[FFmpeg-devel] Code of Conduct & Mailing list rules & Community Committee

[Thilo Borgmann]

Hi folks,

unfortunately the latest escalation on the user mailing list [1][2][3][4] let's me think that it is necessary to emphasize some things and update the mind of many of us.

A) We have imposed upon us our Code of Conduct [5]. We ask everyone to (read and) follow that in our Mailing list "Rules and Etiquette" [6]. Thanks to Carl Zwanzig to recently point that out as well. It is not optional for everyone on this list to obey to these set of rules.

B) We created a community committee to look at and eventually sanction violations against said set of rules [7].

Admittedly, the whole creation and installment process of both of these happened on ffmpeg-devel as well as the ffmpeg meetings and had not been properly communicated/announced here on the user mailing list. Also [7] has been uploaded into a very suboptimal very hard to find place so that it seems that only the most active developers are aware it. I will send a patch to fix that unacceptable state as soon as I can. Not that this can be in any way an excuse for any of the recent escalations on the list.

The inhibition threshold for most of us not to ignore or intensify such malicious mails seems unfortunately rather high. Thus only today the current flamewar had been reported to ffmpeg-user-owner as well as to me. Thank you to everyone who did so!

Therefore, let me clarify the possibilities everyone on this list has to help this community to be a more respectful and healthy place to be involved with. So whenever you encounter such malicious behavior like the personal insults we've seen the last couple of days you should consider:

i) Not being silent about misbehavior and ask for proper behavior of the involved people.

	It does help many times. Especially if it is not an exception that people ask for respectful behavior. The community can harness itself that way.
	Another thank you to everyone who tried this during the current escapade!

ii) Writing to ffmpeg-user-owner _at_ ffmpeg.org and pointing to the mails you find offensive.

	There are currently five people receiving these mails. Your chances are good that you get a response and/or things happen like this mail.

iii) Writing directly to cc _at_ ffmpeg.org and ask for inspecting a specific incident you find to be malicious.

	You should consider to sleep over your own assessment and be convinced that what you want to report very clearly crosses the lines before you write to these very busy people.


Up to here, the above is a general remark and reminder if you wish to receive it as that. Although I'd rather would have reminded someone to send the full, uncut console output that is missing (R).

That being said, as ii) has been received today, I filed a complaint with the community committee about four people involved in the current flamewar for violation of our CoC [5]. In the next couple of days, the members of the CC [8] will read some mails, consolidate and maybe tell me to click some buttons.

Although I'm part of the CC myself, I will of course not be involved in this process as I reported this on behalf of the community.

Thank you,
Thilo


[1] https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2023-February/055974.html
[2] https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2023-February/056002.html
[3] https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2023-February/056004.html
[4] https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2023-February/055973.html

[5] https://ffmpeg.org/developer.html#Code-of-conduct
[6] https://ffmpeg.org/mailing-list-faq.html#Rules-and-Etiquette
[7] https://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/trunk/md_doc_dev_community_community.html
[8] https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2020-July/266508.html