Unaddressed code of conduct violations: censorship, suppression, rudeness

[Kaleidea]

This is a follow-up to a private report I've made to allow the Steering Group to resolve this issue discretely. The SG has rejected that approach.

Summary

I've spent 2+ weeks on the research, implementation and specification of the search element. The implementation for Chrome is complete, WebKit and Firefox are in progress. However, my work has faced constant suppression by an editor who spent less than a few hours on this topic, but takes actions to undermine my work and prevent me from contributing to the HTML standard and Chromium - two projects in which he has authority.

Disclaimers

It is acknowledged that all members of the SG has certain level of conflict of interest due to the involvement of the HTML standard's lead editor. The SG has an opportunity to overcome that COI and uphold the code of conduct in its own ranks.

Pinging the SG: @foolip, @othermaciej, @travisleithead.
I've asked annevk to recuse due to strong conflict of interest: Anne closed the previous issue without having read the report up to its 2nd paragraph. Although the rest of the SG also has a COI, there is some hope that might be of lesser influence.

This is a COC report, not the escalation per the workstream policy.

This report is archived.
Due to the rushed close of the private report: Please wait for the reporter to close this issue which will happen if the SG's actions were effective. A close by the SG will be considered a failed resolution.

Objective issues

1. Rude remark: "One more attempt at being crystal clear [...]", "I would also appreciate if you stopped trying to tell us how to run a standardization process."
2. Censoring opposing viewpoint
3. False statement: "And you have been heard! Repeatedly. And answered, several times. By both implementers and [...]"
   • No implementers participated.
4. Suppressive remark: "I'll be closing or marking as off-topic any such discussions outside of this issue."
5. False statement: "others have addressed it point by point".
   • No, nobody has discussed the implementation details.
6. Immediately closing a proposal without reading it.
7. On 13 Dec. the editor has revoked my access to chromestatus.org to stop progress on the implementation of the search element. Abuse of authority, disruption.

These actions show a clear intent to suppress knowledge crucial to the standardization process, to devalue my work and to prevent me from contributing.

Rules that apply

Code of conduct:

• Please be kind and courteous. There's no need to be mean or rude.
• Respect that people have differences of opinion and that every design or implementation choice carries a trade-off and numerous costs. There is seldom a right answer.
• Remarks that violate the WHATWG Code of Conduct, including [...], hurtful, oppressive, or exclusionary remarks, are not allowed.
• If a moderator creates an inappropriate situation, they should expect less leeway than others.
• if someone takes issue with something you said or did, resist the urge to be defensive. Just stop doing what it was they complained about and apologize.

Working mode:

In case of a conflict among the community of contributors, the editor is expected to go to significant length to resolve disagreements.

Subjective summary

The root of the issue is not whether the editor agrees with the findings - as the misleading comments suggest -, but the fact that the editor did not following proper standardization process. Crucial questions were not investigated, eg.: "What are the use cases?", "Evaluate how well each of the remaining solutions address each use case and how well they meet the requirements."
I've answered those questions, but my input was rejected and discredited. This goes against the standards of professionalism and the WHATWG's principle of openness.

The editor has enforced the flawed decisions beyond reason.

Background

The cause of the misconduct is a disagreement regarding the viability of the search element with form functionality. The editor hasn't evaluated that solution, has no knowledge of the relevant codebase in browsers, or the actual impact of the feature, yet insists that it is unviable.

I've made a trivial implementation of said element to prove its viability and explained it in great detail. The editor ignored this evidence, immeditely closed the issue where I've summarized it and he promised to censor further mentions.

OTOH the editor refused to give any evidence to support its claims of unviability, only discussing it in 3 vague and incongruent sentences that don't meet the standards of engineering. When asked explicitly to explain and justify these claims, he responded with a 13 sentence long demeaning personal remark, but no answer to the questions.

Although I've repeatedly brought up the inappropriateness and asked for cooperative behavior, the next and only interaction was to revoke my access to chromestatus.org, which is necessary to progress the implementation of this feature. The justification of these actions were factually false claims (such as: implementers have discussed this solution).

Requested remedy

1. Restoring the censored comment (2).
2. Reopening the issue (6).
3. Hiding (3), (5).
4. The SG can ask the editor to restore my access to chromestatus.org, as it is relevant to the WHATWG's work, even if not a part of it.
5. Due to continued damaging behavior: prohibiton to negatively affect my work. As that's the only form of interaction I've experienced the request is a complete prohibition to get involved with me and the topic of the search element, except for answering the unanswered technical questions as accountability requires.

The search element is a simple and low priority feature. Since I've already written the specification and the implementation, I'm offering to accept the responsibility of being the editor of this topic. Other WHATWG editors who value my work are welcome to join the review to ensure the WHATWG's quality standards are met. I've invested many times more effort, I'm more motivated and prepared for this topic than the original editor, therefore progress will be faster and the result will stand on a stronger foundation.

Conflict of interest

Due to COI the SG might find it difficult to remedy this issue. Please remember that the SG has accepted the responsibility to uphold the COC, even to protect newcomers. The SG's actions will be seen in that perspective. Due to the continued damaging behavior of the editor further inaction from the SG cannot be accepted.

Due to the rushed close of the private report: Please wait for the reporter to close this issue which will happen if the SG's actions were effective.

[annevk]

This issue has already been discussed and resolved by the SG. And contrary to your statements it was read in its entirety, including by me. There was nothing rushed about it, we simply disagree.

[simonsan]

Hey, I'm just an outsider from the Rust community reading all this, right. I don't want to involve myself too much, but I want to say that all this reads as pretty in-transparent and super chaotic.

Isn't there a strict and transparent process to follow for these allegations/conflicts?

Like having neutral people acting as a mediator?

I read those topics up there and it seems that @domenic is pretty annoyed with this person, which can obviously happen. Sadly also someone not involved in the situation can at least read some passive aggressive writing style into it, I hope he works on that (e.g. reading a book about non-violent communication can help to express one's needs and emotions in a way other people understand it more clearly without pushing aggressive "manly" behaviour). Closing issues without giving a good reason and just saying: "We told you so many times." is not good communication at all. In these kinda situations it's good if you yourself would just take yourself out of the equation. Letting other people handle it and not take a deep dive and make everything worse.

I, as another human being outside of your bubbles, that read all this stuff here, would appreciate it, if you all just listen better to each others needs and try to find a solution to this conflict situation that is respecting each others borders and personal views regarding the topic of discussion.

Hope you will manage it,
Cheers.

P.S.: Also a "Sorry, I see that I came over a bit annoyed because I had a stressful week and couldn't find a good dealing with that situation which brought me to a more aggressive writing style and let me acting in a way, I might not react to another person. I hope you can look over that and we can start to work together on something that is bigger than our conflict." could help a lot here ;)

[Kaleidea]

Wise words, @simonsan.

This was expected. Anne has worked in close cooperation with Domenic for many years on the HTML standard. That is a severe conflict of interest.

This issue has already been discussed and resolved by the SG.

The SG refused to take action and I still experience abuse that damages my work. If the SG believes there is no COC violation then they can answer to the individual issues 1-7 and explain why that hostile behavior is appropriate in their opinion.

[foolip]

@simonsan this is the first Code of Conduct issue the Steering Group has been asked to weigh in on, and there are things that could be improved about this process. One is that email isn't a totally reliable way of reaching us, for which I've filed #187. Beyond that, if you have experience from the Rust community and can see things that we could learn from, would you mind filing a new issue? That would be a great discussion to have, but I'd rather not do it alongside this specific case.

[Kaleidea]

@whatwg/sg To clarify the above comments:

There are standard practices in dispute resolution. If the SG is not experienced in such matters then the process of learning is to be transparent, communicative and very mindful of how its actions are perceived.
COI recusal on wikipedia is a good starting point or search for "conflict of interest guidelines" for some examples.

In this current case Anne's participation to deny the complaint regarding his friend - despite the request to recuse - goes against such guidelines. To correct this the SG needs to reopen the issue and ask Anne to abstain from this and further discussions on this topic.

The following step is to accept the SG's accountability and provide detailed explanations why their opinion is what it is, in contrast with the clear evidence and apparent disagreement.
That would be very difficult. I've proposed an easier way by undoing the censorship and preventing any further incidents - which should have been the SG's initial and only response.
It is up to the SG to choose between the two paths.