Re: Code of Conduct plan

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 5:28 PM Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
wrote:

> On 09/17/2018 08:11 AM, Dmitri Maziuk wrote:
>
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 12:52:34 +0000
> Martin Mueller <martinmueller(at)northwestern(dot)edu> <martinmueller(at)northwestern(dot)edu> wrote:
>
>
> ... The overreach is dubious on both practical and theoretical grounds. "Stick to your knitting " or the KISS principle seem good advice in this context.
>
> Moderated mailing lists ain't been broken all these years, therefore they need fixing. Obviously.
>
>
> Folks,
>
> At this point it is important to accept that the CoC is happening. We
> aren't going to stop that. The goal now is to insure a CoC that is
> equitable for all community members and that has appropriate
> accountability. At hand it appears that major concern is the CoC trying to
> be authoritative outside of community channels. As well as wording that is
> a bit far reaching. Specifically I think people's main concern is these two
> sentences:
>
> "To that end, we have established this Code of Conduct for community
> interaction and participation in the project’s work and the community at
> large. 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)."
>

Exactly. And actually the first sentence is not new. The second one is a
real problem though. I am going to try one last time at an additional
alternative.

" To that end, we have established this Code of Conduct for community
interaction and participation in the project’s work and the community at
large. This code of conduct covers all interaction between community
members on the postgresql.org infrastructure. Conduct outside the
postgresql.org infrastructure may call the Code of Conduct committee to act
as long as the interaction (or interaction pattern) is community-related,
other parties are unable to act, and the Code of Conduct committee
determines that it is in the best interest of the community to apply this
Code of Conduct."

This solves a number of important problems.

1. It provides a backstop (as Tom Lane suggested was needed) against a
conference refusing to enforce their own code of conduct in a way the
community finds acceptable while the current wording does not provide any
backstop as long as there is a code of conduct for a conference.
2. It provides a significant barrier to applying the code of conduct to,
say, political posts on, say, Twitter.
3. It preserves the ability of the Code of Conduct Committee to act in the
case where someone takes a pattern of harassment off-list and
off-infrastructure. And it avoids arguing whether Facebook's Community
Standards constitute "another Code of Conduct that takes precedence."

>
> If we can constructively provide feedback about those two sentences, great
> (or constructive feedback on other areas of the CoC). If we can't then this
> thread needs to stop. It has become unproductive.
>
> My feedback is that those two sentences provide an overarching authority
> that .Org does not have the right to enforce and that it is also largely
> redundant because we allow that the idea that if another CoC exists, then
> ours doesn't apply. Well every single major collaboration channel we would
> be concerned with (including something like Blogger) has its own CoC within
> its Terms of use. That effectively neuters the PostgreSQL CoC within places
> like Slack, Facebook, Twitter etc...
>

Fascinating that this would, on its face, not apply to a harassment
campaign carried out over twitter, but it would apply to a few comments
made over drinks at a bar.

>
> JD
>
> --
> Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
> *** A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is. ***
> PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
> Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
> ***** Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own. *****
>
>

--
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