Re: Code of Conduct plan

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 4:14 PM Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:08 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 09/14/2018 01:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>>
>>
>> I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been moving.
>>> The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
>>> the comments in this thread; see
>>>
>>> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>>>
>>> (That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
>>> history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
>>>
>>
>> I really have to object to this addition:
>> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
>> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so
>> long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as
>> a conference's Code of Conduct)."
>>
>> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
>> controversies which might not be personally directed. At least if one is
>> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
>> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
>> politics. Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble. See, for
>> example, what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to
>> encourage use of this to silence political controversies unrelated to
>> PostgreSQL.
>>
>>
>> I think this is a complicated issue. On the one hand, postgresql.org has
>> no business telling people how to act outside of postgresql.org. Full
>> stop.
>>
>
> I'm going to regret jumping in here, but...
>
> I disagree. If a community member decides to join forums for other
> software and then strongly promotes PostgreSQL to the point that they
> become abusive or offensive to people making other software choices, then
> they are clearly bringing the project into disrepute and we should have
> every right to sanction them by preventing them participating in our
> project in whatever ways are deemed appropriate.
>

Actually, the easier case here is not being abusive to MySQL users, as the
code of conduct really doesn't clearly cover that anyway. The easier case
is where two people have a feud and one person carries on a harassment
campaign over various forms of social media. The current problem is:

1. The current code of conduct is not clear as to whether terms of
service/community standards of, say, Reddit, supersede or not, and
2. The community has to act (even if it is includes behavior at a
conference which has its own code of conduct)

So I think the addition is both over inclusive and under inclusive. It is
over inclusive because it invites a certain group of (mostly American)
people to pick fights (not saying this is all Americans). And it is under
inclusive because there are cases where the code of conduct *should* be
employed when behavior includes behavior at events which might have their
own codes of conduct.

On the other side, consider someone carrying on a low-grade harassment
campaign against another community member at a series of conferences where
each conference may not amount to a real actionable concern but where the
pattern as a whole might. There's the under inclusive bit.

So I don't like this clause because I think it invites problems and doesn't
solve issues.
--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

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