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Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2016 19:13:17 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of Conduct
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)

Hi Joe,

Joe Watkins wrote:
> Morning internalz,
>
>      I'm going to keep it simple, because I'm sure everybody is getting a
> bit bored ...
>
>      I object to the idea that we should try to limit "offence" ... it's not
> quantifiable, and it doesn't matter whatever, I'm offended by all sorts of
> things ... so what ...

"Offensive" can be problematic in that it's a blanket term that can 
cover many things. Someone insinuating that someone else is wrong might 
be found offensive, yet on the other hand "offensive" also covers the 
use of more serious things like racial slurs, or making demeaning or 
hateful comments about people from less privileged groups.

I'm not sure this ambiguity is avoidable, though. Any code of conduct is 
inherently somewhat vague, and requires a degree of trust in whoever 
enforces it to act reasonably. If you don't trust the enforcers to have 
reasonable interpretations, this is a rather pointless exercise.

Also, I think it's worth bearing in mind that unintentional offence 
which is not persistent is unlikely to fall under this rule. Consider 
that this is roughly the standard that actual law follows, e.g. Section 
4A of the Public Order Act 1986 in the UK:

 > (1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a
 > person harassment, alarm or distress, he—
 >   (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or
 >       disorderly behaviour, or
 >   (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which
 >       is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or
 >       another person harassment, alarm or distress.

The key part of that is "intent". I do note that it doesn't include the 
word "offensive", but I'm not sure that's important, since anything 
covered by "offensive" is would also be covered by at least one of 
"threatening", "abusive" or "insulting".

Plus, we're not dealing with setting up a legal system here, just 
guidelines for conduct. We are never going to have, nor need, the 
precision and complexities of a legal system. If you break the code of 
conduct, you aren't going to be fined and spend a few weeks in jail. At 
worst you might get a one-week ban from the mailing list, or have 
someone petitioning to ban you from the project. And that's at *worst*.

Furthermore, if people think the CoC enforcement team have been too 
heavy-handed with their application of the code, the team can be replaced.

>
>      I can see nothing that is disagreeable in the idea other than this.
>
>      If this sentence were changed:
>
>      >  Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove,
> edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other
> contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct,
>      >  or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other
> behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.
>
>     To
>
>      > Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove,
> edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues and other
> contributions, as well as imposing temporary or permanent bans on any
> contributor that
>      > persistently violates our code of conduct.

Your suggested new wording appears to remove the requirement for 
removed/edited/rejected contributions to have not aligned to the code of 
conduct. I assume that's not intentional, but the "on any contributor 
that persistently violates [...]" part appears to only apply to 
"imposing temporary or permanent bans", and not the preceding part.

Thanks.

-- 
Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/