– DRAFT –
Positive Work Environment CG

<wendyreid> date: 2023-11-07

<wendyreid> https://w3c.github.io/PWETF/conflict_resolution.html

Wendy: I merged the document after working through some of the issues
… thanks, David
… David raised some good questions for further discussion
… I created issues for those
… I forgot to share those for today's meeting

<wendyreid> w3c/PWETF#359

<wendyreid> w3c/PWETF#360

Wendy: two main questions:
… 1. confidentiality process for CoC violations
… 2. participation in a mediation process
… for #1 there may need to be non-anonymized records in order for a group of Ombuds to identify patterns
… for #2, what if there are two parties and one declines to participate in mediation

[Annette joins]

<wendyreid> Ralph: My intuition is that these two questions would have usual accepted practices in the ombuds field, but what's unique about us is our community

<dbooth> ralph: My intuition: these two questions -- great questions -- would have usual acceptd practices in the ombud field, but uniique for us is we're distributed globally and across employers.

<wendyreid> ... distributed around the globe, employers, etc

<wendyreid> ... it might be worth looking at other organizations and how they handle this

Ralph: perhaps these are questions that the Ombuds group itself needs to work out

Wendy: yes; some of the training may inform how we build these processes
… and I suspect we'll have to do some research into what other similar technical standards organizations do

<JenStrickland> I was just looking through IEEE: https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/index.html

<JenStrickland> I don't see anything there.

Wendy: what happens if someone behaves badly in an organization like ISO

David: Ralph, do you have any ideas of what might be different?

<wendyreid> Ralph: Btoh questions touch on what enforcement authority we have

<wendyreid> ... the second, mediation, it's often the case that the parties in a contract formally agree to participate in mediation

[Sheila arrives]

<wendyreid> Ralph: Not sure how to do it retroactively, we could make it part of the individual agreement

David: it would be easy enough to add to the CoC
… people are expected to help resolve it

<wendyreid> Ralph: From a contractural perspective, say something like the IE agreement, people do sign that

<wendyreid> ... we could add it

<wendyreid> ... what about when someone refuses mediation, could also object to changes to the participation policy

David: I also think it could go in the resolution process
… if someone refuses to engage in mediation, just go on to the next step

Wendy: it's not unusual to have updates to agreements; e.g. software terms and conditions
… the Participation Agreement could be updated, we send everyone notice and ask them to agree to the updated version
… ask people to agree to the CoC
… or, as David suggests, proceed to the next step in the resolution process

Annette: when we have a new year of participation it's probably an easier 'sell'; we can say that there are new conditions
… unless it happens soon it may take a while
… but different groups renew at different times

Jen: in AGWG we were looking at the culture of the group and I had made a suggestion that every member of the group take refresher training on CoC, meeting requirements, etc.
… this is beyond the scope of PWE but maybe could be raised elsewhere
… as we think about trying to make sure our membership is set up for effective collaboration, get bias and unconscious bias training, updates on new process, CoC, etc. having a regular refresher to which they must agree is a great idea

David: bottom line, there's no way to force someone to participate in mediation
… so we just need to say what happens if they are asked to participate and choose not to participate
… the obvious thing is to proceed to the next step

Wendy: we need a process [to document what has been done]

<wendyreid> Ralph: I think David's correct, we don't need to have a complete process right away, some might depend on the circumstances

<wendyreid> ... for confidentiality, the trained ombuds can help with this

<wendyreid> ... generally accepted practices

Wendy: David also raised in the confidentiality: suppose an incident occurred and the person who has been impacted decides to go public with their experience ...
… I think it would be safe to recognize that could occur

David: maybe we just acknowledge that anyone who is affected has the right to go public
… similarly, anyone accused also has the right to make the accusation public

<wendyreid> Ralph: +1 to David

David: the only ones bound by confidentiality are the Ombuds and those trying to help the process

Ralph: +1

Sheila: change the language that it's the Ombuds and third-party actors who are required to maintain confidentiality
… you can't expect confidentiality from the other party

Jen: this is a trick area
… I imagine that if you have less power it is sometimes how you equalize the situation but also sometimes its a way of crushing what you might have to say
… if members of the W3C community have such an incident, then following the Code should be the first step
… but in other recent incidents a party simultaneously went public
… someone going public could cause additional harm to the other party
… people should use our processes but we don't want to silence people

Wendy: I like the idea "confidentiality is expected of Ombuds and mediators but not of the parties"
… but also those involved [in processing the incident] should not be influenced by public discussion
… we wouldn't want public commentary to influence our decision
… public information might not be used by the Ombuds

Ralph: I'm wary of stepping to far into a courtroom style of procedure
… let's not attempt to write W3C General Laws :)

Wendy: that's fair, and we also want our Ombuds to develop some of this

<dbooth> +1 to Ralph's comment.

David: there's still a question about chairs
… Ombuds will have training and will understand how to deal with confidentiality
… will chairs have as much training?
… we'd want to expect chairs to respect confidentiality but will they know of that expectation?

Wendy: we instruct chairs to go to Ombuds
… we instruct them that they should talk to an Ombuds whenever something comes up even if they expect to handle it themselves
… part of the reason for Ombuds is to advise on how to handle situations
… the chairs should know to go to Ombuds

Jen: but chairs should also be told the confidentiality expectations
… what accountability is there? who manages accountability?

<sheila> good question

Wendy: good question

<wendyreid> Ralph: It is a good question, what are our juridictional obligations/expectations?

<wendyreid> ... this group has proposed the ombuds program, and if they are as proposed, then W3C has the accountability to ensure they are performing as expected

<wendyreid> ... the proposed ombuds program says there will be a process for selecting ombuds

Ralph: and the Ombuds will be accountable to that process

Wendy: we may need to clarify what happens if a chair doesn't follow the procedures
… the Ombuds should advise the chairs
… but once advised, if a chair continues to not follow the process, that's another violation

Sheila: there would be a general statement that the same process applies to chairs
… if that isn't documented, that could be a next step; how this all applies to chairs
… that could live in one place and be referenced by other documents

Wendy: documenting the escalation path in one place and state that it applies to everyone
… Process does mention involving a participant's employer and we don't control the process an employer follows

Annette: the difference in chairs is not necessarily in the escalation path but in the conditions in which something might be triggered

Sheila: one of the benefits of having Ombuds and mediators is that people have more than one option
… if they aren't satisfied with one they have another avenue available
… making explicit that this is an option can be comforting
… this addresses the "this didn't go anywhere and I need it to" cases

<dbooth> https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/#Reporting

David: Section 4 of CoC mentions bringing issues to the chair; that's a tie-in

Wendy: yes, we want the chair to be the first point of contact; they have more context
… I do think we should make it explicit that going to the chair is the first thing
… but you could go directly to an Ombuds, or to another Ombuds
… the chair may not always be the most appropriate first contact
… this depends on the situation; e.g. if an incident occurred outside a meeting

David: Section 4 doesn't say what to do if you don't get the help you need
… we could add "if you don't get what you need, seek another person"

Wendy: we can do such refinement
… I'll add some of this to the conflict resolution document

Jen: I think we'd all benefit from learning more empathy of others' situations

David: on the document naming
… I really like the word "incident"
… I remind you of my proposal to use "Incident Resolution" as the document name

Wendy: yep

[adjourned]

Issues #359 and #360

I/date: 2023-/Topic: Issues #359 and #360