Re: Let's Do the CoC Right

On 22 January 2016 at 23:31, David E. Wheeler <david(at)justatheory(dot)com> wrote:
> On Jan 22, 2016, at 3:15 PM, Kevin Grittner <kgrittn(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> I do wonder what it is that made you terrified of a shitstorm, and
>> what it is that you're hoping for that you don't feel is already
>> present.
>
> Regina linked to some shitstorms in the Opal and Ruby communities. Shitstorms are not unusual when people ask for a CoC.

No, shitstorms are not unusual when people aggressively and
unreasonably shout and scream like spoilt children to get their own
way. Thus far there has mostly been reasonable argument on both sides.

> My own behavior earlier is not a terrible example. By one point on the CoC (“ language and actions are free
> of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks”), it seems problematic if not an outright violation.
> But one can argue by another point (“tolerant of people’s right to have opposing views”) that it’s totally within bounds.

I and many others have already invalidated this point and yet without
answering them you continue to push it as truth. You're currently
hovering extremely close to the "destructive troll" box, to be honest.

> What if they psychologically abused someone in person, perhaps another member of the community,
> but in a non-community context? Should there be no repercussions?

Here? No. Postgres is not in the business of enforcing the law, or
indeed of enforcing one person's idea of acceptable behaviour.

> In my above example, the victim of the abuse would not feel safe in our community, because their
> abuser would still be a member in good standing. Even if they reported that behavior, the would have
> no expectation of anything being done to address it. In this example, the abuser ends up protected by
> the CoC while the victim is not.

Not true. The victim has the same level of protection as the abuser
within the community context.

Outside the community context Postgres has little or no impact. We
(when I say "we" I mean the community) could bar someone from the
community and it would have no impact on the hypothetical situation
you describe. Further, we do not have the resource to investigate to a
legal satisfaction any evidence that may or may not exist, so we would
(if we arbitrarily made decisions about a community member based on
another member's say-so) lay ourselves open to legal challenge if the
actions we took did actually impact on that member's ability to earn a
living.

> This is a very real thing that happens to real people in communities every day. IME, we want people to feel safe reporting incidents even if they occur outside the community, and that such reports will be taken seriously, with an explicit policy for doing so.

Please don't put "we want" when it's been made explicitly clear that a
significant number of "we" do not, unless you meant "IMO" rather than
"IME"

> Limiting the policy to community forums is insufficient for making people feel safe.
> This is the whole reason for v1.3.0 of the Contributor Covenant:

It was made clear very early on in the discussion that that is the
reason why it will not be adopted.

Geoff