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Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 15:11:49 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Contributor Guidelines, and Updates to Code of
 Conduct progress
From: me@mprelu.de (Matt Prelude)

Hi,

On 09/02/16 14:32, Rowan Collins wrote:
> Having procedures for violation and not using them could still have 
> value. The most famous example of this is surely nuclear weapons, 
> which are frequently cited as a deterrent, not intended for actual use.
>
> A less violent example in the UK would be the phrase which came up 
> when arranging a coalition government, "avoid embarrassing the Queen" 
> - the Queen has the constitutional right to appoint a Prime Minister, 
> but forcing her to do so would be a major failing of the normal 
> processes. Her constitutional value lies, paradoxically, in her not 
> exercising any of her constitutional powers, because it forces people 
> to negotiate a solution which doesn't require them.
>
> In the context of a CoC, having some escalation procedures for if 
> people refuse to compromise sharpens the minds of those involved - 
> they can't just half-heartedly reply to a complaint and carry on as 
> they were, but have to at least engage with the issue raised. Thinking 
> about it, the same happens in many civil court cases - nobody would 
> agree to an "out of court settlement" if there was no court case to be 
> avoided.
>
> So insisting on having "teeth", but assuring people that they will 
> probably never be used, is a justifiable position, not a contradiction.
>
> Regards,
Taking your nuclear weapons analogy a little further, we are now (as a
world) very concerned about making sure that the wrong people do not get
access to nuclear weapons. Whilst we cannot go back and un-invent the
nuclear weapon, we can avoid creating a punitive process which we have
to 'play politics' around to try to keep it under control.

I don't object to the idea that people who are clearly being
unconstructive can be blocked from the project. What I object to is
the proposal to make this an opaque 'secret court' where a few 'judges'
have the ability to make secret decisions based on secret reports and
secret evidence.

The community has always had the means to remove people from the process
which has, to my knowledge, been invoked in the past a small number of
times. Therefore, we already have the 'teeth' to enforce the CoC in
borderline cases, but what's being proposed is an inexplicable move from
visible and transparent 'teeth' to an opaque and closed process.

In case I was getting this all wrong, I made a pull request to remove
this secrecy from the process, which was promptly closed:

https://github.com/derickr/php-community-health/pull/37

I'd suggest that we stick with the teeth we already have, rather than
creating a new set based on an issue which has occurred a couple of times
in a decade, and always been adequately resolved.

- Matt.