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Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2016 11:00:12 +0000 (GMT)
To: Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Re-proposed] Adopt Code of Conduct
From: derick@php.net (Derick Rethans)

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016, Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> > I've decided to re-propose the CoC RFC. There are many reasons for it, 
> > but there are a few points I want to make.
> > 
> > I strongly believe that a Code of Conduct is required. The amount of 
> > toxic behaviour on this list is in my opinion unacceptable. It drives 
> > people away, it certainly did. It is also one of the reasons I am not 
> > nearly as active as I used to be.
> 
> Thanks for continuing the discussion. I'd like however to point out that
> one of the major points of contention, as I see it - that it is not at
> all clear how having CoC prohibiting things like "the use of sexualized
> language" and "trolling", would help with "toxic behavior". I want to be
> very clear, because I feel this concern is not being understood, so I
> will try to outline it as detailed as I can, please excuse the verbosity:
> 
> 1. I do not think literally anybody wants to see trolling or sexual
> language attacks, or harassment, etc. on the list. I think we all agree
> this is unacceptable.
> 
> 2. I think most of the people here know that the list has been not the
> friendliest place ever, and most of the people here would like to
> improve that.
> 
> 3. I do not think we do have now or ever had a significant problem with
> behaviors described by "Code of Conduct Text". I think the problem
> described may be caused by other set of behaviors, not covered by "Code
> of Conduct Text".
> 
> 4. Given that, it is not clear to me, and apparently some other folks
> too, how banning those (as universally agreed) despicable behaviors is
> going to lead to any improvement on the matter of "toxic".
> 
> 5. Since so many people somehow did not understand that, judging by
> their comments, this does not mean anybody thinks it is OK to behave
> that way (see 1). It means that it appears we are trying very hard to
> fix not the same place that is claimed to be broken.
> Now, it can be that *both* places are broken, or that the fix can be
> applied as a preventive measure - and both are fine. But arguing "we
> have problem X therefore let's apply fix for a different problem Y"
> sounds strange to me.
> 
> I think clarifying that matter would help.

I tend to agree with all the above. Adding a code of conduct that (I 
hope!) everybody universally agrees with - whether it's the current 
text, or one of the ones you listed below, or some mash up - is not 
going to fix the toxic and unfriendly behaviour. In my opinion, it should act 
as a general set of moral guidelines.

But at the same time I think it is also important to point out that we 
will actively do things, and provide a process for dealing with 
compliants, if things *do* go wrong. A Code of Conduct (can't bear to 
call to call it CoC, sorry), should show that we are serious about 
having a healty and welcoming project, where we won't tolerate any sort 
of abusive behaviour. I am going to have a chat with the Drupal people 
to see whether we could learn from the process, and that will likely 
result in an updated text of the Contributor Covent.

So on top of that, I am suggesting to accept the Collaborative 
Contributing Guidelines, to address to toxidity of the list, which 
nicely ties in into:

> Also, there was a complaint that there has been too much critique and 
> not enough constructive proposals. I think there is some truth to 
> that, as it is much easier to find bugs than to develop things, and 
> much more people submit bug reports than fix them. This is natural, 
> but this certainly could use improvement. In that spirit, I would like 
> to reiterate the proposal of handling CoC matters that I personally 
> think would be the best. This is my personal approach, so please feel 
> free to amend, criticize and disagree.
> 
> 1. Make a values statement, along the lines of:
> https://www.drupal.org/dcoc
> https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct/
> https://www.freebsd.org/internal/code-of-conduct.html
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Friendly_space_expectations
> 
> This document should emphasize behaviors we want to achieve and
> reinforce, not be just a catalog of behaviors we hate.
> 
> In this document, as one paragraph, include "unacceptable behavior"
> statement from current RFC, verbatim or suitably modified (that of
> course does not preclude including other parts of it in other paragraphs).

You mean the list of "Examples of unacceptable behaviour by participants 
include", right?

> "Constructive Collaboration Guidelines" probably should be part of this
> document too - and be stated before the unacceptable part. I know it
> sound like nitpicking but I think tone of the documents is important and
> if we start with negatives (even by rejecting them) it sets different
> tone than if we start with positive. It's one thing to welcome people to
> your house with "Welcome, friend, feel at home!" and another with
> "Please don't steal my wallet and don't kick my dog!"

I agree, the positives should come first.

> 2. Create a conflict resolution team whose stated purpose is to resolve
> conflicts (note: not punish or exclude!) which impact the project and
> impede or disrupt the collaboration.
> 
> 3. Separately from the document above, have a conflict resolution
> policy, which describes how the CRT above is elected, how it resolves
> issues, what are the confidentiality guidelines, what are processes for
> creating bans & appeals, etc.
> 
> I know not everybody agrees, but I think it is much more beneficial to
> have this in a separate document and if possible, as a separate RFC,
> since discussion about it is substantially different from (1) and
> partially from (2) - principal agreement on having such team is much
> more important, IMO, than figuring out how long it can ban people for.
>
> That would also make discussion a bit more manageable, as discussing at
> the same time two different things: do we want CoC and the particular
> details of CRT behavior we want. I think separating these discussion
> would allow us to emphasize things we agree on and formalize them
> quickly, and hash out the details without the concern that small
> disagreements would derail the whole process.

I think it's okay to have two documents about it, but I believe they 
inherently tie together. Having a Conflict Resolution Team without 
having a set of agreed upon values is not particularly useful. And in my 
opinion, having a set of agreed upon values without the klout to do 
something about is neither. 

So, I am proposing to keep it in the same document, with one vote, but 
discuss it separately. Starting (obviously) with your 1 and 2 from 
above, and including the secrecy and transparency parts of the current 
draft. And once that's finished, we move onto the Conflict Resolution 
Part of your point 3.
 
> If this looks good to anybody, I can take the time to actually arrange
> the texts - though English not being my naive language, I am not the
> best person for copy-writing. But I assume somebody could fix it up
> afterwards :)

Hey - I wrote about asses instead of meaning "assess" ;-) [1] English 
needs fixing for me too.

cheers,
Derick


[1] https://github.com/derickr/php-code-of-conduct/pull/10/files#diff-75a2861aeb85a3fc37ce5d286d0647adL19