE team for CoC conflicts and a Fellowship coordinator as well as two community representatives and with @coordinators a representation of our most active community members. I really wonder why you think we now should handle personal conflicts between community members on a GA level?
> If I am connecting the right names and faces here, Susanne attended the Berlin community meeting recently and is a long-time, if not super-active contributor.
long-time yes, super-active not.
Best regards,
Erik--
No one shall ever be forced to use non-free software
Erik Albers | Communication & Community Coordinator | FSFE
OpenPGP Key-ID: 0x8639DC81 on keys.gnupg.net
_______________________________________________
GA mailing list
GA@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/ga