Still No Code of Conduct at Mozilla

It’s been nearly four months since events at Mozilla lead several of us to call for adoption of a code of conduct. And yet we do not have one.

I can’t tell if progress is stalled, or if we’re just not hearing of updates. The last post to mozilla.governance on the topic occurred in early May. What’s going on? Why does this appear to be a non-priority for our leadership?

Regardless of the reasons, four months is a long time to wait for something that was long overdue to begin with. It’s a long time to wait to have reassurance from my community that I, and others like me, are welcome, and that discriminatory behavior against us will not be tolerated.

9 comments

    • Christie Koehler says:

      I might yet still ask on mozilla.governance. I posted here first for two reasons:

      1) To bring external visibility to the issue (not everyone interested has time to regularly visit mozilla.governace).

      2) It’s been very taxing to participate in the code of conduct conversations on governance and I’m not quite up for it this week. I need to get some actual work done, rather than deal with the emotional fallout of my feelings and experiences, and those of my compatriotsm being invalidated by our peers and leaders.

      • Yeah, it’s been made abundantly clear to me that mozilla.governance is not a safe space, and thus it’s a space that basically excludes people who would experience emotional harm from having their perspectives dismissed or invalidated (this is not the same as disagreement, and anyone who thinks it does probably needs to question their internalization of abuse culture) from helping govern Mozilla.

    • anon says:

      “1) To bring external visibility to the issue (not everyone interested has time to regularly visit mozilla.governace).”

      That’s what she said. So basically you’re saying that you don’t want this to be too public.
      I think the way you were allowed to talk openely at Mozilla without pressure from the management is long gone, and that’s a perfect example.

      Heck, can you believe that I’m actually posting this anonymously because otherwise I fear I would get problems? That’s the freaking core issue if you want my opinion. (and yes the ip is anonymized as well)

    • Christie Koehler says:

      I expressed my disappointment at the delay in adopting a code of conduct on my blog because that is where I felt most comfortable doing so. I wanted to talk about it in public, hopefully bringing some visibility and transparency to the issue.

      I did not think to go directly to you, Mitchell, because I did not feel safe doing so. Many of the statements you’ve made indicate that you do not understand or are unwilling to confront the power dynamics involved (that is, of institutionalized power and oppression). E.g., when Tim expressed on governance that he felt he was being treated as less than human you asserted that he was hurting the community and told him to drop the conversation. To my knowledge, you have never apologized for this or acknowledged the impact of your admonishment. Given that, how on earth do you expect me to feel okay coming to you directly with any code of conduct issue?

      Moreover, why are we talking about my chosen method of communication, rather than what’s delaying the adoption of a code of conduct?

  1. Mitchell Baker says:

    ah, this explains why your post sounds as if you expect the worst of me. The person saying I want to keep things secret seems to share this. I’ll ping you separately to see if there is some way we can move to a better place in this regard, life will be better for all of us if we can alleviate this. As to the status of the policy, I agree completely that I’m way too slow. You’ll see something addressing this in the next couple of days;. I’ll post something in .governance at that time.