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Subject: Re: [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of Conduct
From: fsb@thefsb.org (Tom Worster)

On 1/4/16 4:06 PM, Anthony Ferrara wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I have created a new RFC for the PHP Project to adopt the Contributor
> Covenant as the official Code of Conduct for the project
>
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/adopt-code-of-conduct
>
> Let me know what you think or if there are any concerns

I'm not keen on the negative approach to managing behavior in projects 
such as PHP. It delineates bad behavior and provides bureaucratic 
regulation for judging people with respect to that law and punishing or 
reeducating those found guilty.

The negative approach can only address obvious egregious behavior, 
which, as already pointed out, hasn't often been a big issue for PHP. At 
the same time it ignores the more subtle bias and discrimination that's 
hidden or only close to the surface that has a real effect on who is 
able to participate and how and what they can contribute. I think 
internals could do better at this and it's worth making the effort to 
change and for this I think a positive approach is preferable, i.e. 
education in constructive and inclusive participation.

Imagine if the energy and time spent in discussion of this CoC had 
instead been spent on contributing to a doc (that could live in the PHP 
source so anyone can write issues and PRs against it) that states the 
values and goals, describes what people think works well the various 
modes of engagement, how people can avoid and mitigate bad behavior, 
techniques to intervene, coach, and so forth. The collective experience, 
intelligence, wisdom and wit available here is sufficient to do 
something really interesting.

I think it's perhaps too general to be of great use to us here but The 
Code Manifesto is a good example of the positive approach. 
https://github.com/kayladnls/code-manifesto/blob/master/README.md

Tom