Re: Code of Conduct plan

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 4:17 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> There's been quite a lot of input, from quite a lot of people, dating
> back at least as far as a well-attended session at PGCon 2016. I find
> it quite upsetting to hear accusations that core is imposing this out
> of nowhere. From my perspective, we're responding to a real need
> voiced by other people, not so much by us.

Yeah, but there's a difference between input and agreement. I don't
think there's been a mailing list thread anywhere at any time where a
clear majority of the people on that thread supported the idea of a
code of conduct. I don't think that question has even been put. I
don't think there's ever been a developer meeting where by a show of
hands the idea of a CoC, much less the specific text, got a clear
majority. I don't think that any attempt has been made to do that,
either. Core is (thankfully) not usually given to imposing new rules
on the community; we normally operate by consensus. Why this specific
instance is an exception, as it certainly seems to be, is unclear to
me.

To be clear, I'm not saying that no harassment occurs in our
community. I suspect women get harassed at our conferences. I know
of only one specific incident that made me uncomfortable, and that was
quite a few years ago and the woman in question laughed it off when I
asked her if there was a problem, but I have heard rumors of other
things on occasion, and I just wouldn't be too surprised if we're not
all as nice in private as we pretend to be in public. And on the
other hand, I think that mailing list discussions step over the line
to harassment from time to time even though that's in full public
view. Regrettably, you and I have both been guilty of that from time
to time, as have many others. I know that I, personally, have been
trying to be a lot more careful about the way I phrase criticism in
recent years; I hope that has been noticeable, but I only see it from
my own perspective, so I don't know. Nonwithstanding, I would like to
see us, as a group, do better. We should tolerate less bad behavior
in ourselves and in others, and however good or bad we are today as
people, we should try to be better people.

Whether or not the code of conduct plan that the core committee has
decided to implement is likely to move us in that direction remains
unclear to me. I can't say I'm very impressed by the way the process
has been carried out up to this point; hopefully it will work out for
the best all the same.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company