[ChuckMcM]

One of the things that is useful about due process is the right to confront your accusers and cross examine them under oath. Without those rights, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see justice done.

Too often these important elements are missing, and Rod's statement "At no point have I been provided with an opportunity to answer to these complaints, correct the factual errors contained in them (see below), apologize and make amends where possible, or provide additional context that may further explain accusations against me." suggests that this lack of due process is present in this case as well.

When "Somebody complained about you in a serious way, but we can't say who, or the substance of the complaint." is the standard against which the process is measured, then it leaves itself open for abuse.

[kbenson]

This is, as I see it, an unfortunate side effect of vastly under valuing intent and over valuing individual interpretations and how they make people feel. There needs to be a balance, and when there's not you end up with problems. If that's what happened in this case, it might have resulted in fault being a much more nebulous concept to those people.

It's possible he said some things which ended up hurting people's feelings. It's entirely possibly he had no intention his actions be interpreted as they were. In that case, if you over value intent, he did nothing wrong, and some people were being too sensitive. If you over value interpretation, he should have known better, and it's his responsibility to be on top of how his actions would be interpreted.

Neither extreme is even remotely workable for all situations. The only thing that works in practice is that people accept that their wording sometimes needs changing based on common perceptions of it, and also that people may not have interpreted something as intended and intention matters as well. The only way to do this in practice is to actually communicate intent and interpretation when there's a problem so corrections can be made if they apply, and to both parties being open to accepting those corrections. This is obviously impossible if there is no communication.

[x0x0]

Four people resigned from the whatever-board when Rob was not asked to leave, and have written elsewhere about their repeated interactions with him. The fact that the four of them basically decided they don't wish to work in an org that Rob works in speaks (imo obviously) to him being a relatively unpleasant person to be around. Also, I'm skeptical that four people all are blowing things out of proportion, but who knows.

[kbenson]

There are plenty of times I've seen a small group misinterpret something, and then feed off each other, and then reinterpret future events with that new, sometimes incorrect, context. On one side we have people that were apparently so upset they decided to leave. On the other we have someone that professes to not being notified when he made people uncomfortable, and more so, actively kept in the dark to the point that he had to drag minute details out of third parties that weren't supposed to talk about it.

What I'm saying is that it's entirely possible that they are both telling the absolute truth. Even if that's the case, one side appears to be trying to communicate and come to an amicable solution. The other side doesn't appear to be willing to consider that (or have ever really considered it an avenue of addressing the problem), at least from the information presented so far, but that's not necessarily the whole story either.

[solidsnack9000]

What you are saying is very reasonable. But...if he did so much to upset so many, it should be easy to come up with concrete and specific examples of conduct that any reasonable person would consider unacceptable.

[kremlin]

I'm not. Several of the people in the centre of this drama have a number of Twitter posts saying things like "kill all men" and "all men are terrible" etc. I'm completely willing to believe that these 4 people have a lot of fun, and a lot of invested identity, in being "offended" by things white men do. It doesn't reflect on his character all that much to me.

[GenericsMotors]

Indeed. And while the fork proclaims to be more inclusive and provide safe-space, how am I as a developer to feel safe when I am subject to kangaroo-court processes?

And this is the reward for the effort of contributing time & code to a project? No, this is not inclusiveness.

[brudgers]

The judgment communities make is between the ill effects of an imperfect process and between the ill effects of no process at all. There is nothing wrong with a community looking at the effects of no process at all and deciding "We can do better." It is perhaps worth pointing out that no process at all has no due process either.

[ChuckMcM]

I feel that this is a false dichotomy. As I see it 'no process' is the state where any process at all may be applied depending on the individuals that come into conflict. As such, that 'no process' state includes all possible processes that might be implemented for any given event.

Whereas a process without a notion of due process, is always worse than a process with a notion of due process.

I see it as the judgement a community makes is between dealing with the conflict openly (both accuser and accused are named and aware of each other and aware of the conflict) and avoiding open conflict. And in the interest of avoiding open conflict they sacrifice fairness.

[brudgers]

A code of conduct lets people focus on the community purpose of the project. It lets people know what to expect so they can decide "I disagree, and therefore this is not for me," or "I disagree but I can live with it," or "I agree and can live with it." Codes of conduct are practical tools allowing a community to handle people who decide "I disagree and will stay and not abide by it" and then behave in ways that disrupt the community from its purpose.

From a practical standpoint, due process can be simple as the people assigned to deal with complaints saying, "This is problematic. Please stop." The cost of lawyering up when the response is "So sue me," is disproportionate to what has been asked. Due process is a three way street.

[ChuckMcM]

I agree with your assessment of what a code of conduct is.

That said, just the 'code' is pretty useless without a process to give it life. This is exactly like laws that tell you what you can and cannot do, and the process tells you how you evaluate whether or not the laws have been broken.

So on the one hand you have a document that says, if you're part of this community you will be expected to do this, this, and this other thing. And then this process side is "if you don't, these are the consequences; further this is how we will evaluate whether you haven't followed this code ..."

   > From a practical standpoint, due process can be
   > simple as the people assigned to deal with
   > complaints saying, "This is problematic. Please
   > stop."

I see it differently, practical or not, the reason behind having a process that requires disclosing who made the accusation of failing to follow the process, and the evidence that such a failure occurred, and a rebuttal from the accused, puts the transgression into context for all parties so that a fair judgement can be made. In the absence of an investigating body it is the only way something can possibly be fair.

From the practical stand point the process can be as simple as the adjudicating group sending an email to the accused saying "Bob has accused you of violating our code of conduct, and offers as evidence the following; ... what do you say?" [2] There isn't any need for actual lawyers and you don't even need an appeal process. Once the adjudicating body has made its decision on whether or not there was a violation then they can enact what ever remedy is specified in the code of conduct.

In your example, the only way "people assigned to deal with complaints" could say "this is problematic, please stop." is if they take on the role of the accuser. And if they do take on that role they must only do so when they have direct, and for them incontrovertible, evidence of the violation, rather than hearsay from someone that there was a violation.

I feel it is important to understand why the process has to be at least this thorough because it prevents abuse and injustice. One of the most interesting things about the law for me is how it creates these sorts of processes to deal with the fact that people who have to run them may be bad actors. And then still generate fair results[3].

[1] Initially only to the adjudicating authority, the accused and the accuser.

[2] And of course the adjudicating body has the obligation to do everything in their power to corroborate the evidence presented and the rebuttal.

[3] In the absence of grand collusion between accuser and adjudicating body.

[brudgers]

After I wrote my previous comment, I went and looked up the applicable code of conduct. [1] I suspect the relevant passage might be:

  Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the
  Code of Conduct in good faith may face temporary or 
  permanent repercussions as determined by other members
  of the project's leadership.

As I said, due process is a three way street. And the more I read the statement linked as the story here, the less I think this is about anonymous complaints and the more I think it is related to whether or not actions by a committee member reflect the level of good faith expected in order for the committee to function efficiently.

In some contexts, voting people off the island is sufficient due process. If it is not sufficient here then many people will have to have acted contrary to good faith. I don't see evidence to support that conspiracy theory.

[1]: https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

[ChuckMcM]

Thanks for adding this: I don't see evidence to support that conspiracy theory.

I see you are concerned with other comments here and elsewhere arguing a conspiracy of some sort to get the author banned. I have no opinion one way or the other on that specific accusation. I also don't think it is germane to my claims in this thread.

I was remarking that "Due Process" the specific legal term associated with the how the legal system deals with accusations, was designed to avoid the situation the author writes about where he asserts he was not told who is accusers were, what he was accused of, or given an opportunity to refute those accusations. This works because it removes information asymmetry that can be exploited by the attacker or the attacked. An recent example of how this can be exploited is the story of a venture capitalist who was accused of sexual harassment anonymously by someone who turned out to be a competitor[1].

In a system where, as part of the process, an accuser and accused are made aware of the real identities of each other this would never has passed the first examination.

If such a process were in place in this particular case, and the code of conduct violation was the one you cited, then the email to the author would have said

   "These {insert identities} have accused you of failing 
    to enforce the code of conduct elements {identified paragraphs}
    in the following situations {links to exchanges between author
    and community}. We would like to hear your side of this 
    before we render a judgement." 

And they would get back the authors point of view, then they might ask the accuser or the author for more information, and then they would render some judgement and an explanation of why they ruled the way they did so that in the future people would either recognize that it wasn't an issue or that it was and to not do it.

Processes are like programs or math proofs, if you do each of the steps in the right order you get the right answer regardless of the intent or opinion of the people carrying out the process.

[1] http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/25/lawsuit-sexual-harassm...