Re: Add Code of Conduct (issue 575620043 by address@hidden)

[David Kastrup]

Janek Warchoł <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi,
>
> śr., 5 lut 2020, 00:34 użytkownik <address@hidden> napisał:
>
>> What problem are we trying to solve here?
>>
>
> In short, it's been found (I think Mike will be able to give you specific
> examples) that having code of conduct encourages contributions from
> newcomers.

I rather think that a friendly atmosphere encourages contributions from
newcomers.  Whether an upfront requirement to commit to a set of rules
with an enforcement team is perceived as a guarantee of a friendly
atmosphere is debatable.

So this issue would seem more pressing if there is evidence of people
acting in a way on the LilyPond lists denying people the opportunity to
contribute in a generally friendly atmosphere.

If that is not the case, the proposed solution involves censure and
eventual removement by a team of 3 enforcement officers.  Now of the
proposed team, two have already expressed personal issues with the way I
am conversing with the list, so given the generally very welcoming
atmosphere in the LilyPond lists, the principal impact to be expected on
LilyPond development appears to have an official body entitled to
censure my behavior and eventually, out of a sense of duty, remove me.

I have had this kind of backroom diplomacy remove me from one choir
after almost a year of intense work (I am an asset as a good sight
reader) before the first concert I could have participated in, and I
quit another choir I had worked hard for for five years after getting
censured by a choir committee after I had publicly answered a question
about whether a singing engagement at a choir member's birthday
celebration or else (things I participated in as a rule but would not be
foolish enough to ask for myself) should also involve a more tangible
present from the general choir funds.

I quit that choir since my personal and communication skills do not
allow me to take corrective action without actually communicating to the
offended party, and thus being censured via an official anonymous
complaint channel gave me no option of compensating for my well-known
deficiencies, and getting referred to via channels intended for
denunciation was not my idea of being part of a community.

Since judging from my personal past, the foreseeable impact on my
personal ability to keep participating as a community member given such
a mechanism will be high, the question is how much of a benefit is to be
expected for others from having a formalized committee where everyone,
on pain of getting expulsed themselves, is only doing their duty.

Now it is not that hard, given obvious public backing, to get me off a
list.  Andy Wingo has banned me from participating on the Guile
developer list, and I have pretty much obeyed that ban on the spot (with
at most a few replies a year creeping through when I followed
conversations and inadvertantly replied) even though it was not enacted
with technical measures.

The general stance of the GNU project on its internal lists is to rely
more on education and admonishment than official committees, censure,
and exclusion.

It can be read at
<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html>.  This document
is not focused on enforcement: instead it is a rationale for people with
problematic communication about why and how they could try to improve.

That is assuming, of course, that people are not recklessly engaging in
unwelcoming behavior: for open-and-shut cases, it tends to be within the
authority of a basic list administrator to take action.  This has
happened on LilyPond lists I think, but very rarely so.  The list
administrator doing duty here is not as much affiliated with LilyPond as
being a volunteer of GNU.  I think.  It's embarrassing that I don't even
know for sure, but that's the way things turn out that just work.

So in light of my personal experiences with this kind of backroom
channel (and it's worth noting that even the cited Linux developer list
removed the corrective measures part from the CoC they are using), I
would very much like to see some more imminent reason of why LilyPond
would stand to benefit from adopting a code and accepting a corrective
committee that has basically proposed itself rather than being the
result of a list-wide election and where just one member has been a
permanent fixture on the lists for a longer amount of time at this
moment.

-- 
David Kastrup