Re: Cause for bans

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi John,

John Darrington <jmd@gnu.org> skribis:

> After all, the reason that these proposed "social contracts", "codes of 
> conduct"
> and their ilk have caused so many people to become very angry, is because of 
> the way that they call for persons to be expelled if they disagree with 
> whoever
> is in control.

Just a note: we called for the discussion of a GNU Social Contract, not
for that of a code of conduct.  It seems entirely responsible from
people running the wiki to ensure that the wiki is not used to harass
others, and the code of conduct is a way to state these rules upfront;
but again, that really applies to work on the wiki space.

The draft of the Social Contract at
<https://wiki.gnu.tools/gnu:social-contract> does not mention how people
should be “expelled” if they “disagree”.  On the contrary: it’s about
building a shared understanding of what some (hopefully most!) of us
commit to as members of the Project.

We tried to make it clear in the email sent out to maintainers:

  https://wiki.gnu.tools/git/gnu-tools-wiki/tree/code/sc-email.txt

> I think that banning such people would make us guilty of the same crimes that
> they have committed.

Please do not misrepresent this initiative.  It’s about making GNU
stronger; you may disagree with the approach, but that doesn’t make it a
“crime” in any sense of the word.

I would like us to move forward: what do you think GNU will lose or gain
as a project if its members endorse a document stating its core values?
What would you add or remove to the values currently listed in the
draft?  What other initiatives would you propose to improve cohesion?

The February 9th deadline that we set for an initial version of the
Social Contract is approaching, and I think it’s a good time to focus on
the core discussion of what GNU is to us and what our commitments are.

Thank you,
Ludo’.