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.
Exhibit B: https://archive.is/dgilk (the threatening language at the end is particularly chilling)
I think most reasonable people can agree that these kinds of derailing conversations are far more toxic than any knock-on effects of not having a CoC in the first place.
- Nate
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.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
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
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.
When speech-policing is proposed without irony, and welcomed with applause, I respond correctly: with scorn and contempt, as is deserved.
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.
Like rainbows and ponies, "a good CoC, fairly-enforced" is an imaginary creature. The "real and legitimate issues" can be addressed without one, perhaps with the "conflict resolution" document you referenced. It is orders of magnitude more reasonable, and observably less fascist in its binding-together of the personal, political, and project. It still needs work but it's a better starting point than the horrific Contributor Covenant.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
On Jan 5, 2016, at 17:37, Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
wrote: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.When speech-policing is proposed without irony, and welcomed with
applause, I respond correctly: with scorn and contempt, as is deserved.
You state this like some kind of self-evident truth. Understand that not everybody agrees with you, and scorn is not generally something that wins people round to your argument.
The "real and legitimate issues" can be addressed without
one, perhaps with the "conflict resolution" document you referenced. It
is orders of magnitude more reasonable
Ah, some constructive suggestions. More of this please.
and observably less fascist
And, we're immediately back to the unnecessarily combative language. Calling the proposal "fascist" and "horrific" is really unnecessary, and just undermines your position by making you seem like an extremist rather than a concerned party with a contribution to make.
Regards,
--
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]
When speech-policing is proposed without irony, and welcomed with
applause, I respond correctly: with scorn and contempt, as is deserved.You state this like some kind of self-evident truth. Understand that not everybody agrees with you, and scorn is not generally something that wins people round to your argument.
If a code of conduct so broad and invasive that it seeks deal with such crimes as the “thoughtless use of pronouns” and “culturally insensitive names” isn’t speech-policing, what is?
The "real and legitimate issues" can be addressed without
one, perhaps with the "conflict resolution" document you referenced. It
is orders of magnitude more reasonableAh, some constructive suggestions. More of this please.
You may not see much of Paul’s engagement in this discussion as constructive, but I would disagree, and it doesn’t look like I’m alone. Many codes of conduct are written by well-intentioned people unskilled in legislation and enforced by tribunals unskilled in investigation and adjudication. Pair that up with the sort of person who earnestly believes they are making the world a better place by controlling what others say and how they say it, who deems any opinion they don’t like “dangerous" and any pushback they receive “harassment"—those sorts of people do exist, and they readily abuse extrajudicial systems—and you’ve got the recipe for gross injustice levied against people with an unpopular opinion. This does not require knowingly bad actors. Everyone involved would be not just cleared but congratulated by their own consciouses for doing what is Right and Good.
When the creation of such a machine for injustice is formally recommended and begins to receive rubber-stamp approval, I’d hope someone would stand up and speak against it. Leaders in the civil rights movement in the United States could have been accused of using extreme or hyperbolic language too, but that is no argument against the rightness of their position.
And on a related note, let’s not forget that complete opposition to a proposal is still meaningful feedback.
and observably less fascist
And, we're immediately back to the unnecessarily combative language. Calling the proposal "fascist" and "horrific" is really unnecessary, and just undermines your position by making you seem like an extremist rather than a concerned party with a contribution to make.
Who gets to determine that the manner of expressing an opinion is unnecessary? While “fascism” has certainly become a general pejorative, it does have an actual meaning. According to the founder, Benito Mussolini[1]:
"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.”
And later:
“The state is the guarantor of security both internal and external, but it is also the custodian and transmitter of the spirit of the people.”
Knowing Paul to some degree, I doubt he’s merely using “fascism” as a general, inflammatory descriptor. Make no mistake, a project is not the same thing as a political nation-state. Still, the Contributor Covenant that was put forward as the original CoC does have some fascistic tendencies, including the fact that it reaches outside the scope of the project and into the way a person speaks or behaves on their own time, and it uses the project maintainer’s own understanding of the project’s ethical values as a basis for determining bad behavior. Everything in the project, nothing outside the project…
Kevin Smith
http://gohearsay.com
Kevin Smith wrote on 06/01/2016 11:58:
When speech-policing is proposed without irony, and welcomed with
applause, I respond correctly: with scorn and contempt, as is deserved.
You state this like some kind of self-evident truth. Understand that not everybody agrees with you, and scorn is not generally something that wins people round to your argument.If a code of conduct so broad and invasive that it seeks deal with such crimes as the “thoughtless use of pronouns” and “culturally insensitive names” isn’t speech-policing, what is?
That is not the point I was making. I've never heard the term
"speech-policing" before, and "scorn and contempt" is not a helpful way
of teaching me what it is.
the sort of person who [...] deems any opinion they don’t like “dangerous"
Paul does not like the proposed wording, so he brands it "fascist",
"horrific", and other pejorative and subjective terms; this feels very
much like branding "any opinion they don't like" to me.
When the creation of such a machine for injustice is formally recommended and begins to receive rubber-stamp approval, I’d hope someone would stand up and speak against it. Leaders in the civil rights movement in the United States could have been accused of using extreme or hyperbolic language too, but that is no argument against the rightness of their position.
This proposal is definitely not getting rubber-stamp approval. Concerns
have been raised and are being discussed. We're beyond the "make some
noise to make sure people sit up" stage now, and need to start looking
at what we do want to happen. Shouting across the room gets people's
attention; shouting in their face after they ask you for more details
just makes them want to shout back.
and observably less fascist
And, we're immediately back to the unnecessarily combative language. Calling the proposal "fascist" and "horrific" is really unnecessary, and just undermines your position by making you seem like an extremist rather than a concerned party with a contribution to make.
Who gets to determine that the manner of expressing an opinion is unnecessary? While “fascism” has certainly become a general pejorative, it does have an actual meaning.
If you brand a proposal as fascist, there is the strong implication that
it is deliberately so; read that way, you are accusing anyone who
supports it of having fascist views; it's not rocket science to realise
that some people will object to that accusation. If you don't think it's
deliberately so, then avoiding such emotionally loaded language is just
going to make everyone's life easier, by making it clear that you don't
intend such an accusation.
Sure, you have a right to say it however you want, but if you want to
persuade people round to your point of view, then surely it's
pragmatically sensible to say it in a way likely to make people agree
with you, rather than a way likely to make them feel attacked.
Regards,
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]
You state this like some kind of self-evident truth. Understand that not everybody agrees with you, and scorn is not generally something that wins people round to your argument.
If a code of conduct so broad and invasive that it seeks deal with such crimes as the “thoughtless use of pronouns” and “culturally insensitive names” isn’t speech-policing, what is?
Where does it say that though? Did I miss something?
The "real and legitimate issues" can be addressed without
one, perhaps with the "conflict resolution" document you referenced. It
is orders of magnitude more reasonableAh, some constructive suggestions. More of this please.
You may not see much of Paul’s engagement in this discussion as constructive, but I would disagree, and it doesn’t look like I’m alone. Many codes of conduct are written by well-intentioned people unskilled in legislation and enforced by tribunals unskilled in investigation and adjudication. Pair that up with the sort of person who earnestly believes they are making the world a better place by controlling what others say and how they say it, who deems any opinion they don’t like “dangerous" and any pushback they receive “harassment"—those sorts of people do exist, and they readily abuse extrajudicial systems—and you’ve got the recipe for gross injustice levied against people with an unpopular opinion. This does not require knowingly bad actors. Everyone involved would be not just cleared but congratulated by their own consciouses for doing what is Right and Good.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"...
Knowing Paul to some degree, I doubt he’s merely using “fascism” as a general, inflammatory descriptor. Make no mistake, a project is not the same thing as a political nation-state. Still, the Contributor Covenant that was put forward as the original CoC does have some fascistic tendencies, including the fact that it reaches outside the scope of the project and into the way a person speaks or behaves on their own time, and it uses the project maintainer’s own understanding of the project’s ethical values as a basis for determining bad behavior. Everything in the project, nothing outside the project…
I know Paul too, and while I really like him as a person and find his company most enjoyable (with or without drinks and good steak!) I usually disagree with his political views because I think they're overly simplistic or maybe even naive, and I think his generous utilization of the word "fascism" during this discussion is not helping because it escalate(d/s) the rhetoric at a way too early point in time and cause(d/s) division when unity was/is needed.
However, I very much appreciate how persistently and passionately he is participating in this debate, especially because I share many of his concerns.
David
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 ...
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.
And, the final code of conduct were more detailed about unacceptable
behaviour, rather than trying to use blanket terms like "inappropriate" or
"offensive", then I'd be happy to +1 it ... I will not +1 it while it tries
to limit offence, because that's silly, or uses blanket terms that make it
unenforceable.
So that's me, +1 on the idea, not so much on the text for the code of
conduct ...
Cheers
Joe
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.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.comModernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphpSolving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Hi Joe,
Joe Watkins wrote:
Morning internalz,
I'm going to keep it simple, because I'm sure everybody is getting abit bored ...
I object to the idea that we should try to limit "offence" ... it's notquantifiable, 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/
Furthermore, if people think the CoC enforcement team have been too heavy-handed with their application of the code, the team can be replaced.
Easiest way to avoid that is not to have a continuing team. Instead, randomly select of a response group on a per-incident basis should be sufficient. Nobody gets selected for a second incident until everyone has been selected once.
Of course, even better than that is not to have a COC in the first place. The conflict-resolution document is an infinitely better starting place.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Furthermore, if people think the CoC enforcement team have been too
heavy-handed with their application of the code, the team can be replaced.Easiest way to avoid that is not to have a continuing team. Instead,
randomly select of a response group on a per-incident basis should be
sufficient. Nobody gets selected for a second incident until everyone has
been selected once.
How would I bring to attention of someone a situation, if there is no one
picked to take those requests until after its been made? This goes back to,
if I had a problem because someone is being belligerent, I don't want to
share those belligerent comments publicly, but if there is no one
responsible for that there is no way to do that. OTOH, if we select 5
people and one of them resolve an incident, they could then immediately be
replaced. Similarly, if it requires more than one to handle the situation
whoever is involved may be replaced (including the whole team if need be).
I expect, 99% of complaints will only require a conversation with the
accused and accuser (possibly separately) getting tempers and words calmed
down.
Of course, even better than that is not to have a COC in the first place.
The conflict-resolution document is an infinitely better starting place.
I agree, a conflict resolution document and team seems infinitely better.
This team's job is to resolve things quietly and without further incident,
however if action may be required - its an open vote (as previously
suggested).
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.comModernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphpSolving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Furthermore, if people think the CoC enforcement team have been too heavy-handed with their application of the code, the team can be replaced.
Easiest way to avoid that is not to have a continuing team. Instead, randomly select of a response group on a per-incident basis should be sufficient. Nobody gets selected for a second incident until everyone has been selected once.
How would I bring to attention of someone a situation, if there is no one picked to take those requests until after its been made?
An excellent point. My first thought is to appoint or elect a continuing "secretary" (probably a better name for that) to receive requests, and then run the random-selection tool on each incoming notice. The secretary position itself is not responsible for reviewing or resolving, only receiving and assigning. This introduces some possibility of picking favored assignees to particular responses, but even that might be automated by having a bot respond to emails to a particular address.
Again, not in favor of a COC at all in the first place, as noted in the next quote:
Of course, even better than that is not to have a COC in the first place. The conflict-resolution document is an infinitely better starting place.
I agree, a conflict resolution document and team seems infinitely better. This team's job is to resolve things quietly and without further incident, however if action may be required - its an open vote (as previously suggested).
Right on.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Le 06/01/2016 20:38, Ryan Pallas a écrit :
I agree, a conflict resolution document and team seems infinitely better.
This team's job is to resolve things quietly and without further incident,
however if action may be required - its an open vote (as previously
suggested).
Agreed. 'Don't be evil' is sufficient as a CoC. Anything we add to this
will be redundant, ambiguous, and subject to interpretations.
A small set of conflict resolution rules and a team of
community-approved mediators is everything we need, IMHO.
Regards
François
All,
Le 06/01/2016 20:38, Ryan Pallas a écrit :
I agree, a conflict resolution document and team seems infinitely
better.
This team's job is to resolve things quietly and without further incident,
however if action may be required - its an open vote (as previously
suggested).Agreed. 'Don't be evil' is sufficient as a CoC. Anything we add to this will
be redundant, ambiguous, and subject to interpretations.A small set of conflict resolution rules and a team of community-approved
mediators is everything we need, IMHO.
I would like to hear from people who've had incidents before or have
been marginalized or harassed as to what is sufficient.
Anthony
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Ferrara [mailto:ircmaxell@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2016 10:48 PM
To: François Laupretre francois@php.net
Cc: Ryan Pallas derokorian@gmail.com; Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com; Andrea Faulds ajf@ajf.me;
internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of ConductAll,
On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 3:43 PM, François Laupretre francois@php.net
wrote:Le 06/01/2016 20:38, Ryan Pallas a écrit :
I agree, a conflict resolution document and team seems infinitely
better.
This team's job is to resolve things quietly and without further
incident, however if action may be required - its an open vote (as
previously suggested).Agreed. 'Don't be evil' is sufficient as a CoC. Anything we add to
this will be redundant, ambiguous, and subject to interpretations.A small set of conflict resolution rules and a team of
community-approved mediators is everything we need, IMHO.I would like to hear from people who've had incidents before or have been
marginalized or harassed as to what is sufficient.
Anthony,
As someone who's been on the receiving end of countless personal attacks in
the context of STH, marginalized and harassed - I still find the operative
part of the RFC quite questionable (even though as I said, a lot less so
than the original draft - mainly because the much reduced power of the
team). Ultimately, I think that just having guidelines would be a lot
better than trying to model any sort of committee and bylaws regarding what
can or cannot be done.
In addition, I've been on the receiving end of numerous false accusations -
including very recently - which, with the wrong people in power - might have
resulted in extreme outcomes.
Last, I'm truly surprised by the four direct threats of violence you've been
exposed to in the context of STH. I, personally, was presented by many
community members as the equivalent of the Enemy of the State, ridiculed,
crowned as a member of the 'Old Guard' and many other personal attacks, but
I'm still not aware of any threats of violence against me (in the context of
PHP, at least). Could there be a definition gap here? I would find a true
threat of violence as something that is completely unacceptable; But I
want to make sure we're all perceiving 'threats of violence' in the same
way, more or less. If there's a definition gap, we should iron it out now.
I think we're better off dividing this RFC into two separate RFCs:
- Adopting a CoC
- Adopting a response team/bylaws/mechanism on that CoC (assuming #1 gets
accepted).
Personally, I will almost definitely vote in favor of #1 (provided it's a
reasonable CoC which I think shouldn't be an issue), but I'll most likely
vote against #2. #2 is where the controversy is, and I think it would be a
shame not to get the part that's mostly in consensus accepted independently
of it.
Thanks,
Zeev
Hi Zeev,
As someone who's been on the receiving end of countless personal attacks in
the context of STH, marginalized and harassed
Same here, along personal vendetta along many other similar things.
- I still find the operative
part of the RFC quite questionable (even though as I said, a lot less so
than the original draft - mainly because the much reduced power of the
team). Ultimately, I think that just having guidelines would be a lot
better than trying to model any sort of committee and bylaws regarding what
can or cannot be done.
I totally agree on focusing on a problem resolution strategy. This is
a good thing and gives a good signal too.
In addition, I've been on the receiving end of numerous false accusations -
including very recently - which, with the wrong people in power - might have
resulted in extreme outcomes.
The key point about people in power is to make them not in power but
in charge. The power should and must remain in the hands of the core
community, for the extreme measures.
Last, I'm truly surprised by the four direct threats of violence you've been
exposed to in the context of STH. I, personally, was presented by many
community members as the equivalent of the Enemy of the State, ridiculed,
crowned as a member of the 'Old Guard' and many other personal attacks, but
I'm still not aware of any threats of violence against me (in the context of
PHP, at least). Could there be a definition gap here? I would find a true
threat of violence as something that is completely unacceptable; But I
want to make sure we're all perceiving 'threats of violence' in the same
way, more or less. If there's a definition gap, we should iron it out now.
To me and to my understanding, to many other, violence begins with insults.
At the very least I would put direct actions in response to insults,
soft warning for 1st timer followed by bans, temporary or permanently
for cases of recidivism. I agree to split the RFC in two steps
allowing to learn in the process. However I do think that we should
include a clear action path when it comes to insult on the mailing
list, IRC or other channels. Now we can indeed argue about what is an
insult but common sense may apply here (like to consider direct insult
like "you are a <put your fav bird name here or body part>). This is
something we must consider as unacceptable.
I think we're better off dividing this RFC into two separate RFCs:
- Adopting a CoC
- Adopting a response team/bylaws/mechanism on that CoC (assuming #1 gets
accepted).Personally, I will almost definitely vote in favor of #1 (provided it's a
reasonable CoC which I think shouldn't be an issue), but I'll most likely
vote against #2. #2 is where the controversy is, and I think it would be a
shame not to get the part that's mostly in consensus accepted independently
of it.
I tend to agree on a two steps if we define a clear timeline for the
2nd step. Also a too soft CoC may just as useless as no CoC at all.
Cheers,
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org
Hi all,
As I have stated previously, I find the Contributor Covenant text objectionable, in that it couples person, project, and politics, so that the person becomes answerable to the project for their politics.
If there simply must be a code of conduct, they should be decoupled. To that end, I propose that the entire "Code Of Conduct Text" in the RFC be removed, and replaced with this single sentence:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels without regard to the contributor's experience,
ability, identity, body, religion, politics, or activity
outside of project channels.
Alternatively, if that's not specific enough, use this single sentence instead:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels (such as reporting issues, posting feature requests,
updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches,
and other project activities) without regard to the
contributor's level of experience, gender, gender identity
and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal
appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion,
nationality, politics, or activity outside of project
channels.
Both of these use language cribbed from the Contributor Covenant, and add explicit protections for politics and other activity outside the project. This decouples person, politics, and project from each other, leaving each with its own separate sphere of influence. It also removes the scope of resulting actions-to-be-taken from the expectations of conduct, and leaves it to the conflict resolution language.
The replacement is restricted to project channels only. I predict, based on earlier comments, that some will object to this. I opine that it is beyond the scope of the project to either reward or punish members for their activity outside channels owned by the project. Even so, conflict in non-project channels does occur. As such, I suggest adding the following text (or substantially similar text) to the conflict resolution language:
Q: What about conflict outside of project channels?
A: If you feel conflict via a non-project channel is
unbearable, you should handle the incident(s) using the
means provided by that channel. For example:
- If you feel you are being abused via Twitter, you
might block or mute the person(s) you feel are abusing
you, and/or report the abuse to Twitter.
- If you feel you are being harassed via email, you
could set up a rule to delete or junk emails from the
person(s) you feel are harassing you.
- If you feel you are subject to a credible threat of
physical harm, you should report it to law enforcement.
Finally, although the original RFC text does not define "project spaces", I think that "project channels" should be defined; for example, the official PHP accounts on Github, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as all php.net mailing lists, and perhaps even all php.net email accounts.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Hi all,
As I have stated previously, I find the Contributor Covenant text objectionable, in that it couples person, project, and politics, so that the person becomes answerable to the project for their politics.
If there simply must be a code of conduct, they should be decoupled. To that end, I propose that the entire "Code Of Conduct Text" in the RFC be removed, and replaced with this single sentence:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project channels without regard to the contributor's experience, ability, identity, body, religion, politics, or activity outside of project channels.Alternatively, if that's not specific enough, use this single sentence instead:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project channels (such as reporting issues, posting feature requests, updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches, and other project activities) without regard to the contributor's level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, politics, or activity outside of project channels.Both of these use language cribbed from the Contributor Covenant, and add explicit protections for politics and other activity outside the project. This decouples person, politics, and project from each other, leaving each with its own separate sphere of influence. It also removes the scope of resulting actions-to-be-taken from the expectations of conduct, and leaves it to the conflict resolution language.
The replacement is restricted to project channels only. I predict, based on earlier comments, that some will object to this. I opine that it is beyond the scope of the project to either reward or punish members for their activity outside channels owned by the project. Even so, conflict in non-project channels does occur. As such, I suggest adding the following text (or substantially similar text) to the conflict resolution language:
Q: What about conflict outside of project channels? A: If you feel conflict via a non-project channel is unbearable, you should handle the incident(s) using the means provided by that channel. For example: - If you feel you are being abused via Twitter, you might block or mute the person(s) you feel are abusing you, and/or report the abuse to Twitter. - If you feel you are being harassed via email, you could set up a rule to delete or junk emails from the person(s) you feel are harassing you. - If you feel you are subject to a credible threat of physical harm, you should report it to law enforcement.Finally, although the original RFC text does not define "project spaces", I think that "project channels" should be defined; for example, the official PHP accounts on Github, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as all php.net mailing lists, and perhaps even all php.net email accounts.
The problem with the concept you describe here is to consider that if
someone is harrassed/insulted/etc outside php.net's channels but still
related to php.net, we should look to the other direction. It is
wrong.
If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.
Saying that we "do not care" because it does not happen inside php.net
would be very hypocrite and makes the CoC totally useless.I agree it
makes the task harder but I do not see how some channels are under the
CoC and for other we should ignore the issue.
Cheers,
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org
Saying that we "do not care" because it does not happen inside php.net http://php.net/
would be very hypocrite and makes the CoC totally useless.
Recognizing that it is irresponsible (and indeed impossible) for an official PHP body to try to control behavior that takes place outside the PHP project’s jurisdiction does not mean those of us who make up the PHP community do not care about others and how they are treated. It is simply a recognition of the project’s legitimate spheres of responsibility.
I agree it
makes the task harder but I do not see how some channels are under the
CoC and for other we should ignore the issue.
Because those channels are actually official PHP channels and the others are owned and operated by entirely separate third-parties.
Kevin Smith
Hearsay Interactive http://gohearsay.com/
kevin@gohearsay.com mailto:kevin@gohearsay.com
615.829.6356
Hi all,
As I have stated previously, I find the Contributor Covenant text objectionable, in that it couples person, project, and politics, so that the person becomes answerable to the project for their politics.
If there simply must be a code of conduct, they should be decoupled. To that end, I propose that the entire "Code Of Conduct Text" in the RFC be removed, and replaced with this single sentence:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels without regard to the contributor's experience,
ability, identity, body, religion, politics, or activity
outside of project channels.Alternatively, if that's not specific enough, use this single sentence instead:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels (such as reporting issues, posting feature requests,
updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches,
and other project activities) without regard to the
contributor's level of experience, gender, gender identity
and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal
appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion,
nationality, politics, or activity outside of project
channels.Both of these use language cribbed from the Contributor Covenant, and add explicit protections for politics and other activity outside the project. This decouples person, politics, and project from each other, leaving each with its own separate sphere of influence. It also removes the scope of resulting actions-to-be-taken from the expectations of conduct, and leaves it to the conflict resolution language.
The replacement is restricted to project channels only. I predict, based on earlier comments, that some will object to this. I opine that it is beyond the scope of the project to either reward or punish members for their activity outside channels owned by the project. Even so, conflict in non-project channels does occur. As such, I suggest adding the following text (or substantially similar text) to the conflict resolution language:
Q: What about conflict outside of project channels?
A: If you feel conflict via a non-project channel is
unbearable, you should handle the incident(s) using the
means provided by that channel. For example:- If you feel you are being abused via Twitter, you might block or mute the person(s) you feel are abusing you, and/or report the abuse to Twitter. - If you feel you are being harassed via email, you could set up a rule to delete or junk emails from the person(s) you feel are harassing you. - If you feel you are subject to a credible threat of physical harm, you should report it to law enforcement.Finally, although the original RFC text does not define "project spaces", I think that "project channels" should be defined; for example, the official PHP accounts on Github, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as all php.net mailing lists, and perhaps even all php.net email accounts.
The problem with the concept you describe here is to consider that if
someone is harrassed/insulted/etc outside php.net http://php.net/'s channels but still
related to php.net http://php.net/, we should look to the other direction. It is
wrong.If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net http://php.net/'s channel.
Saying that we "do not care" because it does not happen inside php.net http://php.net/
would be very hypocrite and makes the CoC totally useless.I agree it
makes the task harder but I do not see how some channels are under the
CoC and for other we should ignore the issue.Cheers,
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org http://www.libgd.org/
--
If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.
In which case there are existing means at their disposal: blocking, muting, junk-foldering, reporting to the channel owner for abuse, etc. If the harasser cannot actually reach their target, does that not have the same effect?
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.In which case there are existing means at their disposal: blocking, muting, junk-foldering, reporting to the channel owner for abuse, etc.
Indeed. And it is also obvious that we cannot take actions to block
the harasser on non php.net's channels. However this was not my point.
If the harasser cannot actually reach their target, does that not have the same effect?
No, it does not have the same effect.
My point is that the harasser has no place in this project, to begin
with. It is obvious that we cannot take action in any non php.net
channels but we must take actions against the harasser.
Cheers,
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org
If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.In which case there are existing means at their disposal: blocking, muting, junk-foldering, reporting to the channel owner for abuse, etc.
Indeed. And it is also obvious that we cannot take actions to block
the harasser on non php.net's channels. However this was not my point.If the harasser cannot actually reach their target, does that not have the same effect?
No, it does not have the same effect.
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 11:28 PM, Paul M. Jones pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.In which case there are existing means at their disposal: blocking,
muting, junk-foldering, reporting to the channel owner for abuse, etc.Indeed. And it is also obvious that we cannot take actions to block
the harasser on non php.net's channels. However this was not my point.If the harasser cannot actually reach their target, does that not have
the same effect?No, it does not have the same effect.
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
Are you saying that a person has his place in php.net after being proven
gulty of harassment or other similar events?
To me, definitely no. And this is why I think we should consider all
channels, and name a few examples to make that point clear.
No, it does not have the same effect.
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
Are you saying that a person has his place in php.net http://php.net/ after being proven
gulty of harassment or other similar events?To me, definitely no. And this is why I think we should consider all
channels, and name a few examples to make that point clear.
Would an RFC to ban that person from official channels not suffice here?
Kevin Smith
Hearsay Interactive <http://gohearsay.com/
Would an RFC to ban that person from official channels not suffice here?
You're missing the basic point. If someone makes a complaint with a
complaints process that handles everything in the open, i.e. with your
suggestion of the standard RFC process:
-
if the outcome is most people think they were over-reacting to
something, then they are going to get a load of crap from people in
the community. -
if the outcome is a majority of people think it is a legititmate
complaint, then they are still going to get a load of crap from i) the
minority of people who think that any restriction of freedom of speech
is a commie plot ii) the revenge brigade who go round and harass
people
i.e. any process that airs all complaint in the open is going to be
shit for anyone who makes a complaint regardless of whether it was
justified or not. Which just leads to people not making complaints and
instead just not being part of the community.
cheers
Dan
Hi!
You're missing the basic point. If someone makes a complaint with a
complaints process that handles everything in the open, i.e. with your
suggestion of the standard RFC process:
What you say is true. However, as I previously said, the alternative is
taking action on behalf of the community by the tiny part of the
community without the community even being aware why the action is
taken. I don't think this is a good idea.
We can develop processes that decrease the risk of retaliation -
starting the process with private moderation IMO is a good way to do
this - but if we want community-wide action, I do not see how it can be
done while preserving both secrecy and informed due process.
- if the outcome is a majority of people think it is a legititmate
complaint, then they are still going to get a load of crap from i) the
minority of people who think that any restriction of freedom of speech
is a commie plot ii) the revenge brigade who go round and harass
people
I don't think we have such bridages in our project spaces. And outside
project spaces, we can do precisely nothing about them except wagging a
finger at them. We can not solve all problems existing on the internet
by having CoC - we can only (hope to) make our spaces free of the bad
stuff.
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Are you saying that a person has his place in php.net after being proven gulty of harassment or other similar events?
When you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
Merely that someone feels harassed does not, to me, rise to the level of "proven guilty". It may objectively be true, or not. But regardless of what is objectively true, when people do feel harassed, there are means at their disposal to stop receiving the harassment: blocking, muting, junk-foldering, etc.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Are you saying that a person has his place in php.net after being proven gulty of harassment or other similar events?
When you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
Merely that someone feels harassed does not, to me, rise to the level of "proven guilty". It may objectively be true, or not. But regardless of what is objectively true, when people do feel harassed, there are means at their disposal to stop receiving the harassment: blocking, muting, junk-foldering, etc.
So you are saying that it is fine to keep an harassing person inside
project, correct? As long as the harassed person can block this
person? I still have hope that it is not what you think.
Cheers,
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org
Are you saying that a person has his place in php.net after being proven gulty of harassment or other similar events?
When you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
Merely that someone feels harassed does not, to me, rise to the level of "proven guilty". It may objectively be true, or not. But regardless of what is objectively true, when people do feel harassed, there are means at their disposal to stop receiving the harassment: blocking, muting, junk-foldering, etc.
So you are saying that it is fine to keep an harassing person inside
project, correct? As long as the harassed person can block this
person? I still have hope that it is not what you think.
I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 11:52 PM, Paul M. Jones pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:Are you saying that a person has his place in php.net after being
proven gulty of harassment or other similar events?When you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
Merely that someone feels harassed does not, to me, rise to the
level of "proven guilty". It may objectively be true, or not. But
regardless of what is objectively true, when people do feel harassed,
there are means at their disposal to stop receiving the harassment:
blocking, muting, junk-foldering, etc.So you are saying that it is fine to keep an harassing person inside
project, correct? As long as the harassed person can block this
person? I still have hope that it is not what you think.I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when you say
"proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed, insulted,
attacked another person then it fits this definition.
Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have nothing to do
with opinions.
Now answer my question too, thanks.
I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?
If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed, insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.
What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building hypotheticals, and probably easier.)
Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have nothing to do with opinions.
Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with "harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as "insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when you say
"proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their actions,
we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed, insulted,
attacked another person then it fits this definition.What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have examples
of actual occurrences, that would be better than building hypotheticals,
and probably easier.)Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have nothing to
do with opinions.Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with "harassment", and
"disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as "insults." So I'd
like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.
This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly understand my
point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in case, an opiniated
hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as well from your
side and little less nitpicking.
Do you consider than harassing/insulting and similar person should remain
untouched? Or for extreme cases not banned?
I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?
If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed, insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.
What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building hypotheticals, and probably easier.)
Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have nothing to do with opinions.
Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with "harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as "insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.
This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly understand my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in case, an opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as well from your side and little less nitpicking.
To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a person claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that harassment? This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the conversation. If you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
On Jan 8, 2016 1:58 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when you
say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their actions,
we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed,
insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have
nothing to do with opinions.Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with "harassment",
and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as "insults." So I'd
like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly understand
my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in case, an
opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as well
from your side and little less nitpicking.To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a person
claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that harassment?
This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the conversation. If
you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.
I think you are playing. That's cool too. I only have no time nor
motivation to play that game. I think I made my opinion and view on this
topic clear. You can't say that you would be ok to keep a person in the
project in such cases, fine. Not surprising but fine.
I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?
I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?
If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed, insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.
What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building hypotheticals, and probably easier.)
Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have nothing to do with opinions.
Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with "harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as "insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.
This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly understand my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in case, an opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as well from your side and little less nitpicking.
To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a person claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that harassment? This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the conversation. If you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.
I think you are playing.
I have never been more serious. This RFC, if passed, is going to have wide-ranging consequences, and if the terms in it are so vague as to give open-ended powers to those charged with enforcing it, I think that's a dangerous thing.
So again: What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building hypotheticals, and probably easier.)
And again, if you are unable to clarify this, I'm OK with that. I get that it's messy. We can then work together to build up a definition. I presume that you want to collaborate to come up with the best possible RFC, yes? And if not, why not?
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:15, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 1:58 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when
you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their
actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed,
insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have
nothing to do with opinions.Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with
"harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as
"insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly
understand my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in case,
an opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as
well from your side and little less nitpicking.To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a
person claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that
harassment? This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the
conversation. If you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.I think you are playing.
I have never been more serious. This RFC, if passed, is going to have
wide-ranging consequences, and if the terms in it are so vague as to give
open-ended powers to those charged with enforcing it, I think that's a
dangerous thing.So again: What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)And again, if you are unable to clarify this, I'm OK with that. I get
that it's messy.
It is not. To me to distinguish harassment vs hot discussions (public or
private) is part of common sense and I trust us to have this common sense
when this group will be created.
Also the very definition of harassment is pretty clear. Read
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/harassment for the reference.
If it is not clear for you then yes, I cannot make it clearer. Sorry.
I do not think we need to build up our own definition because some thinks
we will abuse powers.
On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:25, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 2:21 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:15, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 1:58 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again: when
you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their
actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed,
insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have
nothing to do with opinions.Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with
"harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as
"insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly
understand my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in case,
an opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as
well from your side and little less nitpicking.To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a
person claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that
harassment? This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the
conversation. If you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.I think you are playing.
I have never been more serious. This RFC, if passed, is going to have
wide-ranging consequences, and if the terms in it are so vague as to give
open-ended powers to those charged with enforcing it, I think that's a
dangerous thing.So again: What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)And again, if you are unable to clarify this, I'm OK with that. I get
that it's messy.It is not. To me to distinguish harassment vs hot discussions (public or
private) is part of common sense and I trust us to have this common sense
when this group will be created.Also the very definition of harassment is pretty clear. Read
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/harassment for the
reference.
If it is not clear for you then yes, I cannot make it clearer. Sorry.I do not think we need to build up our own definition because some thinks
we will abuse powers.
" the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of
one party or a group, including threats and demands."
Nothing in the definition beyond that is exclusionary. It includes various
examples, but does not limit it beyond that. To me, "unwanted or annoying
actions" probably describes how a lot of people feel about Paul's comments
(I'm not one of them). Does that make him guilty of harassment?
--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.com
On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:25, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 2:21 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:15, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 1:58 AM, "Paul M. Jones" <
pmjones88@gmail.com>
wrote:I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again:
when
you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their
actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed,
insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have
nothing to do with opinions.Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with
"harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as
"insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to
you.This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly
understand my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in
case,
an opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as
well from your side and little less nitpicking.To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a
person claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that
harassment? This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the
conversation. If you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.I think you are playing.
I have never been more serious. This RFC, if passed, is going to have
wide-ranging consequences, and if the terms in it are so vague as to
give
open-ended powers to those charged with enforcing it, I think that's a
dangerous thing.So again: What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you
have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)And again, if you are unable to clarify this, I'm OK with that. I get
that it's messy.It is not. To me to distinguish harassment vs hot discussions (public or
private) is part of common sense and I trust us to have this common
sense
when this group will be created.Also the very definition of harassment is pretty clear. Read
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/harassment for the
reference.
If it is not clear for you then yes, I cannot make it clearer. Sorry.I do not think we need to build up our own definition because some
thinks
we will abuse powers." the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of
one party or a group, including threats and demands."Nothing in the definition beyond that is exclusionary. It includes various
examples, but does not limit it beyond that. To me, "unwanted or annoying
actions" probably describes how a lot of people feel about Paul's comments
(I'm not one of them). Does that make him guilty of harassment?
Paul has switched to constructively participating in the discussion. He is
also not singling out any group or person for unwanted or annoying actions.
So no, he is not guilty of harassment.
Was that answer you were looking for?
On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:25, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 2:21 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:15, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 1:58 AM, "Paul M. Jones" <pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:
I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again:
when
you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their
actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed,
insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have
nothing to do with opinions.Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with
"harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as
"insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to you.This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly
understand my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in
case,
an opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as
well from your side and little less nitpicking.To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a
person claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that
harassment? This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the
conversation. If you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.I think you are playing.
I have never been more serious. This RFC, if passed, is going to have
wide-ranging consequences, and if the terms in it are so vague as to give
open-ended powers to those charged with enforcing it, I think that's a
dangerous thing.So again: What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you
have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)And again, if you are unable to clarify this, I'm OK with that. I get
that it's messy.It is not. To me to distinguish harassment vs hot discussions (public or
private) is part of common sense and I trust us to have this common sense
when this group will be created.Also the very definition of harassment is pretty clear. Read
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/harassment for the
reference.
If it is not clear for you then yes, I cannot make it clearer. Sorry.I do not think we need to build up our own definition because some thinks
we will abuse powers.
" the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions
of one party or a group, including threats and demands."
Nothing in the definition beyond that is exclusionary. It includes
various examples, but does not limit it beyond that. To me, "unwanted or
annoying actions" probably describes how a lot of people feel about Paul's
comments (I'm not one of them). Does that make him
To me absolutely not. It is a hot debate, at best.
Now, as an example, if he would start to message privately, aggressively,
and would continue to do so after I asked him to stop, then yes, at some
point I will consider it as such.
On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 2:51 PM, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 2:27 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:25, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 8, 2016 2:21 AM, "Paul M. Jones" pmjones88@gmail.com
wrote:On Jan 7, 2016, at 13:15, Pierre Joye <pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:
On Jan 8, 2016 1:58 AM, "Paul M. Jones" <
pmjones88@gmail.com>
wrote:I notice you did not answer my question. I'll ask again:
when
you say "proven guilty" what exactly do you mean?I see you are going to nitpick here. So let clarify it.
When we're talking about banning people as a result of their
actions, we'd better be clear on the details, don't you think?If there is a clear set of evidences that someone harassed,
insulted, attacked another person then it fits this definition.What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)Please keep in mind than harassment, attacks or insults have
nothing to do with opinions.Unfortunately, too many people confuse "argument" with
"harassment", and "disagreement" with "attacks", and "observations" as
"insults." So I'd like to hear first what "clear evidence" means to
you.This is what I mean by nitpicking. I am sure you perfectly
understand my point as well as what I would consider as bad. Just in
case,
an opiniated hot discussion is not. I would appreciate a clear answer as
well from your side and little less nitpicking.To give clear answers, I need clear statements. For example, if a
person claims harassment, what to you would be evidence of that
harassment? This is not nitpicking; this is defining the terms of the
conversation. If you are unable to clarify, that's cool, just say so.I think you are playing.
I have never been more serious. This RFC, if passed, is going to have
wide-ranging consequences, and if the terms in it are so vague as to
give
open-ended powers to those charged with enforcing it, I think that's a
dangerous thing.So again: What to you would be "a clear set of evidences"? (If you
have
examples of actual occurrences, that would be better than building
hypotheticals, and probably easier.)And again, if you are unable to clarify this, I'm OK with that. I get
that it's messy.It is not. To me to distinguish harassment vs hot discussions (public or
private) is part of common sense and I trust us to have this common
sense
when this group will be created.Also the very definition of harassment is pretty clear. Read
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/harassment for the
reference.
If it is not clear for you then yes, I cannot make it clearer. Sorry.I do not think we need to build up our own definition because some
thinks
we will abuse powers." the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands."
Nothing in the definition beyond that is exclusionary. It includes
various examples, but does not limit it beyond that. To me, "unwanted or
annoying actions" probably describes how a lot of people feel about Paul's
comments (I'm not one of them). Does that make himTo me absolutely not. It is a hot debate, at best.
Now, as an example, if he would start to message privately, aggressively,
and would continue to do so after I asked him to stop, then yes, at some
point I will consider it as such.
And none of those caveats exist in the definition you provided. That is a
prime example of one of the main concerns we all have - the ability for
anyone to reshape definitions as they please. Even if you assume they will
do so in a way they believe is in everyone's best interest, we all know
that won't always happen
--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.com
And none of those caveats exist in the definition you provided.
Hmmm. Which one did you read?
"the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of
one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may vary,
including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force someone
to ..."
If I asked him to stop and he continues, aggressively, then it matches the
"unwanted", "annoying" and "to force".
That is a prime example of one of the main concerns we all have - the
ability for anyone to reshape definitions as they please. Even if you
assume they will do so in a way they believe is in everyone's best
interest, we all know that won't always happen--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.com
And none of those caveats exist in the definition you provided.
Hmmm. Which one did you read?
"the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of
one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may vary,
including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force someone
to ..."If I asked him to stop and he continues, aggressively, then it matches the
"unwanted", "annoying" and "to force".That is a prime example of one of the main concerns we all have - the
ability for anyone to reshape definitions as they please. Even if you
assume they will do so in a way they believe is in everyone's best
interest, we all know that won't always happen--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.com
Where is the requirement in the definition that you have to ask him to
stop? I don't see the word "aggressive" in there either. As far as the "to
force" part, that's part of the phrase preceded by "The purposes may vary,
including..." which means that it is not a requirement to meet the
definition.
Again, you might call this nitpicking, but I'm trying to show how a simple
definition for a term that we all think we know the meaning of can be
twisted and reinterpreted. All it takes is one person in a position of
power to abuse that.
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.com
And none of those caveats exist in the definition you provided.
Hmmm. Which one did you read?
"the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of
one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may vary,
including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force someone
to ..."If I asked him to stop and he continues, aggressively, then it matches
the "unwanted", "annoying" and "to force".That is a prime example of one of the main concerns we all have - the
ability for anyone to reshape definitions as they please. Even if you
assume they will do so in a way they believe is in everyone's best
interest, we all know that won't always happen--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.comWhere is the requirement in the definition that you have to ask him to
stop? I don't see the word "aggressive" in there either. As far as the "to
force" part, that's part of the phrase preceded by "The purposes may vary,
including..." which means that it is not a requirement to meet the
definition.Again, you might call this nitpicking, but I'm trying to show how a
simple definition for a term that we all think we know the meaning of can
be twisted and reinterpreted. All it takes is one person in a position of
power to abuse that.
Let make it crystal clear:
"Stop message me privately, no matter the channel"
The person continues. It starts here. Got it?
On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:And none of those caveats exist in the definition you provided.
Hmmm. Which one did you read?
"the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions
of one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may
vary, including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force
someone to ..."If I asked him to stop and he continues, aggressively, then it matches
the "unwanted", "annoying" and "to force".That is a prime example of one of the main concerns we all have - the
ability for anyone to reshape definitions as they please. Even if you
assume they will do so in a way they believe is in everyone's best
interest, we all know that won't always happen--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.comWhere is the requirement in the definition that you have to ask him to
stop? I don't see the word "aggressive" in there either. As far as the "to
force" part, that's part of the phrase preceded by "The purposes may vary,
including..." which means that it is not a requirement to meet the
definition.Again, you might call this nitpicking, but I'm trying to show how a
simple definition for a term that we all think we know the meaning of can
be twisted and reinterpreted. All it takes is one person in a position of
power to abuse that.Let make it crystal clear:
"Stop message me privately, no matter the channel"
The person continues. It starts here. Got it?
Got it. As long as I annoy you and continue my unwanted behavior publicly,
that's OK and not harassment. Definitely crystal clear.
--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.com
On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Pierre Joye pierre.php@gmail.com
wrote:And none of those caveats exist in the definition you provided.
Hmmm. Which one did you read?
"the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions
of one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may
vary, including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force
someone to ..."If I asked him to stop and he continues, aggressively, then it
matches the "unwanted", "annoying" and "to force".That is a prime example of one of the main concerns we all have -
the ability for anyone to reshape definitions as they please. Even if you
assume they will do so in a way they believe is in everyone's best
interest, we all know that won't always happen--
Chase Peeler
chasepeeler@gmail.comWhere is the requirement in the definition that you have to ask him to
stop? I don't see the word "aggressive" in there either. As far as the "to
force" part, that's part of the phrase preceded by "The purposes may vary,
including..." which means that it is not a requirement to meet the
definition.Again, you might call this nitpicking, but I'm trying to show how a
simple definition for a term that we all think we know the meaning of can
be twisted and reinterpreted. All it takes is one person in a position of
power to abuse that.Let make it crystal clear:
"Stop message me privately, no matter the channel"
The person continues. It starts here. Got it?
Got it. As long as I annoy you and continue my unwanted behavior
publicly, that's OK and not harassment. Definitely crystal clear.
This is not what I said.
But this ML is public and I cannot ask you to stop posting here. And as
long as you don't start to insult ppl around or similar things, that's all
good.
On twitter f.e., I will report and block you if you keep mention me with
your harassment. Simple. And report to the group as well. But you have to
go rather far with me to get me to do that ;)
Anyway, point made. Wish you all a good night :)
It is not. To me to distinguish harassment vs hot discussions (public or private) is part of common sense and I trust us to have this common sense when this group will be created.
I opine that if "common sense" were enough, then no COC would be under discussion now. We're in a different realm now.
Also the very definition of harassment is pretty clear. Read http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/harassment for the reference. If it is not clear for you then yes, I cannot make it clearer. Sorry.
Now we're getting somewhere. Quoting that definition:
"""The act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may vary, including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force someone to quit a job or grant sexual favors, apply illegal pressure to collect a bill, or merely gain sadistic pleasure from making someone fearful or anxious. Such activities may be the basis for a lawsuit if due to discrimination based on race or sex, a violation on the statutory limitations on collection agencies, involve revenge by an ex-spouse, or be shown to be a form of blackmail ("I'll stop bothering you, if you'll go to bed with me"). The victim may file a petition for a "stay away" (restraining) order, intended to prevent contact by the offensive party. A systematic pattern of harassment by an employee against another worker may subject the employer to a lawsuit for failure to protect the worker."""
So, that's both rather vague (the opening sentence) and rather specific (the latter portions). If the activity in question rises to the level of filing a petition for and being granted a restraining order, then and only then might the project have some responsibility to help enforce that order, since the project itself may become subject to a lawsuit or other legal actions. (I am satisfied to read "employee" as "contributor/participant" and "employer" as "the project" in this case.)
But anything less? No, the project's responsibility is only to enforce its policies on its own communication channels.
Do you feel otherwise?
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
It is not. To me to distinguish harassment vs hot discussions (public
or private) is part of common sense and I trust us to have this common
sense when this group will be created.I opine that if "common sense" were enough, then no COC would be under
discussion now. We're in a different realm now.Also the very definition of harassment is pretty clear. Read
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/harassment for the reference.
If it is not clear for you then yes, I cannot make it clearer. Sorry.Now we're getting somewhere. Quoting that definition:
"""The act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions
of one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may
vary, including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force
someone to quit a job or grant sexual favors, apply illegal pressure to
collect a bill, or merely gain sadistic pleasure from making someone
fearful or anxious. Such activities may be the basis for a lawsuit if due
to discrimination based on race or sex, a violation on the statutory
limitations on collection agencies, involve revenge by an ex-spouse, or be
shown to be a form of blackmail ("I'll stop bothering you, if you'll go to
bed with me"). The victim may file a petition for a "stay away"
(restraining) order, intended to prevent contact by the offensive party. A
systematic pattern of harassment by an employee against another worker may
subject the employer to a lawsuit for failure to protect the worker."""So, that's both rather vague (the opening sentence) and rather specific
(the latter portions). If the activity in question rises to the level of
filing a petition for and being granted a restraining order, then and
only then might the project have some responsibility to help enforce that
order, since the project itself may become subject to a lawsuit or other
legal actions. (I am satisfied to read "employee" as
"contributor/participant" and "employer" as "the project" in this case.)But anything less? No, the project's responsibility is only to enforce
its policies on its own communication channels.Do you feel otherwise?
As I said, if someone is clearly behaving with harassment, insult, etc to
fulfil his goal (f.e. to kick someone out, or stop/force someone to do
something ), then he has no place here. No matter where the acts happen.
I am slowly giving up on getting an answer from you about accepting such
people afterwards.
As I said, if someone is clearly behaving with harassment, insult, etc to fulfil his goal (f.e. to kick someone out, or stop/force someone to do something ), then he has no place here. No matter where the acts happen.
I am slowly giving up on getting an answer from you about accepting such people afterwards.
I will repeat it, then, since I answered: If the activity in question rises to the level of filing a petition for and being granted a restraining order, then and only then might the project have some responsibility to help enforce that order, since the project itself may become subject to a lawsuit or other legal actions.
I can clarify further if you have specific questions.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
If the activity in question rises to the level of filing a petition for and being granted a restraining order, then and only then might the project have some responsibility to help enforce that order, since the project itself may become subject to a lawsuit or other legal actions. (I am satisfied to read "employee" as "contributor/participant" and "employer" as "the project" in this case.)
But anything less? No, the project's responsibility is only to enforce its policies on its own communication channels.
So you're saying, any harassment that failed to meet a criminal
criteria, wouldn't be acted upon.
Any harassment where the person being harassed decides to just leave
the project rather than seek a court order, wouldn't be acted upon.
Fun-fact*, if I went round to someone's house, took some photos of it,
maybe took some pictures of their family as well, and then sent them
those pictures with the message "Hey, are you going to fix that bug
that's important to me, or shall I come round to your house to discuss
it in person?", none of that would reach a criminal matter, and so
there would be nothing the PHP project could do about it.
Don't get me wrong, that behaviour would be creepy as heck - but not
anything the police or a court could do anything about.
And you're suggesting that this is an acceptable situation. I think
I'm done listening to you.
cheers
Dan
*actual amounts of fun may vary.
If the activity in question rises to the level of filing a petition for and being granted a restraining order, then and only then might the project have some responsibility to help enforce that order, since the project itself may become subject to a lawsuit or other legal actions. (I am satisfied to read "employee" as "contributor/participant" and "employer" as "the project" in this case.)
But anything less? No, the project's responsibility is only to enforce its policies on its own communication channels.
So you're saying, any harassment that failed to meet a criminal
criteria, wouldn't be acted upon.Any harassment where the person being harassed decides to just leave
the project rather than seek a court order, wouldn't be acted upon.Fun-fact*, if I went round to someone's house, took some photos of it,
maybe took some pictures of their family as well, and then sent them
those pictures with the message "Hey, are you going to fix that bug
that's important to me, or shall I come round to your house to discuss
it in person?", none of that would reach a criminal matter, and so
there would be nothing the PHP project could do about it.Don't get me wrong, that behaviour would be creepy as heck - but not
anything the police or a court could do anything about.
Sure it would. You can get a restraining order, especially a temporary one, on the flimsiest of evidence. What makes you think a court would do nothing about it?
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
I agree with your position on most of this, Paul. However, free email, and thus, Twitter and other social media accounts are nearly unlimited. It becomes an arms race to try and block someone.
Brian.
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
I agree with your position on most of this, Paul. However, free email, and thus, Twitter and other social media accounts are nearly unlimited. It becomes an arms race to try and block someone.Brian.
Simply cutting off contact (either by the receiver of harassment or
otherwise) isn't the entire goal. There are least 2 others:
- Harassment does not need to be direct. If I were to start tweeting
up a hostile, insulting storm about someone else on this list, by name
and talking about PHP Internals business, but not tweeting @ that
person, them blocking me isn't going to accomplish anything. The harm
isn't that they are seeing the message necessarily, it's that everyone
else I know is seeing it, many of whom that person may not even know.
That's still an attack on a person's reputation, and damaging to the person.
And before anyone says "well report it", Twitter's track record in
dealing with such matters is somewhat worse than pathetically abysmal.
If you're not a rich white guy it's somewhat worse than that. The same
is true of Reddit, and in many places the police department, too.
- It's not simply a matter of the two (or however many) people
involved. It's a statement of what we as a community are willing to
tolerate. "You're a malicious jackass who hurts people, buuuut you
don't do it in a place we can ban you, technically, so shrug" tells
everyone else (both on the list and off) that we are OK with members of
our community being malicious jackasses who hurt people. That does harm
to the whole community.
Conversely, if we do make it clear (through communication, mediation,
and if necessary punitive measures) that we don't welcome malicious
jackasses who hurt people, even if they happen to be good coders, that's
signaling the opposite: That we will favor non-jackasses in this
community, even at the expense of people who happen to be good coders.
We still can't take care of Twitter, but we can make it clear that we do
not accept such behavior amongst our inner-circle. And that in turn
influences the kind of people who show up and stick around, and creates
a virtuous cycle.
It's about the audience as much as the actors.
And yes, I am aware that a large part of the concern is the definition
of "malicious jackass who hurts people" and "hostile, insulting storm".
There is a risk of that turning into a "morality clause". That's
true. But it could go either direction on such matters, not necessarily
just in the "evil PC witch hunt" direction. That's where, as has been
repeated, 1) A well-defined code of conduct that takes a positive tone
and is neither too prescriptive nor too vague is needed and 2) we have
to trust the members of the conflict resolution team to not let it turn
into that, and be as objective and sound as humanly possible.
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust
to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that
are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any
direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope
and we should all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the
case, at all.
--Larry Garfield
Hi!
And yes, I am aware that a large part of the concern is the definition
of "malicious jackass who hurts people" and "hostile, insulting storm".
Not only that. But that even if we have the definition, nobody walks
around with a convenient label of "malicious jackass who hurts people"
on their foreheads. That's not where the problem lies. What we'd be
dealing with is people coming to us complaining said something offensive
to them (or to somebody) at resource X, which may not even be public,
conveniently providing only evidence that supports it, and we'd have to
decide whether it's true or not, knowing no context, no prior history,
no full information about what happened, etc. And since we declared
universal jurisdiction, not taking sides is no longer an option.
There is a risk of that turning into a "morality clause". That's
true. But it could go either direction on such matters, not necessarily
just in the "evil PC witch hunt" direction. That's where, as has been
That's not exactly encouraging phrase - it's like saying "take this
pill, it would not necessarily kill you, it could go both ways". Would
you take it?
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust
to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that
are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any
direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope
Again, as I explained already before, it's not a matter of people being
"corrupt" or "unfair". It's the matter of dealing with uncertain
information and also - unfortunately - potentially some dishonest
players trying to abuse the system. People can be misled and manipulated
- that happens routinely to much more robust systems than ours, such as
courts - so ignoring it and not having security against it besides "we
are all good people, we can do no wrong" looks naive to me.
--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Hi!
And yes, I am aware that a large part of the concern is the definition
of "malicious jackass who hurts people" and "hostile, insulting storm".
Not only that. But that even if we have the definition, nobody walks
around with a convenient label of "malicious jackass who hurts people"
on their foreheads. That's not where the problem lies. What we'd be
dealing with is people coming to us complaining said something offensive
to them (or to somebody) at resource X, which may not even be public,
conveniently providing only evidence that supports it, and we'd have to
decide whether it's true or not, knowing no context, no prior history,
no full information about what happened, etc. And since we declared
universal jurisdiction, not taking sides is no longer an option.
Sure, and the CRT would be fully within their rights to say "this is not
a real issue" or "this is too unrelated to the project".
In practice, based on my experience elsewhere I think we're likely to
see two broad categories of issue:
-
This conversation is getting too aggressive, why don't you both go
outside for a while to cool down then come back and hug it out. -
Seriously, that's not even remotely OK by any stretch of the
imagination, get the heck out.
And by nipping the first one in the bud more often, the second becomes
less acceptable and therefore less common.
I'd also say that the first one can be handled more or less privately in
most cases, and I'm fine with that. It's category two where the public
review would be more needed. Although in both cases the accuser and
accused (or the issue reporter and the other parties involved, if we
want to be less draconian in the wording) will know who each other are.
It's inappropriate for them not to, and in practice impossible for them
not to either so let's not even pretend.
There is a risk of that turning into a "morality clause". That's
true. But it could go either direction on such matters, not necessarily
just in the "evil PC witch hunt" direction. That's where, as has been
That's not exactly encouraging phrase - it's like saying "take this
pill, it would not necessarily kill you, it could go both ways". Would
you take it?
A pill is an excellent analogy. Pick up any medication off the shelf at
your local drugstore. Take too little of it and it does nothing. Take
too much and you'll get sick, possibly die. Take an appropriate amount
and it helps cure what ails you.
We acknowledge the potential dangers of over-doing it, even put it on
the label, and yet we all use medication on a regular basis for all
sorts of things and are generally much healthier for it.
The Goldilocks Rule applies here, as in most places.
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust
to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that
are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any
direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope
Again, as I explained already before, it's not a matter of people being
"corrupt" or "unfair". It's the matter of dealing with uncertain
information and also - unfortunately - potentially some dishonest
players trying to abuse the system. People can be misled and manipulated
- that happens routinely to much more robust systems than ours, such as
courts - so ignoring it and not having security against it besides "we
are all good people, we can do no wrong" looks naive to me.
Feel free to swap "unfair" for "mislead". We're not perfect
(obviously), and no conflict resolution team will be either. But I am
confident that we can find 5 people in PHP who are fair enough,
insightful enough, and impartial enough to get the job done.
Judges are human and subject to bias, but we still have laws and courts
and are a better society for it. Honestly the point you're making
sounds close to "perfect or nothing", which if applied generally would
preclude PHP from existing. :-)
--
--Larry Garfield
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
I agree with your position on most of this, Paul. However, free email,
and thus, Twitter and other social media accounts are nearly
unlimited. It becomes an arms race to try and block someone.Brian.
Simply cutting off contact (either by the receiver of harassment or
otherwise) isn't the entire goal. There are least 2 others:
- Harassment does not need to be direct. If I were to start tweeting
up a hostile, insulting storm about someone else on this list, by name
and talking about PHP Internals business, but not tweeting @ that
person, them blocking me isn't going to accomplish anything. The harm
isn't that they are seeing the message necessarily, it's that everyone
else I know is seeing it, many of whom that person may not even know.
That's still an attack on a person's reputation, and damaging to the
person.
Good scenario but we don't have to be hypothetical. Let's apply it to
the real world of this week:
Throughout this discussion, Paul Jones has been active and - despite
vocally attacking the proposal - I have yet to see him attack anyone in
general.
And then Phil Sturgeon else used a sexualized term to insult Paul to his
~16k followers but didn't name him: https://archive.is/oeekT
While Phil claims this is not sexualized, Urban Dictionary disagrees but
then he follows it up with a claim that he doesn't represent the project
anyway: https://archive.is/TA2YP
According to the definition including attending conferences that use the
PHP logo and active in PHP channels, he does.
And then Phil follows it up with another more potentially damaging
attack - again, without naming Paul - https://archive.is/Z3zNy
And finally, it turns out it's all Phil is blocking Paul anyway -
https://archive.is/6iZQY - so Paul wouldn't even have see the attacks to
defend himself or report to the PHP Code of Conduct group.
So my questions:
- In his day to day interactions, would Phil be considered a
representative of the PHP team? - If not, why not?
- If so, do his personal attacks using sexualized terms constitute a
breach of the Code of Conduct? - If not, why not?
- If so, what would the consequences be for Phil?
Thanks,
keith
Keith,
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
I agree with your position on most of this, Paul. However, free email,
and thus, Twitter and other social media accounts are nearly
unlimited. It becomes an arms race to try and block someone.Brian.
Simply cutting off contact (either by the receiver of harassment or
otherwise) isn't the entire goal. There are least 2 others:
- Harassment does not need to be direct. If I were to start tweeting
up a hostile, insulting storm about someone else on this list, by name
and talking about PHP Internals business, but not tweeting @ that
person, them blocking me isn't going to accomplish anything. The harm
isn't that they are seeing the message necessarily, it's that everyone
else I know is seeing it, many of whom that person may not even know.
That's still an attack on a person's reputation, and damaging to the
person.Good scenario but we don't have to be hypothetical. Let's apply it to the
real world of this week:Throughout this discussion, Paul Jones has been active and - despite vocally
attacking the proposal - I have yet to see him attack anyone in general.And then Phil Sturgeon else used a sexualized term to insult Paul to his
~16k followers but didn't name him: https://archive.is/oeekTWhile Phil claims this is not sexualized, Urban Dictionary disagrees but
then he follows it up with a claim that he doesn't represent the project
anyway: https://archive.is/TA2YPAccording to the definition including attending conferences that use the PHP
logo and active in PHP channels, he does.And then Phil follows it up with another more potentially damaging attack -
again, without naming Paul - https://archive.is/Z3zNyAnd finally, it turns out it's all Phil is blocking Paul anyway -
https://archive.is/6iZQY - so Paul wouldn't even have see the attacks to
defend himself or report to the PHP Code of Conduct group.So my questions:
- In his day to day interactions, would Phil be considered a representative
of the PHP team?
In normal day-to-day interactions? No, I don't think so. In this case,
considering he's directly discussing the project at the time, I think
that it would be fair to say he is representing the project in
context.
- If not, why not?
- If so, do his personal attacks using sexualized terms constitute a breach
of the Code of Conduct?
I think a strong argument could be made for that. Either way, I don't
think it's the level of comment or discussion we want to encourage, so
whether or not it's a "violation", it's definitely something that's
bad.
- If not, why not?
- If so, what would the consequences be for Phil?
Depends on the precise version we adopt. I think having someone step
in and say "Phil, cut it out" would be enough. Though if he continues
to do it, then we may want to escalate further.
In general, I think the fact that we tolerate that sort of behavior is
insane. The fact that many in this thread are suggesting that "it
didn't happen on list, so we shouldn't care" is extremely narrow. We
should hold ourselves to a higher standard. We should commit ourselves
to treating each other fairly and with respect, even if we disagree
with that person. I know I have crossed that line before. I've also
apologized each time, and am honestly working hard to not do that
again. None of us are perfect in this regard.
What we're talking about isn't a "if you're not perfect, get out".
It's a "we know you won't be perfect, but that doesn't mean we should
tolerate bad behavior either".
Anthony
The fact that many in this thread are suggesting that "it didn't happen on list, so we shouldn't care" is extremely narrow.
To be clear, my position is not "we shouldn't care". For the record: care all you like, about whatever you like.
No, my position is: "the project should not be taking inside-project actions against people based on their outside-project activity." That's a very different thing.
I agree that it is narrow. It is intentionally so, to limit the action of this project to its proper scope.
Now, just because the project doesn't do something, does not mean interested individuals cannot do something. If you personally, or you and a group of like-minded, want to go after someone for what you consider to be bad behavior on outside-project channels, be my guest, and you can enjoy the results (good or bad) for yourselves.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Let's look at this from the perspective of a conflict mediation standpoint
Keith,
On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 11:38 AM, D Keith Casey keith@caseysoftware.com
wrote:Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
I agree with your position on most of this, Paul. However, free email,
and thus, Twitter and other social media accounts are nearly
unlimited. It becomes an arms race to try and block someone.Brian.
Simply cutting off contact (either by the receiver of harassment or
otherwise) isn't the entire goal. There are least 2 others:
- Harassment does not need to be direct. If I were to start tweeting
up a hostile, insulting storm about someone else on this list, by name
and talking about PHP Internals business, but not tweeting @ that
person, them blocking me isn't going to accomplish anything. The harm
isn't that they are seeing the message necessarily, it's that everyone
else I know is seeing it, many of whom that person may not even know.
That's still an attack on a person's reputation, and damaging to the
person.Good scenario but we don't have to be hypothetical. Let's apply it to the
real world of this week:Throughout this discussion, Paul Jones has been active and - despite
vocally
attacking the proposal - I have yet to see him attack anyone in general.And then Phil Sturgeon else used a sexualized term to insult Paul to his
~16k followers but didn't name him: https://archive.is/oeekTWhile Phil claims this is not sexualized, Urban Dictionary disagrees but
then he follows it up with a claim that he doesn't represent the project
anyway: https://archive.is/TA2YPAccording to the definition including attending conferences that use the
PHP
logo and active in PHP channels, he does.And then Phil follows it up with another more potentially damaging
attack -
again, without naming Paul - https://archive.is/Z3zNyAnd finally, it turns out it's all Phil is blocking Paul anyway -
https://archive.is/6iZQY - so Paul wouldn't even have see the attacks to
defend himself or report to the PHP Code of Conduct group.So my questions:
- In his day to day interactions, would Phil be considered a
representative
of the PHP team?In normal day-to-day interactions? No, I don't think so. In this case,
considering he's directly discussing the project at the time, I think
that it would be fair to say he is representing the project in
context.Conflict mediation is a tool for any members of the community to attempt
to resolve their conflicts. In this case, both Phil and whatever party or
parties were harmed by his tweets would be eligible to utilize the service.
Conflict mediation isn't about telling anyone how to act, and there isn't
any restrictions on where behavior took place. It's a way of supporting
other members of the community.
- If not, why not?
- If so, do his personal attacks using sexualized terms constitute a
breach
of the Code of Conduct?I think a strong argument could be made for that. Either way, I don't
think it's the level of comment or discussion we want to encourage, so
whether or not it's a "violation", it's definitely something that's
bad.Again, we do need to even talk about encouraging or discouraging anything.
If someone feels they were harmed in some way by his post, they are free to
seek mediation.
- If not, why not?
- If so, what would the consequences be for Phil?
Depends on the precise version we adopt. I think having someone step
in and say "Phil, cut it out" would be enough. Though if he continues
to do it, then we may want to escalate further.Again, no need for the community to decide right and wrong/civil and
uncivil.
In general, I think the fact that we tolerate that sort of behavior is
insane. The fact that many in this thread are suggesting that "it
didn't happen on list, so we shouldn't care" is extremely narrow. We
should hold ourselves to a higher standard. We should commit ourselves
to treating each other fairly and with respect, even if we disagree
with that person. I know I have crossed that line before. I've also
apologized each time, and am honestly working hard to not do that
again. None of us are perfect in this regard.I agree, on a personal level. I don't think we should personally accept
such behavior. However, I don't believe it's right for a few members to
decide what the community as a whole does and does not accept.
What we're talking about isn't a "if you're not perfect, get out".
It's a "we know you won't be perfect, but that doesn't mean we should
tolerate bad behavior either".Anthony
--
Like I said, a conflict mediation system removes all need for the community
to take a stance on anything that could potentially misrepresent some of it
members. Instead, it's about offering support to members that feel they
have been harmed by other members of the community.
--
-- Chase
chasepeeler@gmail.com
Hi!
And then Phil Sturgeon else used a sexualized term to insult Paul to his
~16k followers but didn't name him: https://archive.is/oeekT
I think that is a clear example of something that would be prohibited by
CoC. We do not need to split hairs here about what each exact word
means, it is a clear personal attack. Now, I wonder, what supporters of
CoC propose to do here? It's a genuine question. Before we put code in
production, we make test cases. So here's test case. Anybody wants to do
some TDD?
Of course, since we have no CoC and CRT now, it would be purely
theoretical. But it would illustrate what would happen if we did and
would allow to decide if it's better or worse.
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.
Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become unfair.
As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it be randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of voters. Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.
Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust
to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are
fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any direction?
If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should
all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become
unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it be
randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of voters.
Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it
distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few
members.Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
I think it's the least bad way of doing something that is inherently bad,
at least among what has been proposed so far.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.comModernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphpSolving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php--
--
-- Chase
chasepeeler@gmail.com
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust
to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are
fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any direction?
If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should
all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become
unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it be
randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of voters.
Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it
distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few
members.Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
I would prefer to see the team picked for the next occurence immediately
after one happens. This way, if the resolution can be handled by just
having a calm conversation with the interested parties, then there is no
need to make it public. Instead, the mediators would say "A conflict has
occurred and a new team needs to be in place".
Or maybe something like 1 month duty at a time, but team membership may
last beyond a month, if no conflicts were had during that month. IE, you
get put on the team, you may "serve" for a year if no conflicts arise. Or
you may only server for a month, if a conflict does arrive (I think an
upper bounds when no conflicts may not be required, but should be
considered if this suggestion is taken to heart at all).
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.comModernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphpSolving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
I would prefer to see the team picked for the next occurence immediately after one happens.
(/me ponders)
That leads to an interesting hypothetical situation: if you know in advance that there's a particular team in place, you can (if a malfeasor) send bogus reports until a team you like is in place, then send your intended report.
Or maybe something like 1 month duty at a time, but team membership may last beyond a month, if no conflicts were had during that month. IE, you get put on the team, you may "serve" for a year if no conflicts arise. Or you may only server for a month, if a conflict does arrive (I think an upper bounds when no conflicts may not be required, but should be considered if this suggestion is taken to heart at all).
(/me nods)
I think it leads to a similar situation: if you know the team that's in place, and you are a malfeasor, you can time your false-accusation to a team that is friendly.
Granted, I am paying attention to ways to game the system, but since we can be sure it will be gamed, I think it's prudent to do so.
Overall, I still assert that a reporter should not know in advance who will handle their report, other than "5 randomly chosen voting members" (similar to a jury pool).
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
I would prefer to see the team picked for the next occurence immediately
after one happens.(/me ponders)
That leads to an interesting hypothetical situation: if you know in
advance that there's a particular team in place, you can (if a malfeasor)
send bogus reports until a team you like is in place, then send your
intended report.Or maybe something like 1 month duty at a time, but team membership may
last beyond a month, if no conflicts were had during that month. IE, you
get put on the team, you may "serve" for a year if no conflicts arise. Or
you may only server for a month, if a conflict does arrive (I think an
upper bounds when no conflicts may not be required, but should be
considered if this suggestion is taken to heart at all).(/me nods)
I think it leads to a similar situation: if you know the team that's in
place, and you are a malfeasor, you can time your false-accusation to a
team that is friendly.Granted, I am paying attention to ways to game the system, but since we
can be sure it will be gamed, I think it's prudent to do so.Overall, I still assert that a reporter should not know in advance who
will handle their report, other than "5 randomly chosen voting members"
(similar to a jury pool).
These are good points, and I fully agree - which brings back the idea of a
dispatcher. Someone who receives a request, and press a button that
forwards it to 5 random people (preferably with mixed powers as mentioned
before).
OTOH, I don't really want to ever be randomly selected (but would fulfill
the duties required if selected, as I hope anyone on this list would).
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.
Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it be randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of voters. Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.
Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
Randomly selected: Absolutely not. I wouldn't randomly select someone
to make Ultimate Decision(tm) on a technical RFC, either. But if a
question about, say, a parser bug came up there are absolutely certain
people that I would trust with that question more than others, and defer
to their analysis/opinion more readily.
Related:
http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/experts-opinions
rather, I would suggest non-indefinite membership. As with the new FIG
secretaries, and as I've setup in similar bodies before, a rotating set
of "terms" is good as it maintains continuity without having the same
people always there forever. It also means that people can "roll off"
the group gracefully without being either fired or actively resigning.
A 2-3 year term makes the most sense to me for a team of 5. I don't see
a reason to have a term limit, though. If someone is doing well (as
defined by the voting public) and is willing to continue doing well, let
them keep doing well.
This would be a question to bring up with George, I think.
--
--Larry Garfield
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.
Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it be randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of voters. Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.
Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
Randomly selected: Absolutely not. I wouldn't randomly select someone to make Ultimate Decision(tm) on a technical RFC, either. But if a question about, say, a parser bug came up there are absolutely certain people that I would trust with that question more than others, and defer to their analysis/opinion more readily.
Certain people you would trust more than others, but that others would not trust more.
Also, this is a social/political realm, and not a technical realm; would you not trust, say, a randomly-selected jury to hear and decide on a case? If not, why not?
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.
Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it be randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of voters. Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.
Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
Randomly selected: Absolutely not. I wouldn't randomly select someone to make Ultimate Decision(tm) on a technical RFC, either. But if a question about, say, a parser bug came up there are absolutely certain people that I would trust with that question more than others, and defer to their analysis/opinion more readily.
Certain people you would trust more than others, but that others would not trust more.Also, this is a social/political realm, and not a technical realm; would you not trust, say, a randomly-selected jury to hear and decide on a case? If not, why not?
As many people, including both you and I, have said, we don't want to
focus on the "jury" aspect. Rather, we want to focus on conflict
resolution and mediation, not on hammer dropping. And conflict
resolution and mediation is not even remotely a universal skill. No, I
would not trust a "select a person at random" as a "defuse a situation"
role, not even a little.
--
--Larry Garfield
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Garfield [mailto:larry@garfieldtech.com]
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 9:51 PM
To: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of ConductOn Jan 8, 2016, at 12:16, Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
wrote:On Jan 7, 2016, at 23:52, Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
wrote:Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can
trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but
that
are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any
direction? If
not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should
all
just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.
Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can
become unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let
it be
randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of
voters.
Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it
distributes
power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
Randomly selected: Absolutely not. I wouldn't randomly select
someone
to make Ultimate Decision(tm) on a technical RFC, either. But if a
question
about, say, a parser bug came up there are absolutely certain people
that I
would trust with that question more than others, and defer to their
analysis/opinion more readily.
Certain people you would trust more than others, but that others
would not trust more.Also, this is a social/political realm, and not a technical realm;
would you not
trust, say, a randomly-selected jury to hear and decide on a case? If
not, why
not?As many people, including both you and I, have said, we don't want to
focus
on the "jury" aspect. Rather, we want to focus on conflict resolution
and
mediation, not on hammer dropping. And conflict resolution and
mediation
is not even remotely a universal skill. No, I would not trust a "select
a person
at random" as a "defuse a situation"
role, not even a little.
As I said in my other note, I agree 100%.
I think the problem is that the RFC right now goes well beyond mediation,
and so far, I haven't heard willingness to let go of these extra elements
or break them into a separate RFC.
So we're, in effect, discussing several things at the same time, with this
fundamental issue remaining undetermined.
If it's a mediation team and not a judicial/jury one, then everything
happening in private becomes a non-issue and very natural. Having the
most skilled people to mediate becomes a no brainer, as there's no real
risk for abuse of power.
Deciding how these people get elected and where discussion happens should
only happen after we establish what jurisdiction they have in the first
place, otherwise, we're discussing it backwards IMHO.
Zeev
Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.
Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it be randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of voters. Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.
Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
Randomly selected: Absolutely not. I wouldn't randomly select someone to make Ultimate Decision(tm) on a technical RFC, either. But if a question about, say, a parser bug came up there are absolutely certain people that I would trust with that question more than others, and defer to their analysis/opinion more readily.
Certain people you would trust more than others, but that others would not trust more.Also, this is a social/political realm, and not a technical realm; would you not trust, say, a randomly-selected jury to hear and decide on a case? If not, why not?
As many people, including both you and I, have said, we don't want to focus on the "jury" aspect.
(/me nods)
If there must be a response team, I would prefer the "mediator" approach, as you note.
However, the RFC as I last saw it is not a "mediator" approach, but a "judicial" one. If it is to be a "judicial" approach, my suggestion stands. If/when the RFC changes to a "mediator" approach, I will change my suggestions to fit the modified RFC.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
On Jan 8, 2016, at 12:16, Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
wrote:On Jan 7, 2016, at 23:52, Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
wrote:Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can
trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that
are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any
direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope and
we should all just give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at
all.
Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can
become unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let
it be randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of
voters. Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it
distributes power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few
members.Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
Randomly selected: Absolutely not. I wouldn't randomly select someone
to make Ultimate Decision(tm) on a technical RFC, either. But if a question
about, say, a parser bug came up there are absolutely certain people that I
would trust with that question more than others, and defer to their
analysis/opinion more readily.
Certain people you would trust more than others, but that others
would not trust more.Also, this is a social/political realm, and not a technical realm;
would you not trust, say, a randomly-selected jury to hear and decide on a
case? If not, why not?As many people, including both you and I, have said, we don't want to
focus on the "jury" aspect.(/me nods)
If there must be a response team, I would prefer the "mediator" approach,
as you note.However, the RFC as I last saw it is not a "mediator" approach, but a
"judicial" one. If it is to be a "judicial" approach, my suggestion stands.
If/when the RFC changes to a "mediator" approach, I will change my
suggestions to fit the modified RFC.
Agreed, I think a mediator approach works best. I also agree with Zeev,
that said mediator(s) should be picked not at random but for their ability
to diffuse a situation. If a situation requires a "judicial" process, then
I think at that point it should be a community decision.
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul M. Jones [mailto:pmjones88@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 7:28 PM
To: Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of ConductOn Jan 7, 2016, at 23:52, Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
wrote:Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can
trust
to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that
are
fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any
direction? If not,
then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should all
just
give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become
unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it
be
randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of
voters.
Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it
distributes
power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
I think that depends on the nature of the response team.
If it's a mediation team, with the sole purpose to mediate - but otherwise
cannot impose a solution - it's actually better to have a 'professional'
one, rather than a random one. I'd still have them voted on and changed
every so often (2 years that Larry proposed sounds reasonable), but given
the almost nonexistent risk of abuse, it's not much of a concern.
If it's a judicial body of any sort - then it's a lot more complicated.
I'm not sold on a randomly chosen team - but I think it is superior to a
voted team. FWIW, it's quite different from a jury - as there's no judge
to guide things through, and there is no law to refer to.
Zeev
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul M. Jones [mailto:pmjones88@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 7:28 PM
To: Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of ConductOn Jan 7, 2016, at 23:52, Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
wrote:Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can
trust
to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that
are
fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in any
direction? If not,
then the community is already lost beyond all hope and we should all
just
give up now. I do not believe that to be the case, at all.Too long spent in a position of power, and even the most fair can become
unfair.As I have suggested before: if there is to be a response team, let it
be
randomly selected on per-reported-incident basis from the pool of
voters.
Then there is no possibility of a charge of continuing bias, and it
distributes
power among the pool, instead of concentrating it into a few members.Proponents of the response team: thoughts?
I think that depends on the nature of the response team.
If it's a mediation team, with the sole purpose to mediate - but otherwise
cannot impose a solution - it's actually better to have a 'professional'
one, rather than a random one. I'd still have them voted on and changed
every so often (2 years that Larry proposed sounds reasonable), but given
the almost nonexistent risk of abuse, it's not much of a concern.If it's a judicial body of any sort - then it's a lot more complicated.
I'm not sold on a randomly chosen team - but I think it is superior to a
voted team. FWIW, it's quite different from a jury - as there's no judge
to guide things through, and there is no law to refer to.
Both fair points. (FWIW I'm not in favor of a judicial response team at all, but if there is to be one, randomly-selected is less-bad than a standing team.)
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Why not? The harassment has been nullified.
I agree with your position on most of this, Paul. However, free email, and thus, Twitter and other social media accounts are nearly unlimited. It becomes an arms race to try and block someone.
(/me nods)
I think that sounds like valuable criteria to include under "determining if it's harassment or not". If someone is so dedicated to coming after their target that they start creating multiple accounts, then I think that's at least a relatively objective measure. Likewise, if you block someone in two or three outside-project channels, and the same messages start showing up in even more outside-project channels, that too becomes something close to an objective measure of harassment.
Even so, there's a flip side. If someone want to make a false accusation as an attack to get their target banned, the false accuser can create those accounts themselves and start projecting a harassment campaign where none exists. So even the existence of alternative accounts used to continue otherwise-blocked communications is not a certain measure.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
Hi!
If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.
If somebody harasses the other person on Twitter, how exactly banning
this person from internals list is going to make that stop?
Saying that we "do not care" because it does not happen inside php.net
would be very hypocrite and makes the CoC totally useless.I agree it
That assumes all the value of CoC lies exclusively in its punitive
power. I though we are past that and all agreed that it is not the case.
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
If somebody harasses the other person on Twitter, how exactly banning
this person from internals list is going to make that stop?
It doesn't.
What it means is the other person can open their PHP-DEV email folder
and know that there's not going to be any subtle crap from the person
that is harassing waiting for them when they want to contribute to
PHP.
I'm growing tired of this argument. We also do not know how many
contributors we may have lost because we do not sacrifice a goat monthly
to the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
We can't know for sure.
But what we can do is compare the ratio of women vs men who contribute
to PHP internals, and think that maybe, just maybe, if a project is
almost solely comprised of one gender, then possibly we've
accidentally done some stuff that drives 50% of the population away.
cheers
Dan
What it means is the other person can open their PHP-DEV email folder
and know that there's not going to be any subtle crap from the person
that is harassing waiting for them when they want to contribute to
PHP.
Once they have blocked/muted/junk-foldered the person-that-is-harassing, there will have been little for them to see in the first place.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
What it means is the other person can open their PHP-DEV email folder
and know that there's not going to be any subtle crap from the person
that is harassing waiting for them when they want to contribute to
PHP.Once they have blocked/muted/junk-foldered the person-that-is-harassing, there will have been little for them to see in the first place.
And github issues.
And bug.php.net
And the harassser can still go in and "help tidy up" any commits they
make with sarky comments.
And so on.....
But the basic point is that the person who is getting harassed has to
spend energy to avoid the problem.
f they've got a legitimate complaint and have already received enough
crap to justify a complaint, are they actually going to do that, or
are they just going to say 'forget PHP' and go off to a work on
something where they don't need to put up with crap?
Dan
Hi!
What it means is the other person can open their PHP-DEV email folder
and know that there's not going to be any subtle crap from the person
that is harassing waiting for them when they want to contribute to
PHP.
I though we were discussing applying CoC outside php lists. PHP-DEV
email folder is certainly not something outside, and applying CoC to PHP
projects was not controversial and not the point of the discussion.
On the other hand, it is a documented phenomenon that there are people
going around and filing complaints demanding to remove a person from the
project because that person (in completely unrelated discussion having
nothing to do with the project) voiced an opinion that was contrary to
complainer's beliefs. I don't think we want to invite that here.
But what we can do is compare the ratio of women vs men who contribute
to PHP internals, and think that maybe, just maybe, if a project is
almost solely comprised of one gender, then possibly we've
accidentally done some stuff that drives 50% of the population away.
Given these ratios are in no way unique to this project, and continue to
hold in projects having CoCs, I think this hypothesis (that it caused by
something we, as in PHP community, did) is very likely to be false.
More likely, this ratio has to do with factors having nothing to do with
our community, or us having CoC, and having CoC would have absolutely
zero measurable effect on it.
On the side note, blindly grasping around on the principle "maybe we did
something, we don't know what or how, so let's take actions that we
don't know if they would help or not and have zero empirical basis to
evaluate them, but since we can't rigorously prove they wouldn't let's
do it anyway" does not sound like rational strategy to me.
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Given these ratios are in no way unique to this project, and continue to
hold in projects having CoCs, I think this hypothesis (that it caused by
something we, as in PHP community, did) is very likely to be false.
More likely, this ratio has to do with factors having nothing to do with
our community, or us having CoC, and having CoC would have absolutely
zero measurable effect on it.On the side note, blindly grasping around on the principle "maybe we did
something, we don't know what or how, so let's take actions that we
don't know if they would help or not and have zero empirical basis to
evaluate them, but since we can't rigorously prove they wouldn't let's
do it anyway" does not sound like rational strategy to me.
Hear, hear. I have seen that approach described elsewhere thusly, on an economics blog of all places: "We must do something; this is something; therefore, we must do this."
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.com
Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphp
Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php
On the other hand, it is a documented phenomenon that there are people
going around and filing complaints demanding to remove a person from the
project because that person (in completely unrelated discussion having
nothing to do with the project) voiced an opinion that was contrary to
complainer's beliefs. I don't think we want to invite that here.
It is not what I am referring to but harassment, insults, attacks or
similar events. I do not think we need to discuss endlessly that we
obviously don't ban someone for having an opinion. Except indeed if
someone opinion is about considering some people as in inferior and
acts accordingly (for example).
But what we can do is compare the ratio of women vs men who contribute
to PHP internals, and think that maybe, just maybe, if a project is
almost solely comprised of one gender, then possibly we've
accidentally done some stuff that drives 50% of the population away.Given these ratios are in no way unique to this project, and continue to
hold in projects having CoCs, I think this hypothesis (that it caused by
something we, as in PHP community, did) is very likely to be false.
More likely, this ratio has to do with factors having nothing to do with
our community, or us having CoC, and having CoC would have absolutely
zero measurable effect on it.On the side note, blindly grasping around on the principle "maybe we did
something, we don't know what or how, so let's take actions that we
don't know if they would help or not and have zero empirical basis to
evaluate them, but since we can't rigorously prove they wouldn't let's
do it anyway" does not sound like rational strategy to me.
It is not about taking actions now blindly but to create a structure
that allows to create action when necessary, after investigations,
discussions and decisions, with common sense in mind during all these
processes. Is it not obvious? I feel like you keep come back to
extreme cases where common sense should apply. I agree that we have
seen cases where it happened. So let try to prevent them here. But not
at the price of creating a CoC with no power to actually ban someone
if necessary (even if I am sure it will happen extremely rarely).
Cheers,
Pierre
@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org
Hi!
It is not what I am referring to but harassment, insults, attacks or
similar events. I do not think we need to discuss endlessly that we
Proposed CoC says "insulting/derogatory comments" and "[o]ther unethical
or unprofessional conduct". And that can be (and in some cases has been)
treated very broadly - from "how can an ethical person support that
fraud of a politician X" to "your statement in support of policy Y is
offensive to group Z and therefore is insulting and derogatory". I want
to avoid that as much as possible upfront.
It is not about taking actions now blindly but to create a structure
that allows to create action when necessary, after investigations,
discussions and decisions, with common sense in mind during all these
processes. Is it not obvious? I feel like you keep come back to
What I am trying to say is that supporting doing something with argument
"we don't know if this is needed or if it would help, but since we can't
conclusively prove it would not we must do it" - is a very bad argument.
extreme cases where common sense should apply. I agree that we have
seen cases where it happened. So let try to prevent them here. But not
at the price of creating a CoC with no power to actually ban someone
if necessary (even if I am sure it will happen extremely rarely).
We already have power to ban someone, that doesn't need to be created.
The question is how this power is to be applied.
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Hi!
If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.If somebody harasses the other person on Twitter, how exactly banning
this person from internals list is going to make that stop?Saying that we "do not care" because it does not happen inside php.net
would be very hypocrite and makes the CoC totally useless.I agree itThat assumes all the value of CoC lies exclusively in its punitive
power. I though we are past that and all agreed that it is not the case.
I disagree. But to just look in the other direction because an event
happened outside php.net will be like "ooh you have been bad here, but no
biggie, nothing will happen to you here <little tap on the shoulder>". Is
it what you suggest?
And again, keeping in mind that these will be extreme cases, it is still
important to handle them. And to ignore them has not something I could
consider as a good thing.
Hi Stas.
Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
If someone starts to put bad pressure on another person (harassment,
insults, personal attacks, etc) trying to make this person either
abandon an idea, RFC or even to force this person to leave the
project, the attacker will most likely use non php.net's channel.If somebody harasses the other person on Twitter, how exactly banning
this person from internals list is going to make that stop?
Banning someone from the PHP project might well stop someone if they
value their PHP participation over their personal vendetta.
But if it doesn't, it at least signals that the PHP project does not
accept harassment from its members, and does not want harassers in its
community.
Saying that we "do not care" because it does not happen inside php.net
would be very hypocrite and makes the CoC totally useless.I agree itThat assumes all the value of CoC lies exclusively in its punitive
power. I though we are past that and all agreed that it is not the case.
A code of conduct without an enforcement mechanism is useless. It's very
nice to be able to say that we don't condone harassment or abuse, or
that personal attacks or publishing personal information are not
acceptable, but if we can't enforce it, then it falls down the moment
someone actually does one of these things. In fact, it becomes worse
than useless: you have a big, shining banner that says you have to be
civil, yet people actually aren't.
The point isn't to be 'punitive' anyway. You don't strip people of their
contribution privileges to make them suffer. You do so because you
either want to force them to think about their actions for a bit, or
because you don't want them to cause any more trouble.
Now, the statement that 'the value of a CoC lies exclusively in its
punitive power' is, to an extent, true. A CoC is useful in and of
itself, in that it tells people you care about creating a civil
community. But if you don't actually do the work to keep the community
to that standard, that value very quickly disappears.
Thanks.
Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/
Hi!
A code of conduct without an enforcement mechanism is useless. It's very
nice to be able to say that we don't condone harassment or abuse, or
that personal attacks or publishing personal information are not
acceptable, but if we can't enforce it, then it falls down the moment
But we can. We can enforce it - and have enforced it, as it was
conveniently pointed out - already. The question is do we need
additional enforcement mechanism because one we had so far is not enough.
someone actually does one of these things. In fact, it becomes worse
than useless: you have a big, shining banner that says you have to be
civil, yet people actually aren't.
Aren't they? So far, despite the examples brought forward, I thought in
general they (we) are keeping within bounds of civility, and while
discussion here, under our banner, can at times get extremely
frustrating and annoying, it does not transform into harassment. Of
course, it very well may not be the case outside the banner, but CoC
enforcement is not going to do much about that.
Am I wrong about this?
The point isn't to be 'punitive' anyway. You don't strip people of their
contribution privileges to make them suffer. You do so because you
either want to force them to think about their actions for a bit, or
It is very dangerous path when you try to control what other people are
thinking about. The only reason to remove somebody from the community,
in my opinion, is if it is not possible to preserve/restore environment
that we want to have in the community otherwise. "Make them think" is
not a valid reason - first, they won't, and second, it's not our
business to control who's thinking what.
Now, the statement that 'the value of a CoC lies exclusively in its
punitive power' is, to an extent, true. A CoC is useful in and of
itself, in that it tells people you care about creating a civil
community. But if you don't actually do the work to keep the community
to that standard, that value very quickly disappears.
If the community is not willing to uphold values in CoC, then no
enforcement can happen - there would be nobody to enforce it. CoC is not
some magic entity that is going to hold us accountable, it's just
something we promise to ourselves to do. If we do not keep that promise,
how making another promise to keep it "and this time we mean it" is
going to help?
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Hi all,
As I have stated previously, I find the Contributor Covenant text objectionable, in that it couples person, project, and politics, so that the person becomes answerable to the project for their politics.
If there simply must be a code of conduct, they should be decoupled. To that end, I propose that the entire "Code Of Conduct Text" in the RFC be removed, and replaced with this single sentence:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels without regard to the contributor's experience,
ability, identity, body, religion, politics, or activity
outside of project channels.Alternatively, if that's not specific enough, use this single sentence instead:
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels (such as reporting issues, posting feature requests,
updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches,
and other project activities) without regard to the
contributor's level of experience, gender, gender identity
and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal
appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion,
nationality, politics, or activity outside of project
channels.Both of these use language cribbed from the Contributor Covenant, and add explicit protections for politics and other activity outside the project. This decouples person, politics, and project from each other, leaving each with its own separate sphere of influence. It also removes the scope of resulting actions-to-be-taken from the expectations of conduct, and leaves it to the conflict resolution language.
The replacement is restricted to project channels only. I predict, based on earlier comments, that some will object to this. I opine that it is beyond the scope of the project to either reward or punish members for their activity outside channels owned by the project. Even so, conflict in non-project channels does occur. As such, I suggest adding the following text (or substantially similar text) to the conflict resolution language:
Q: What about conflict outside of project channels?
A: If you feel conflict via a non-project channel is
unbearable, you should handle the incident(s) using the
means provided by that channel. For example:- If you feel you are being abused via Twitter, you might block or mute the person(s) you feel are abusing you, and/or report the abuse to Twitter. - If you feel you are being harassed via email, you could set up a rule to delete or junk emails from the person(s) you feel are harassing you. - If you feel you are subject to a credible threat of physical harm, you should report it to law enforcement.Finally, although the original RFC text does not define "project spaces", I think that "project channels" should be defined; for example, the official PHP accounts on Github, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as all php.net mailing lists, and perhaps even all php.net email accounts.
--
Paul M. Jones
pmjones88@gmail.com
http://paul-m-jones.comModernizing Legacy Applications in PHP
https://leanpub.com/mlaphpSolving the N+1 Problem in PHP
https://leanpub.com/sn1php--
I like this a lot. If the goal is to send a clear message that all are welcome to contribute, this does it. And it promises that the project itself will never target you just because others in the community find you or your opinions objectionable (and as has been made clear several times in this discussion, whether someone finds you objectionable is an entirely subjective judgement on their part).
What worries several of us in this discussion is very real possibility that the CoC and/or the tribunal would encourage or enable that kind of targeting.
Kevin Smith
http://gohearsay.com
Hi!
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels without regard to the contributor's experience,
ability, identity, body, religion, politics, or activity
outside of project channels.
This makes sense. I would not object to adding the positive values
stuff, like in examples already cited, too. Except for the part where we
talk about experience - this is just not true, when evaluating
contribution we would definitely treat code from somebody who spent last
5 years digging into the engine and code from somebody who never
contributed before at least somewhat differently (the latter would
probably get more scrutiny). That's just a fact. That does not mean we
would reject new contributors outright or subject them to different code
standards, for example - but promising blanket "without regard" seems
promising something we have no capability or intent to deliver.
"Ability" is also ambiguous - I think I know what you mean there, but
it may be also read as a promise that we will evaluate contributions
regardless of contributor's ability to actually produce good
code/text/whatever it is, which is obviously not true.
Alternatively, if that's not specific enough, use this single sentence instead:
I don't think we need to over-specify, that only leads to more rule
lawyering ("I called her X, which is not on the list, so she has no
right to feel insulted!").
--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
The way I see this, and I believe others do as well based on the previous
recommendation to split this into two RFCs, is there are two goals:
1.) Making it clear that the community welcomes all individuals
2.) A means for handling conflict resolution.
To me, #1 doesn't really fall into a "Code of Conduct" as much as it does a
"Mission Statement." I would also question the need for such a statement
beyond making us feel all warm and fuzzy. Do we fear people that aren't
joining the community because they don't know if they would be welcome are
suddenly going to change their minds just because we have a sentence or two
saying so? Either way, I think Paul's suggestion works wonderfully for this.
In terms of the conflict resolution/mediation, I would say that we should
be open to resolving any conflict between members of the community. Since
it is about mediation to help the parties reach a solution, instead of
enacting punishments, the "well, this happened on twitter, and we can't
control someone's twitter account" isn't an issue.
On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 12:32 PM Stanislav Malyshev smalyshev@gmail.com
wrote:
Hi!
We are committed to evaluating contributions within project
channels without regard to the contributor's experience,
ability, identity, body, religion, politics, or activity
outside of project channels.This makes sense. I would not object to adding the positive values
stuff, like in examples already cited, too. Except for the part where we
talk about experience - this is just not true, when evaluating
contribution we would definitely treat code from somebody who spent last
5 years digging into the engine and code from somebody who never
contributed before at least somewhat differently (the latter would
probably get more scrutiny). That's just a fact. That does not mean we
would reject new contributors outright or subject them to different code
standards, for example - but promising blanket "without regard" seems
promising something we have no capability or intent to deliver.
"Ability" is also ambiguous - I think I know what you mean there, but
it may be also read as a promise that we will evaluate contributions
regardless of contributor's ability to actually produce good
code/text/whatever it is, which is obviously not true.Alternatively, if that's not specific enough, use this single sentence
instead:I don't think we need to over-specify, that only leads to more rule
lawyering ("I called her X, which is not on the list, so she has no
right to feel insulted!").--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com--
--
-- Chase
chasepeeler@gmail.com
Le 06/01/2016 20:38, Ryan Pallas a écrit :
I agree, a conflict resolution document and team seems infinitely
better.
This team's job is to resolve things quietly and without further incident,
however if action may be required - its an open vote (as previously
suggested).Agreed. 'Don't be evil' is sufficient as a CoC. Anything we add to this
will be redundant, ambiguous, and subject to interpretations.
If you had but an inkling of the irony in that sentence ...
--
<hype>
WWW: plphp.dk / plind.dk
CV: careers.stackoverflow.com/peterlind
LinkedIn: plind
Twitter: kafe15
</hype
Hi François,
François Laupretre wrote:
Le 06/01/2016 20:38, Ryan Pallas a écrit :
I agree, a conflict resolution document and team seems infinitely
better.
This team's job is to resolve things quietly and without further
incident,
however if action may be required - its an open vote (as previously
suggested).Agreed. 'Don't be evil' is sufficient as a CoC. Anything we add to this
will be redundant, ambiguous, and subject to interpretations.
'Don't be evil' is not sufficient because 'evil' is incredibly
subjective. Is harassment evil? Are personal attacks evil? Is trolling
evil? Is publishing someone's personal information evil? Is using
sexualised language evil? Worse, 'Evil' is particularly bad because it
concerns morality; personally, I'm not sure if I'd consider everything
convered by a code of conduct as necessarily evil. And the job of a code
of conduct is not to act as a moral code. A code of conduct states
what is socially acceptable, not what will send you to hell. Not even
the law has that job.
And that's just concerning how something like 'don't be evil' can be too
narow in scope. It can also be far too broad: evil, of course, extends
beyond the realm of the PHP community. And there are perhaps 'evil'
actions which we would consider acceptable behaviour. In some religions
the consumption of alcohol is forbidden, and yet consuming alcohol as a
member of the PHP community is completely acceptable, indeed some PHP
meetups take place in establishments dedicated to serving alcoholic drinks.
An actual code of conduct, like the Contributor Covenant, is much more
useful. Though, as with any code, it does contain ambiguities, it is
clearer as to what is unacceptable. It doesn't leave everything open to
the multitude of possible interpretations of a single concept.
Furthermore, I would posit that redundancy is subjective and not
necessarily bad. While you might consider everything in a hypothetical
code of conduct to be redundant if the first line is just "Don't be
evil", as I have already discussed, other people may not consider all of
the following behaviours to be covered by that first line.
Replacing the code of conduct with those three words wouldn't leave it
less open to interpretation. It would make there be no code at all, and
the only enforcement be that of the personal perceptions of the
moderators as to what 'evil' constitutes.
Thanks.
--
Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/
Hi!
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.
I love it how The Law spends so much text and yet leaves so much
unspecified and open to interpretation. Basically it says "offense is
being threatening, abusive or insulting". But what is "abusive"? What is
"insulting"? Even "threatening" is unclear - is "if you do this, you'll
regret it very soon" a threat or mere prediction of the unintended
consequences?
"Causing another person distress" is unbelievably open to abuse - I can
say STH RFC caused me much distress, so would somebody publishing it be
harasser now? It's basically "if I disagree with you a lot, you are
guilty" kind of clause.
The key part of that is "intent". I do note that it doesn't include the
The problem with "intent" that knowing it for sure is requires telepathy
and time travel to work, and both are still very much TBD ;)
--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Hi Stas,
Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
Hi!
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.I love it how The Law spends so much text and yet leaves so much
unspecified and open to interpretation. Basically it says "offense is
being threatening, abusive or insulting". But what is "abusive"? What is
"insulting"? Even "threatening" is unclear - is "if you do this, you'll
regret it very soon" a threat or mere prediction of the unintended
consequences?
"Causing another person distress" is unbelievably open to abuse - I can
say STH RFC caused me much distress, so would somebody publishing it be
harasser now? It's basically "if I disagree with you a lot, you are
guilty" kind of clause.The key part of that is "intent". I do note that it doesn't include the
The problem with "intent" that knowing it for sure is requires telepathy
and time travel to work, and both are still very much TBD ;)
Sure. Again, inevitably any code of conduct is somewhat vague and
requires trust in the maintainers to be reasonable.
Thanks.
Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/
I love it how The Law spends so much text and yet leaves so much
unspecified and open to interpretation.
Welcome to Common Law. Defining the details is basically the job of judges, applying the intent of the law to individual cases as they come up. This generally turns out to be better than trying to codify every possible scenario in advance and leaving loopholes - as long as you trust your judiciary!
Regards,
--
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]
I love it how The Law spends so much text and yet leaves so much
unspecified and open to interpretation.Welcome to Common Law. Defining the details is basically the job of judges, applying the intent of the law to individual cases as they come up. This generally turns out to be better than trying to codify every possible scenario in advance and leaving loopholes - as long as you trust your judiciary!
That works for the Common Law, because professionals with specialized education and training do this, but it does not work for a CoC, where a bunch of well-intentioned amateurs (and no, that's not intended to be offensive, but an objective observation; it's quite sad that I have to point that out) are expected to perform the ruling that allows "the law" to evolve.
Hi Andrea,
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".
That it is omitted from the letter of the law is more important than you
think, it is omitted precisely because it is a blanket term.
Those things that the law prohibits have definitions either in law, or in
morality, it is those things that we should be trying to protect
contributors from.
I accept that there has to be a level of trust in the council enforcing the
code, I have to trust them to determine if something is intentional, or
malicious. The definition of intent and malice should not vary much between
individuals, however the definition of offence does. I cannot trust someone
else's sensibilities.
The aim of the thing is laudable, but the word offence doesn't belong.
Cheers
Joe
Hi Joe,
Joe Watkins wrote:
Morning internalz,
I'm going to keep it simple, because I'm sure everybody is getting abit bored ...
I object to the idea that we should try to limit "offence" ... it'snot
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/
Hi!
Exhibit B: https://archive.is/dgilk (the threatening language at the
end is particularly chilling)
I think this kind of clearly polarizing and politicizing language and
this kind of threats and abuse of process which is designed to protect
people from abuse to bully them into accepting specific point is
something we want to steer clear from.
Fortunately, our community seems to have a blessing of being able to
rationally discuss this topic without getting into such extremes, so it
is not true in our case that people that support CoC come from the place
of politics and not just want to improve the community.
--
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com
Hi Nate,
Nate Abele wrote:
Hi Rowan,
It looks like you're replying to someone here, yet your email isn't
threaded as part of the main discussion by my newsgroup client
(SeaMonkey). Is this intentional?
Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/