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RFC - Moderation Action Log

Introduction

In the interest of openness and transparency, this RFC proposes that the Moderation Team be required to keep a public log of actions taken whenever they become involved in various situations. An important reason for this is to increase community confidence in the moderation process, as well as act as concrete documentation whenever disagreement or confusion happens about whether the moderation actions taken were correct, or whether the process should be changed after running into a particular situation or pattern of situations. This must also be balanced with other concerns, such as privacy, and should be designed such that it does not lead to the harassment or defamation of anyone involved.

Summary of RFC Actions

  • Create a moderation log spreadsheet with the required columns.
  • Grant full public read access to anyone with the link.
  • Grant full edit access to Moderation Team members.
  • Add a link to the log directly to CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

Keeping a Balance

This RFC intends to balance the following specific concerns:

  • Openness and Transparency: people should have a good idea of exactly how often and in what sorts of situations the Moderation Team has gotten involved. This is critical for building trust and confidence in the process.
  • Recordkeeping: For situations such as repeated violations (or lack thereof), or future analysis that can help the moderation process improve or change based on actual data.
  • Privacy/Sensitivity: Some details about moderation are often private, and should stay that way.
  • Prevent Further Harm: The log structure must take specific measures to prevent abuse or harassment due to information contained therein, and reassure community members about the potential repercussions of such a public record of actions they might find themselves involved in.

Log Structure

The log should be a spreadsheet with public read access, and edit access only available to active members of the Moderation Team. Any time an event happens, the log should be updated as soon as possible by the Moderation Team members involved.

The log will include the following columns:

  • Date - date of the enforcement action (not the event itself)
  • Action Taken - official action taken by the moderation team, in accordance with the moderation process.
  • Venue - Where the event that triggered moderation happened: Github, Discord, Conference, etc.
  • Moderator(s) - Moderation Team member or members who took the action.
  • URL - If the event happened on a URL-linkable PUBLIC location (such as Github), the URL of the issue or issue comment in question.
  • Details - Freeform description of the event, with specific parties omitted. This should be as dry and neutral as possible. This should use placeholders instead of names when referring to any involved parties except Moderators unless the event is publicly documented elsewhere (such as on GitHub).

Amending/Reversing Decisions

This is not an accusation log, but a concrete record of things the team actually did. If a decision is reversed, a new entry should be added, clarifying the reversal. A note may be added to the original entry to clarify that it was reversed, and referencing the line on the spreadsheet with the details.

The log should be treated as append-only in as many cases as possible, with minor edits as needed, and as specified in this RFC.

Scrubbing the Log

In some cases, log entries may include personal details or other information which may unfairly target one or more of the people involved. In these cases, general community members may contact the Moderation Team through either public or private channels as specified in the Code of Conduct's contact section to request a log line be scrubbed of details.

When a log line is scrubbed, the URL and Details field should be cleared and the Details field replaced with [scrubbed on request]. Unless circumstances are considered to be extreme enough, the rest of the line, including the date, the action, the venue, and the involved moderators, should be left intact. The requestor may also ask that only certain details be scrubbed from the description.

Log lines should only be scrubbed when there is reason to believe that its existence would:

  1. Cause harm to a community member, either physical, emotional, or career-wise.
  2. Could be considered defamatory.
  3. Reveals private details or information.
  4. Incite targeted harassment in any way to any of the involved parties.
  5. Cause legal issues for Ayo.js or its members -- such as when legally compelled to do so, or when that is a reasonable possibility.

There are some exception where even with the above, a scrub request may be refused, at the discretion of the Moderation Team:

  1. The violation by the subject of moderation is extreme enough that they can be considered a risk to the community. Concretely: physical violence, sexual assault, large-scale inciting of targeted harassment campaigns, etc.
  2. The edit requested would result in falsification of the log - that is, lying about what actually happened.
  3. The requestor is a third party uninvolved and unconnected to anyone the log refers to. Requests may only be submitted by participants or their representatives.

The Moderation Team reserves the right to scrub any existing lines at will, based on team consensus, at their best judgment. Unless the matter is absolutely extreme, the log entry must retain basic information about events as mentioned above.