Hi candidates for 2025 election, thank you for standing!
Here’s a wide topic that I’d appreciate your thoughts about: How can we make the GNOME community most pleasant and less of a high-pressure environment for everybody involved? Was the CoC and the creation of its committee a measure the right direction? are there other parallel efforts that in your opinion could be happening? What do you think are the board duties and opportunities to foster a more harmonious community?
Thanks for the question @garnacho .
Creating a more pleasant and less high-pressure environment in the GNOME community requires both structural and cultural efforts.
I believe the adoption of CoC and the creation of the CoC committee were steps in the right direction. They show that proper conduct among members and folks involved with the community is a foundational value in GNOME. This includes respectful communication and inclusive behavior among the folks, which makes the community more pleasant.
For example, I am from Nepal. Someone can be from Canada. Now, while we are communicating with each other and contributing together, and both know the CoC, both of us will be in the same mindset of not violating anything. This creates a safer communication space for both of us. This also helps in understanding the right contributions and helps exclude the wrong ones. Even though our region, culture, religion, personality, understanding, and many other factors might differ, but the CoC guidelines work as a common ground for both of us. This ensures a pleasant experience for collaboration and co-working.
These measures not only provide ways to resolve conflicts and other CoC violations but also provide a sense of psychological safety, especially for newcomers or folks from underrepresented groups. It forms the structure that is equal for everyone regardless of stature and background.
Other parallel efforts that can help make the GNOME community more pleasant and less of a high pressure environment are :
Valuing People for Contribution, Not Background:
A great example of this comes from GNOME Nepal, a community where I am involved, where the person maintaining the communication channels is just 14 years old. The community doesn’t judge based on age or background, but on willingness to contribute and level of involvement. This approach encourages a greater sense of ownership and accountability, and it fosters open, respectful communication across experience levels.
We have to make the contributors feel welcome to participate at their own pace and without performance expectations right from the beginning. We shouldn’t directly force the concepts and values of the community on them, but encourage and influence them positively to embrace them at their own pace. This gives them a better sense of ownership and acceptance.
Recognize the contributions beyond code:
Contributions like design, documentation, community building, event management, governance, advocacy, instructors, mentorship, and translation are vital. Recognizing these roles validates diverse forms of participation and makes the community more inclusive and diverse.
Transparent governance and feedback culture also play a great role in making a community more pleasant. Clear feedback loops build trust and reduce the feeling of pressure or exclusion.
For the Foundation Board, to foster a more harmonious community, these are the duties and opportunities:
We have to suport regional communities like GNOME Nepal, GNOME Berlin, GNOME Africa and User groups like GNOME User Groups Delhi NCR. This makes a more diverse and inclusive community that can communicate, contribute, learn, and grow together with the support of each other. This creates GNOME community a more pleasant and less high-pressure environment for newcomers and people from different countries and backgrounds.
Support regional and local leaders who are building thriving local communities. This will help in GNOME’s global growth and awareness among the interested contributors. This will also help to have more local and regional events, making the community less dependent on larger continental-level conferences and events in order to bring the contributors together. Local meetups and events provide a more pleasant space for interactions among local & regional contributors.
Take the serious considerations on the code of conduct violations, and take appropriate actions as per the CoC guidelines. This will ensure no more violations in the future and make the community pleasant for everyone.
So, in summary, it is not just about CoC or other policies, it is also about living our values, respecting every form of contribution, welcoming newcomers and contributors without judging the background or attributes, but the willingness to contribute. We should also consider providing a safe and pleasant space to grow, learn, and then transfer the learning to the newer contributors.
Hey @garnacho, thanks for the question. Some thoughts:
I have experienced communities with toxic behaviour first hand, and at a distance over the years. IME the only way to have a welcoming and inclusive community is to be able to nip toxic behaviour decisively. Having a code of conduct and a means to enforce it is an essential piece, so I am all for having that.
That said, the CoC’s purpose is to establish guardrails – deal with infractions if they occur, and provide assurance to newcomers and existing members of the community that we are serious about creating a space where everyone can expect a baseline level of civility of discourse.
If there are areas of interaction which are high stress (historically, and understandably, this was around release time), we should try to figure out as a community how to address that before things escalate the the point of having to reach for the CoC.
And finally, echoing one of @aadityasingh’s thoughts: I do think there is room for us to build more feedback mechanisms from the Foundation membership to Board and various committees to help us understand what we can do better.
Yes! The CoC and its committee shows that we hold the members of our community accountable for their actions. In most cases there is a lack of good communication linked to cultural differences or stress but we are prepared for when we need to protect our members on/offline.
There is always room for improvement and lessons learned but I think we have a strong CoC. Strong does not mean that we are inflexible, it means that our members respect each other and are able to resolve issues. Sometimes a mediator is needed, which is ok, but it is good that we have the tools to solve situations without escalating.
Sometimes I wish that when there is conflict people will step out for 5 minutes and come back. Maybe you might see this as childish but I see many miscommunications because the conversation escalates too quickly.
I also agree that our cultural differences should be taken into account. A big part of our community is not native speakers and we are coming from very different backgrounds. Some understanding about this could help many misunderstandings.
The lack of people in some parts of our community and the overworked members is a problem and this surprises no one. We need to find a way to attract and retain contributors, developers and non-developers.
Some of our teams are not functioning because there are not enough people or because they are not known. For instance, some of our translations are being carried by one person. I am fully aware this is not easy and it is a years long conversation. However, it could reduce the pressure on our contributors which will lead to better communications/interactions.