Hall Monitor Policy

Historical document
This policy was used for a time, but has since been retired and is no longer in effect. This page is just here for historical reasons

Background

The Fedora Board has adopted a simple motto for general behavior as a member of the Fedora Project. It is simply "Be excellent to each other". Constructive feedback is more efficient at solving problems, provides a more positive environment for project members, and is more encouraging to those new to the project.

As can happen with any other project with open participation, there are times where members and users can lose sight of this. The tone and signal of various lists and communication channels can become negative and discouraging. This has been the case a few times over the lifetime of the Fedora project.

To resolve this, the Fedora Board has instituted an effort for monitoring some of the Fedora mailing lists. This effort is called Fedora Hall Monitors.

Objectives

Fedora has implemented the hall monitor process because we wish to achieve:

• constructive mailing list discussion
• a mailing list environment that is helpful, constructive, and innovative,
• a mailing list environment that is not: combative, consistently negative, repetitive and full of debate for the sake of debate.

Overall Procedures

Fedora Hall Monitors are Board approved volunteers responsible for monitoring various Fedora Project mailing lists. The monitoring will be done by these individuals on behalf of the Board. The Board will supervise the monitoring done, and arbitrate any conflicts that get escalated.

The hall-monitors will monitor the lists under the following procedure:

• They will be subscribed to and monitor the selected mailing lists for instances of posts that are out of line with the "be excellent to each other" motto. This includes, but is not limited to: personal attacks, profanity directed at people or groups, serious threats of violence, or other things seen by the monitor as to be purposefully disrespectful.

• Should a monitor find such a post, after conferring with the other monitors, they will send a private warning to the individual explaining why they are being warned and informing them that continued posts of this nature will result in the sender's emails being flagged for moderation.
  • If the sender chooses to make the warning public in some manner, the hall-monitors are free to explain why they sent the warning or otherwise respond to the issue in a similar public manner.

• These warnings will also be CCd to the moderators mailing list to help the various hall-monitors coordinate, and to keep a history that can be referred to later. The archives of the hall-monitor mailing list are private.

• If a sender is moderated due to repeated offending posts, their emails will require hall-monitor approval before being sent on to the mailing lists for a period of 1-2 days. The moderation is intended as a "cooling-off" period, and not as a permanent situation. During the moderation period, acceptable emails will be passed through with as little delay as possible.

• If a sender continues to require moderation on a repeated basis, the situation will be reported to the Board for further inquiry.

It should be noted that the expectation is that warnings and moderation will be rare circumstances.

Fedora Hall Monitors

• Josh Boyer
• Tom "Spot" Callaway

Monitored Fedora Lists

All Fedora lists should be venues of healthy debate while maintaining some level of decorum and positivity. The following lists are currently the focus of the hall-monitors, although further list monitoring may be considered as needed.

• fedora-devel-list
• fedora-test-list