We drafted a set of social media guidelines to accompany our Community Code of Conduct and are asking all community members to review these proposed guidelines and provide constructive, actionable feedback on the content.
Before I start some hopefully constructive feedback -that might sound a bit negative-, I want to clarify that I'm overall in favor of extending the Code of Conduct to such social media activity that constitute an Eclipse activity. So I overall support the initiative and my feedback after is mostly meant to make this hopefully work better.
As I read this document, I have the impression this can be read in a way that restricts all social media activity. The line between "personal" and "on behalf of Eclipse Actiivty" is a bit too blurry for me; and I think it should be as strictly defined as possible to ensure there is no abuse in any way.
IMO, the doc should state more clearly that only social media activity that constitute an "Eclipse Activity from an Eclipse representative" are in the scope, other tweets and so on are totally out of the scope.
We still need people to express personal opinions on social media, so we want a clear definition of when this is an Eclipse Activity or not, defined as formally in the doc as "Eclipse representative". Basically some clear rules defining Eclipse Activity such as "Posting with a twitter account named after an Eclipse trademark is an Eclipse Activity", "an Eclipse representative posting a personal opinion that mentions an Eclipse project must explicitly state that it's a personal opinion"...
Some more concrete examples of when the policy applies or not would be interesting; ideally -if appropriate- with link of such activity that have happened to make such statement useful.
As Mickael said, I think the guidelines are a bit too vague as they stand. Quote below (emphasis added)
Individuals who hold official status with an Eclipse Activity (e.g., project committers, working group committee members, selection committee members, etc.) are assumed by the community to represent the interests of the Eclipse Activity on social media whether they are using an designated official channel or not.
When representatives use social media on behalf of the Eclipse Activity, they must adhere to the Eclipse Foundation Code of Conduct and the Eclipse Foundation Communication Channel Guidelines.
What if I am using social media as a personal account with no ties to the Eclipse Foundation? I am just a committer but I do not broadcast this as I do not run my social media that way. If someone who knows me sees a tweet or post that falls out of line am I going to be penalized? These quotes seem to run counter to one another.
What exactly prompted this document? Is there a precedent for "individuals who hold official status" going rogue?
I guess what bothers me is there seems to be an insinuation that personal accounts are going to be under a fine-tooth comb. While I can understand official accounts this seems like a bit of over-reach.
We will work harder to clarify what we mean by and Eclipse Activity and which channels this applies to. Vacations will slow that response a bit.
I don't want to get into the specifics of our motivations. But let's just say that we would not be spending time and effort on this if we didn't think that it necessary.
The scope of of the policy is certainly too broad. I'm going to make this change to the first paragraph in the "Representatives" section:
Individuals who hold official status with an Eclipse Activity (e.g., project committers, working group committee members, selection committee members, etc.) are assumed by the community to represent the interests of the Eclipse Activity on social media when whether they are using an designated official channel or not.
That seems much better to me and is very welcome. +1 for integrating it.
On the topic of Eclipse Activity, I see it mentions EclipseCon or JakartaOne, but isn't the activity on those events -even online- covered by the regular Code of Conduct already?
And about the "official account" on the social media platforms, maybe it's worth clarifying what is meant by "official", for example "a social media account whose name references a trademark owned by the Eclipse Foundation and is used by Eclipse representatives", so if one create a new account for a project, it's considered as "official" by default.
EclipseCon and JakartaOne events themselves are covered by the Code of Conduct. This policy is specifically concerned with the social media connected to those events (e.g., a hypothetical Twitter account that programme committee members use).
In the simplest sense, an "official" is an account that is designated as such. A project might, for example, declare that a particular Instagram account is their official project account.
I agree though, that we should clarify that an account that represents itself as official regardless of whether or not any particular declaration is made is an official account. e.g., when an account has branding and links that tightly couples it with a project, it is de facto official.
Perhaps we might also provide some guidance that recommends including text that describes the channel as official (e.g., "Official blog for the Eclipse Dash project"). I say recommends because I expect that requiring it might be challenging on some platforms.
The first paragraph in the "Representative" section was updated to limit the scope of the guidelines
Individuals who hold official status with an Eclipse Activity (e.g., project committers, working group committee members, selection committee members, etc.) represent the interests of the Eclipse Activity on social media when they are using a designated official channel.
The consequences of unacceptable behaviour were updated to show an escalation of consequences.
Unless otherwise determined by the Eclipse Foundation via the Code of Conduct resolution process, consequences will escalate as follows:
For a first offense, a warning will be issued.
For a second offense, the individual will be banned from representing Eclipse Activities on social media for thirty days.
For a third offense, the individual will receive a permanent ban from representing Eclipse Activities on social media.
If you have any further feedback please let us know by August 20 at 11:59 PM PT