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Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2016 17:37:58 -0600
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of Conduct
From: larry@garfieldtech.com (Larry Garfield)

On 1/5/16 4:30 PM, Paul M. Jones wrote:
>> On Jan 5, 2016, at 16:21, Nate Abele <nate.abele@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Rowan,
>>
>> I don’t presume to speak for Paul, but I don’t think the point is that any particular person involved in this discussion is presumed to have a political intent, rather that CoCs themselves (the Contributor Covenant in particular), and the people typically agitating for them, come from a place of hyper-politicization.
> Yes, that is an accurate summary of my position.

It is also an inaccurate summary of your statements on this list to 
date, as well as elsewhere, which have been accusatory, vitriolic, 
insulting, and hyperbolic.

Yes, there are hyper-politicized people who push CoCs and use "if you 
sneeze around me I'm mortally offended and will have you fired" type 
arguments.  I do not dispute the presence and existence of such people.  
I also do not dispute the presence and existence of CoCs, and 
enforcements thereof, that are "guilty until proven innocent, which 
you're not allowed to do".  That does not imply that all CoCs are 
inherently such documents or that all who support the concept of a CoC 
are hyper-politicized crusaders hell-bent on world baby-ification.

I also do not dispute that there is an awful lot of really terrible PHP 
code in the wild that is riddled with more security holes than swiss 
cheese, written by people who, in the interests of public safety, should 
probably not be allowed to use a computer.  Does it therefore follow 
that all PHP code is inherently insecure and PHP developers are all 
intrinsically incompetent?  Of course not. Not even remotely.  Most of 
us on this list, you included Paul, have been in a position to point 
that out, probably repeatedly.

I dislike and would just as soon stamp out the "guilty until proven 
innocent" model of political correctness as much as you.  But that 
doesn't mean the world is all rainbows and ponies if we just didn't have 
CoCs.  There are real and legitimate issues in the IT world that need to 
be addressed, and a good CoC, fairly-enforced, is one useful tool in 
doing so.

In fact, I would go as far as saying that if you want to stomp out the 
"guilty until proven innocent" CoC movement, then a major project (like 
PHP) adopting a CoC that *does* strike a softer tone, focuses on 
conflict resolution, has teeth but rarely needs them, and otherwise 
shows that *a CoC needn't be a tool of social control* is the best 
argument that can be made.  Taking a balanced approach and showing that 
it can work is the best way to undermine and de-fang the extremists.  
(Both the "CoC as political weapon" crowd and the "I want the right to 
piss in your cheerios" crowd.)

Modeling the behavior of an extremist, however, is the best way to 
reinforce and embolden the counter-extremist.

-- 
--Larry Garfield