Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Jeremiah]

Perhaps, it is human nature to think in terms of conflict; right and wrong.

Absolutes are naturally attractive, especially to those of us who
program. It just feels so natural because what we work with the most is
in many ways exactly like that.

But one needs not get stuck on such a perspective.

The Code of Conduct is an entirely rational and correct solution to a
population of only cognitively normative individuals.

But that is not the argument being made by both sides.

But rather we as a community have those who fall outside of bounds of
what is considered Cognitively Normal in our set of productive members
and for them the Code of Conduct is a point of contention.

It is entirely counter productive for that population and it isn't what
historically been effective at growing productive software development
communities in the past.

But we need not think in such limited terms as have or not have in
regards to the Code of Conduct but rather; can we carve out a zone of
exclusion where those who are productive members of the community can
act and interact without fear of the Code of Conduct or other normative
pressure placed upon them?

I propose we institute a Tony Stark <-> Pepper Pots mechanism.

We create channels for people who can't or will not conform to the Code
of Conduct are free to collaborate and contribute to the project through
a few designated individuals who have thick skin and are willing to put
up with Flaming assholes in private for the good of the project.

There are multiple details we will need to hammer out over time but the
general idea is we stop trying to force people who are different from
contributing in a positive manner.

-Jeremiah

Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[HiPhish]

I have had two packages merged, which I guess that makes me technically a
contributor, so here is my takes on the issue.

In my opinion Codes of Conduct (or CoCs in short) are one of the worst things
that have happened in recent years to Free and Open Source projects (hold that
though, I will address it soon enough), and the Contributor Covenant (CC in
short) is the worst offender. I will explain shortly why this is, but please
allow me to elaborate first.

There is no problem of harassment in FLOSS, there is a problem of socially
awkward nerds in FLOSS. Harassment presupposes malice, i.e. that the offending
person is intentionally being abusive. If you have never said anything that
made you want to vanish into the ground the moment it came out of your mouth
you are not human. Some people will slip up more often than others, and let's
face it: the people who are more likely to slip up are also more often the 
ones
who are good at programming. Why is it this way? I don't know, I'm not a
psychologist or anthropologist, I just need to know that this is the way 
things
are.

Now here is the important part: for an offensive act to be committed it takes
two sides, the offender and the offended. Part of social competence is knowing
not to slip up, but part of it is also knowing to just let it slide when
someone else slips up. Again, I'm not talking just about online discourse, but
social interaction in general. When someone says something stupid just ignore
that person, and if it keeps happening try to correct them in a friendly
manner. This is how we grow as humans.

This leads me into why the CC is a harmful CoC. The CC presupposes malice by
default, more than half of its content is focused on punitive measures, not on
helping each other. In contrast, the GNU Kind Communications Guidelines (GKCG
in short) explicitly promotes a cooperative two-sided perspective:

> Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you
> disagree with what they say. When people present code or text as their own
> work, please accept it as their work. Please do not criticize people for
> wrongs that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they
> actually say and actually do.
>
> Please do not take a harsh tone towards other participants, and especially
> don't make personal attacks against them. Go out of your way to show that 
you
> are criticizing a statement, not a person.
>
> Please recognize that criticism of your statements is not a personal attack
> on you. If you feel that someone has attacked you, or offended your personal
> dignity, please don't “hit back” with another personal attack. That tends to
> start a vicious circle of escalating verbal aggression. A private response,
> politely stating your feelings as feelings, and asking for peace, may calm
> things down. Write it, set it aside for hours or a day, revise it to remove
> the anger, and only then send it.

There is nothing like this in the CC, but there is this:

> Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be
> reported by contacting the project team at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All
> complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response
> that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The project
> team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of
> an incident. Further details of specific enforcement policies may be posted
> separately.
>
> Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct in good
> faith may face temporary or permanent repercussions as determined by other
> members of the project’s leadership.

The CC is claiming to foster "an open and welcoming environment" while at the
same time holding a gun to every maintainer's head. The accused is not even
allowed to know what the accusation is about (confidentiality clause), so how
are they supposed to know what they did was wrong? There is no clause that
allows the accused to defend their position, only punishment is defined. This
applies even to the maintainer, so if they maintainer wants to protect an
unjustly accused person, the maintainer will be on the chopping block. To make
matters worse, the CC never defines what constitutes offensive behaviour.  
Take
a look at the following list:

> * The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention 
or
>   advances
> * Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
> * Public or private harassment
> * Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or electronic
>   address, without explicit permission
> * Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a
>   professional setting

The fourth point is clear, but what exactly constitutes any of the remaining
four? Is "Wow, thank you so much, I could kiss you!" considered "unwelcome
sexual attention" or just an exaggerated expression of joy? Is overhearing
people talking about "dongles" and "forking repos" considered unwanted sexual
attention? If I wanted I could consider it the former and pull the trigger
metaphorically. I am asking because this is not a hypothetical question, 
people
have been loosing their jobs over these issues for real. Do you think this
makes for a healthy community?

The GKCG does not even attempt to define what qualifies as unacceptable,
because unless you pay a lawyer to write a tens of pages long document which 
no
one will read, you will never have a sufficient definition. Truly money well
spent.

As for the last point, if you really want to remove anything that would be
inappropriate in a professional setting, you have to go all out. No "I could
kiss you", but also no informalities, no emotion, and the project maintainer
will have to sign all his mails not with "Ludo'" or "Ludovic", but as "Mr
Courtès", RMS becomes "Dr. Stallman", Guix becomes "The GNU Guix project", no
Hacker culture jokes and quips the manual, and so on. If this what you want?

As a closing thought, I wish to address my opening statement that CoCs are one
of the worst things to happen in recent years to FLOSS. The argument with 
which
CoCs are "sold" to FLOSS projects is that there is problem of harassment in 
the
community which prevents people from contributing. And yet I have to see any
project where contributions have improved as a result of adopting a CoC, where
people who were previously harassed became contributors. In fact, I have yet 
to
see any actual harassment, and not just socially awkward nerds being socially
awkward. On the other hand, I have seen enough examples of existing long-time
contributors being expelled from projects and being harassed, especially by
proponents of the CC. The CC's own author is one of the worst offenders of the
CC's own terms, going after people's private social media accounts and
quote-mining them to demand their expulsion or even extort money. Yet none of
those people end up contributing to the projects they disrupt. Is the damage
you invite really worth it?

Guix is too important of a project, functional package management is the only
proper solution to package management. I believe there are interest groups of
proprietary software companies who would rather want projects like Flatpak
succeed, which are more applicable to proprietary software. Please don't let
them hold a gun to every contributor's head by inviting trouble into the
project. You have people in this very thread who are afraid of contributing,
and even I was considering leaving my packages just sitting on my local hard
drive rather than submitting them upstream, but as the GKCG says: "Please
assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you disagree with
what they say."

PS: I agree that there is no point in having both the CC and the GKCG at the 
same time

Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[HiPhish]

If you don't want to continue the discussion then so be it, but I cannot leave 
my points misrepresented. When I say "you" I don't necessarily mean you 
personally, but rather the larger discussion. You don't have to respond if you 
don't want to, I believe we have both made our points and it's up to the 
readers to draw their conclusions.

On Wednesday, 31 October 2018 13:46:49 CET you wrote:
> After this email I'm done with the conversation.  I have tried to
> provide you with evidence.  You make it clear you have a bone to pick
> with people concerned with gender equality.  This will go around in
> circles.
I have no issue with gender equality, but this is not what feminism is doing. 
Let's do an analogy: strong nations are good, fascism promotes strong nations, 
therefore if you believe in a strong nation you are naturally a fascist. Oh, 
those death camps? Well, that's not *real* fascism, that was just Nazism. And 
now we have reached Godwin's law. You presuppose that feminism is acting for a 
good cause (gender equality), so therefore the actions of feminists must be 
good. There is your problem: never listen to what people say, always look at 
what they do (this is a rule for life in general, not just this issue). Of 
course comparing fascism and feminism is a hyperbole, the point is not to look 
at the labels of a group, but at their actions.

> The TUC is the trade union congress.  They are not a feminist
> organisation.  The Belgian government is not a feminist organization.
> The Guardian is a newspaper and the EEOC is a US government office.
You can have a strong political bias and still not be an activist group. 
Organizations cooperate, their members can be friends with one another. 
Happens all the time in all areas.

> My line of argument above was precisely that this does not only happen
> in a field with "awkward nerds".  Also I find your assertion that
> "nerds" are unable to behave decently to other people an insult to
> myself and "nerds" as a whole.
Anyone can behave, but anyone can also slip up. And some people slip up more 
often than others. Why? I don't know, I'm not a psychologist, I just know 
that's they way it is. Again, this is not limited to the issue at hand. 
Everyone knows that hitting people is wrong, but some people are more prone to 
losing their tamper then others. Why? Again, I don't know, all I know is that 
you are less likely to be slapped on the head at a university than at a trade 
job.

> I find it shocking you are basically telling people who are being
> mis-treated by others to just suck it up.
> 
> It's because of these attitudes I'm glad we have a code of conduct.
Everyone has hardships to put up with. It's about the severity of hardships. 
This is like looking at workplace accidents and putting a papercut right next 
to a cut to the bone as if they were comparable. If you have a papercut you 
suck it up, put a band aid on it so you don't bleed over the papers and get 
back to work. But if you have a cut to the bone you need the wound to get 
disinfected and stitched up. It would be absurd to say that an office job is 
more hazardous than a construction site job because people in the office suffer 
paper cuts more often. I would rather suffer a hundred paper cuts than one cut 
to the bone.

> Here's the problem with your argument.  These findings are reproduced
> over and over: women are disproportionately affected by harassment,
> especially of a gendered kind.  Even if you find an issue with a
> specific study, the consensus of virtually all these studies find the
> same thing.
> 
> You might have better results if you actually pointed to studies that
> overturned the consensus.  Good luck with that.
I am not saying these studies cannot be reproduced, I am doubting the severity 
of the issue. If we suppose that certain people tend to slip up more often 
(which I did above) then of course you will find these patterns more often. But 
again, how severe of a problem is Steve making a stupid joke at coffee break?

> Come on.  Get out of here with your manufactured concern.  Whatever the
> specific cases in this video were, the overall point, and the conclusion
> of the overall debate is that street harassment is a widespread issue,
> wherever you go.  It disproportinately affects women and is
> disproportinately carried out by men.
You just went on about reproducibility. OK, then why don't they reproduce that 
video in areas where the ethnic makeup is closer to the Belgian average? Or in 
areas with a higher standard of living? After all, this happens wherever you 
go, even though these street harassment video are always shot in the same kind 
of area for some reason. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

This is the sort of data manipulation I mean, you go through the bad part of 
town, people do bad things. But you conveniently ignore all the other bad 
things that would happen in that area. I am sure no one gets mugged in the 
ghetto after dark. No, street harassment is the only issue here.

Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Jelle Licht]

Hello!


HiPhish <hiphish@posteo.de> writes:

> If you don't want to continue the discussion then so be it, but I cannot leave
> my points misrepresented. When I say "you" I don't necessarily mean you
> personally, but rather the larger discussion. You don't have to respond if you
> don't want to, I believe we have both made our points and it's up to the
> readers to draw their conclusions.
>
> On Wednesday, 31 October 2018 13:46:49 CET you wrote:
>> After this email I'm done with the conversation.  I have tried to
>> provide you with evidence.  You make it clear you have a bone to pick
>> with people concerned with gender equality.  This will go around in
>> circles.
> I have no issue with gender equality, but this is not what feminism is doing.

                       ^^^^^^
   Good to hear that! I think you can leave debates about the actual or
   intended goals of any feminism movements to mailing lists or other
   platforms devoted to that topic though.


> Let's do an analogy: strong nations are good, fascism promotes strong nations,

  Let's not, as the points that are being are discussed are specific,
  not abstract and quite real. Analogies have a time and place for being
  useful, but this is not one of them.

> therefore if you believe in a strong nation you are naturally a fascist. Oh,
> those death camps? Well, that's not *real* fascism, that was just Nazism. And
> now we have reached Godwin's law. You presuppose that feminism is acting for a
> good cause (gender equality), so therefore the actions of feminists must be
> good. There is your problem: never listen to what people say, always look at
> what they do (this is a rule for life in general, not just this issue). Of
> course comparing fascism and feminism is a hyperbole, the point is not to look
> at the labels of a group, but at their actions.
>
>> The TUC is the trade union congress.  They are not a feminist
>> organisation.  The Belgian government is not a feminist organization.
>> The Guardian is a newspaper and the EEOC is a US government office.
> You can have a strong political bias and still not be an activist group.
> Organizations cooperate, their members can be friends with one another.
> Happens all the time in all areas.

This confused me. You mean collectives of people are made up of people,
and therefore associate with other people?

>
>> My line of argument above was precisely that this does not only happen
>> in a field with "awkward nerds".  Also I find your assertion that
>> "nerds" are unable to behave decently to other people an insult to
>> myself and "nerds" as a whole.
> Anyone can behave, but anyone can also slip up. And some people slip up more
> often than others. Why? I don't know, I'm not a psychologist, I just know
> that's they way it is. Again, this is not limited to the issue at hand.
> Everyone knows that hitting people is wrong, but some people are more prone to
> losing their tamper then others. Why? Again, I don't know, all I know is that
> you are less likely to be slapped on the head at a university than at a trade
> job.
>
>> I find it shocking you are basically telling people who are being
>> mis-treated by others to just suck it up.
>>
>> It's because of these attitudes I'm glad we have a code of conduct.
> Everyone has hardships to put up with. It's about the severity of hardships.
> This is like looking at workplace accidents and putting a papercut right next
> to a cut to the bone as if they were comparable. If you have a papercut you
> suck it up, put a band aid on it so you don't bleed over the papers and get
> back to work. But if you have a cut to the bone you need the wound to get
> disinfected and stitched up. It would be absurd to say that an office job is
> more hazardous than a construction site job because people in the office suffer
> paper cuts more often. I would rather suffer a hundred paper cuts than one cut
> to the bone.
>
>> Here's the problem with your argument.  These findings are reproduced
>> over and over: women are disproportionately affected by harassment,
>> especially of a gendered kind.  Even if you find an issue with a
>> specific study, the consensus of virtually all these studies find the
>> same thing.
>>
>> You might have better results if you actually pointed to studies that
>> overturned the consensus.  Good luck with that.
> I am not saying these studies cannot be reproduced, I am doubting the severity
> of the issue. If we suppose that certain people tend to slip up more often
> (which I did above) then of course you will find these patterns more often. But
> again, how severe of a problem is Steve making a stupid joke at coffee break?

The problem is not only Steve making a stupid joke; the problem is the
environment that led to Steve thinking it is okay to make statements
like these in the first place. The only way to 'fix' this problem is to
change the environment so that people are less likely to slip up, and to
keep each other honest about (tiny) mistakes that everyone inevitably
makes. To be honest, your recurring statement about people being more or
less likely to slip up is not really coherent; I think we can all agree
that every on slips up sometimes.

>
>> Come on.  Get out of here with your manufactured concern.  Whatever the
>> specific cases in this video were, the overall point, and the conclusion
>> of the overall debate is that street harassment is a widespread issue,
>> wherever you go.  It disproportinately affects women and is
>> disproportinately carried out by men.
> You just went on about reproducibility. OK, then why don't they reproduce that
> video in areas where the ethnic makeup is closer to the Belgian average? Or in

This seems like a question to ask the researchers, but because you have
a concern regarding methodology does not invalidate the by now seemingly
irrefutable clues that these issues do exist.

> areas with a higher standard of living? After all, this happens wherever you
> go, even though these street harassment video are always shot in the same kind
> of area for some reason. Doesn't that strike you as odd?
>
> This is the sort of data manipulation I mean, you go through the bad part of
> town, people do bad things. But you conveniently ignore all the other bad
> things that would happen in that area. I am sure no one gets mugged in the
> ghetto after dark. No, street harassment is the only issue here.

Your text seemingly goes from `ethnically diverse' -> `[lower] standard
of living' -> `bad part of town' -> `ghetto'. I will assume you acted,
and will continue acting in good faith, but I implore you to critically
have a look at your thought processes and see how incredibly rude this
might come across. If this was not your intention at all, then I
apologize and hope you can still take my comments as a constructive
critical note on parts of your writing style.

Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[HiPhish]

On Wednesday, 31 October 2018 15:14:53 CET you wrote:
> This confused me. You mean collectives of people are made up of people,
> and therefore associate with other people?
More like "I scratch your back, you scratch my back" or "oh, I know just the 
right guy for the job". You let that happen often enough and you end up with 
several groups all being "in bed with each other" so to speak. This is not 
limited to feminism, it happens in all areas of life of course.

> The problem is not only Steve making a stupid joke; the problem is the
> environment that led to Steve thinking it is okay to make statements
> like these in the first place. The only way to 'fix' this problem is to
> change the environment so that people are less likely to slip up, and to
> keep each other honest about (tiny) mistakes that everyone inevitably
> makes. To be honest, your recurring statement about people being more or
> less likely to slip up is not really coherent; I think we can all agree
> that every on slips up sometimes.
Agreed, but the punishment should also fit the crime. You can have a quick talk 
with Steve and then everyone shakes hands and is friends again. The problem is 
that there exist groups who want to exploit Steve's slip-up for their own 
gains by blowing it issue out of proportion. They cannot justify their 
existence and their bills if the issue can be sorted out with a short 
conversation, so Steve has to be punished properly.

> This seems like a question to ask the researchers, but because you have
> a concern regarding methodology does not invalidate the by now seemingly
> irrefutable clues that these issues do exist.
The issue exists, but how prevalent is it? Remember "manspreading"? Take a 
photo of a man taking up three seats in an almost empty subway, crop the photo 
so you cannot see that the subway is mostly empty, write an academic paper on 
the issue you created, sell the solution in the form of an awareness campaign, 
finance it with taxpayer money, and in the end people even get arrested because 
no matter how dumb the rules are, they have to be enforced. When my sister 
told me about manspreading she couldn't stop laughing, because even she sits 
like that when there is enough space. And why wouldn't she?

I view the catcalling issue the same way: go through the bad part of town, 
make an issue out of it, sell the solution. I am confident if you were to do 
this experiment in an area closer to Belgian standard of living none of this 
would happen.

> Your text seemingly goes from `ethnically diverse' -> `[lower] standard
> of living' -> `bad part of town' -> `ghetto'. I will assume you acted,
> and will continue acting in good faith, but I implore you to critically
> have a look at your thought processes and see how incredibly rude this
> might come across. If this was not your intention at all, then I
> apologize and hope you can still take my comments as a constructive
> critical note on parts of your writing style.
I got carried away, I was not controlling my emotions enough I guess :) My 
problem is when people like Mr Sassmannshausen take accusations at face-value 
without any shred of scepticism. People have had their lives ruined by false 
accusations and this sort of injustice is what makes my blood boil. Listening 
and believing benefits neither the innocent nor the real victims, it only 
drives a wedge between people. Who profits? Those who thrive on conflict, 
creating problems and selling solutions. (I had a much more polemic response 
to the previous mail, but I deleted it, so I guess I still had some emotional 
control)

Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Pjotr Prins]

I suggest to end this thread. HiPhish, come and discuss your points at
FOSDEM. We'll set up a working group for those who care about these
things.

Pj.

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Leo Famulari]

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On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 04:41:53PM +0100, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> I suggest to end this thread. HiPhish, come and discuss your points at
> FOSDEM. We'll set up a working group for those who care about these
> things.

I agree. The subject has been discussed ad nauseam across the internet,
and even offline, and we are not going to achieve a breakthrough here on
the Guix mailing list.

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Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> skribis:

> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 04:41:53PM +0100, Pjotr Prins wrote:
>> I suggest to end this thread. HiPhish, come and discuss your points at
>> FOSDEM. We'll set up a working group for those who care about these
>> things.
>
> I agree. The subject has been discussed ad nauseam across the internet,
> and even offline, and we are not going to achieve a breakthrough here on
> the Guix mailing list.

+1.

Furthermore, this project, like any other, has its license, its rules,
etc.  Of course we can discuss these things together, it’s what makes a
project healthy.  However, when joining the project, one agrees to
follow these rules—it would seem unreasonable to join and at the same
time push for a change of rules that have long been established by
members of the group.

Ludo’.

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Alex Griffin]

On Thu, Nov 1, 2018, at 9:40 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> it would seem unreasonable to join and at the same
> time push for a change of rules that have long been established by
> members of the group.

Agreed, that's why I left the project without making a fuss and waited over 15 months for someone else to bring it up first. At least for my part I only wanted people to understand my perspective, whether or not you make any changes is up to the people who actually have a stake in the project.

-- 
Alex Griffin

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Ludovic,

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> skribis:
>
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 04:41:53PM +0100, Pjotr Prins wrote:
>>> I suggest to end this thread. HiPhish, come and discuss your points at
>>> FOSDEM. We'll set up a working group for those who care about these
>>> things.
>>
>> I agree. The subject has been discussed ad nauseam across the internet,
>> and even offline, and we are not going to achieve a breakthrough here on
>> the Guix mailing list.
>
> +1.

I'm unable to travel to FOSDEM this year, so moving the discussion there
would effectively exclude me from participating in it.

> Furthermore, this project, like any other, has its license, its rules,
> etc.  Of course we can discuss these things together, it’s what makes a
> project healthy.

Agreed.

> However, when joining the project, one agrees to follow these rules

While I generally agree with the policies outlined in our CoC, and I
support the practice of enforcing those policies through our control
over our infrastructure and communications channels, I strongly oppose
requiring or presuming that all participants "agree" with our policies,
which I take to mean "declaring that they share the same opinions and
goals".

Some participants may disagree with our policies, and that's okay.
We don't need their agreement to enforce our policies.

Forcing people to declare their agreement with our policies as a
prerequisite for participation, or worse, _presuming_ that they agree
based on their having sent a patch or posted a message, is needlessly
alienating to those who don't share our views.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain why it's important for us to
obtain "agreement" with our policies from all participants.

It would be like a restaurant asking every customer to sign an agreement
before entering, forcing them to agree in advance to a list of rules,
e.g. that they won't harass the other customers.  There's no need for
it, and it's needlessly alienating.  It's more than enough to simply
have a list of rules posted in public view, and to enforce the rules as
the need arises.

      Mark

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi,

I've decided to withdraw my objections to the policy of requiring that
project participants agree to our CoC.

I read the language of the CoC again more carefully, looking to produce
a realistic scenario of a person with legitimate but unpopular political
views being discriminated against by this requirement.  Ultimately, I
failed to find any realistic example that I wish to defend.

I no longer believe that agreeing to our CoC implies declaring agreement
with it.  I think I jumped to conclusions too quickly here, partly based
on an unusually strong interpretation of the word "agree".

I've also been worrying about possible abuses that I now suspect (hope?)
would be unlikely to hold up in a court.  For example, I worried that if
participation in the project is taken to imply agreement with our CoC,
that by a natural extrapolation, someone who contributes a single fix
but is otherwise uninvolved with the project could be legally held to be
bound by our CoC.  That's thinking like a mathematician, where I should
have been trying to think like a lawyer.

So, I'm withdrawing my objections.  Sorry for the stress.

       Mark

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[HiPhish]

I think "agree" in this context means to agree to follow the rules of that 
setting, not necessarily that you endorse those rules in general. For example, 
if you are a smoker in a non-smoking area you agree not to smoke while in that 
area, but you do not agree not to smoke at all. Or if you are in a vegan 
restaurant you will agree to eat vegan, but that does not make you actually a 
vegan yourself.

On Sunday, 4 November 2018 10:15:58 CET Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've decided to withdraw my objections to the policy of requiring that
> project participants agree to our CoC.
> 
> I read the language of the CoC again more carefully, looking to produce
> a realistic scenario of a person with legitimate but unpopular political
> views being discriminated against by this requirement.  Ultimately, I
> failed to find any realistic example that I wish to defend.
> 
> I no longer believe that agreeing to our CoC implies declaring agreement
> with it.  I think I jumped to conclusions too quickly here, partly based
> on an unusually strong interpretation of the word "agree".
> 
> I've also been worrying about possible abuses that I now suspect (hope?)
> would be unlikely to hold up in a court.  For example, I worried that if
> participation in the project is taken to imply agreement with our CoC,
> that by a natural extrapolation, someone who contributes a single fix
> but is otherwise uninvolved with the project could be legally held to be
> bound by our CoC.  That's thinking like a mathematician, where I should
> have been trying to think like a lawyer.
> 
> So, I'm withdrawing my objections.  Sorry for the stress.
> 
>        Mark

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Thorsten Wilms]

On 04/11/2018 10.15, Mark H Weaver wrote:

> I've decided to withdraw my objections to the policy of requiring that
> project participants agree to our CoC.

I though of Mark as the only "insider" who understood what my prime 
issue with the CoC is. Now it seems that wasn't the case and surely 
isn't now.

Here's a pledge: This shall be my last email about this specific issue, 
on any Guix list, unless the text does get changed either in the 
Covenant project or here, or if I'm asked a question.

Maybe someone here still has the patience to help me understand where my 
interpretation would be unreasonable:

"In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as 
contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our 
project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, 
regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and 
expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, 
nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and 
orientation."

Contains the statement that "contributors" make a "pledge", i.e. give a 
promise, as outlined in the rest of the sentence.

I take "contributors" to be the group of people who ever contributed 
anything to the project. At the very least everyone who submitted code 
that is part of the current tree.

Hence, I see included a claim that the very people who walked away 
because of the CoC still make that pledge.


One may ask: who would object to pledging to not harass people, 
regardless of who and how they are? Sure, but as I see it, the "pledge" 
claim doesn't stop there. The first sentence establishes that "we" and 
"our" is supposed to mean "maintainers" and "contributors". Because of 
this, everything in "Our Standards" is an extension of the pledge. As is 
"Scope", quite literally being the scope of the pledge.

I assume the core maintainers may update/edit the CoC as they see fit, 
which in principal might change standards and scope. The CoC would then 
include the claim that all past and current contributors now suddenly 
pledged according to those new standards, perhaps with a wider scope. It 
is their right to set the rules, but they should not imply that "we" 
chose the rules.

Aside of that, a false statement about people is still a false 
statement, even if it says that the people promised to be nice.


Off-list, I have been asked, more or less, to not take the word "pledge" 
so seriously. Well, if I don't, at the very least, the promise regarding 
a harassment-free environment falls out of the CoC, which surely is not 
what anyone meant. If one assumes, not without reason, that the "we" of 
the CoC doesn't actually exist", then what is left?


Anyway, I may still opt to (try to) contribute, as nobody would gain 
anything from my withholding a package or whatever it may be.


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Mark,

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:

> I'm unable to travel to FOSDEM this year, so moving the discussion there
> would effectively exclude me from participating in it.

In my view, in-person communication for free software projects can help
understand each other better and build consensus, but on-line discussion
with all those who could not be there physically is still necessary.  No
argument here.

>> Furthermore, this project, like any other, has its license, its rules,
>> etc.  Of course we can discuss these things together, it’s what makes a
>> project healthy.
>
> Agreed.
>
>> However, when joining the project, one agrees to follow these rules
>
> While I generally agree with the policies outlined in our CoC, […]

Just to clarify: all I wanted to say is that, in general, you can’t join
a group and right from the start ask for significant changes in the
group rules.

As for the code of conduct, we maintainers ask people to follow it on
the project’s communication channels, which are primarily the mailing
lists and IRC channel.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Marius Bakke]

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Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> While I generally agree with the policies outlined in our CoC, and I
> support the practice of enforcing those policies through our control
> over our infrastructure and communications channels, I strongly oppose
> requiring or presuming that all participants "agree" with our policies,
> which I take to mean "declaring that they share the same opinions and
> goals".
>
> Some participants may disagree with our policies, and that's okay.
> We don't need their agreement to enforce our policies.
>
> Forcing people to declare their agreement with our policies as a
> prerequisite for participation, or worse, _presuming_ that they agree
> based on their having sent a patch or posted a message, is needlessly
> alienating to those who don't share our views.

Thank you Mark for succinctly pointing out these flaws in our current
CoC.  I agree that the language is overreaching, and think that these
discussions will continue to crop up as long as this wording is
included.

Our usage of the Contributor Covenant have deterred at least three
contributors.  I hope it has attracted and retained more than that; in
any case I think we can do better.

Also thanks to Thorsten for filing
<https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/issues/624>.
Getting this fixed upstream will benefit much more than the Guix project.

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Re: Stop it. Formerly - Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[HiPhish]

I think you are focusing too much on the "pledge" part. Submitting a patch is 
an informal process and I doubt anyone is going to hold it up against you in a 
court. This is just an instance of using fancy words to sound important. 

People's real grievances with the CC are that it polices people outside the 
project as well (simply abiding by the rules on the mailing list and IRC is 
not enough, according to the terms of the CC), its focus on punishment, 
presumption of malice and of course the author of the CC and the surrounding 
culture. Getting hung up on details like the word "pledge" is just going to 
burn people out, but will not resolve anything.

On Tuesday, 6 November 2018 18:23:40 CET Marius Bakke wrote:
> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
> > While I generally agree with the policies outlined in our CoC, and I
> > support the practice of enforcing those policies through our control
> > over our infrastructure and communications channels, I strongly oppose
> > requiring or presuming that all participants "agree" with our policies,
> > which I take to mean "declaring that they share the same opinions and
> > goals".
> > 
> > Some participants may disagree with our policies, and that's okay.
> > We don't need their agreement to enforce our policies.
> > 
> > Forcing people to declare their agreement with our policies as a
> > prerequisite for participation, or worse, _presuming_ that they agree
> > based on their having sent a patch or posted a message, is needlessly
> > alienating to those who don't share our views.
> 
> Thank you Mark for succinctly pointing out these flaws in our current
> CoC.  I agree that the language is overreaching, and think that these
> discussions will continue to crop up as long as this wording is
> included.
> 
> Our usage of the Contributor Covenant have deterred at least three
> contributors.  I hope it has attracted and retained more than that; in
> any case I think we can do better.
> 
> Also thanks to Thorsten for filing
> <https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/issues/624>.
> Getting this fixed upstream will benefit much more than the Guix project.