Re: Code of Conduct: Is it time?

> On 01/10/2016 08:07 AM, Bill Moran wrote:

>> So, the purpose of a CoC is twofold:
>>
>> A) Define what "being excellent" means to this particular
>> community.
>> B) Provide a process for how to resolve things when "being
>> excellent" doesn't happen.
>>
>> Without #1, nobody will want to do #2, as it's basically a
>> job that can never be done correctly.

> I agree with you completely. That is actually why I included the link to
> the graphic in the last post. My point was, I have no intention of
> having a CoC that is full of drivel. I would want a clear, concise,
> no-B.S. CoC.

> JD

This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
you

1) Are helpful when I ask a question
2) Stick to the topic
3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do

4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
preferred.

One thing that really pushes my buttons is when I ask for help as a windows
user and some person makes a snide remark about why don't I switch to
Linux - problem solved
Or because I'm on windows, I don't care about performance.

Here is an example thread I recall from a while back on PostGIS list.

https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2008-June/020331.html

In PostGIS group people are very good at calling out other people when
they think they've said something mean-spirited
and I think people are greatful for being called out because the nasty
person had no idea
their joke was mean.

My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
we change Master/Slave to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.

Thanks,
Regina

On 10/01/16 18:44, Regina Obe wrote:
>
> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
> you
>
> 1) Are helpful when I ask a question
> 2) Stick to the topic
> 3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
> and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do
>
> 4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
> preferred.
>
> One thing that really pushes my buttons is when I ask for help as a windows
> user and some person makes a snide remark about why don't I switch to
> Linux - problem solved
> Or because I'm on windows, I don't care about performance.
>
> Here is an example thread I recall from a while back on PostGIS list.
>
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2008-June/020331.html
>
> In PostGIS group people are very good at calling out other people when
> they think they've said something mean-spirited
> and I think people are greatful for being called out because the nasty
> person had no idea
> their joke was mean.
>
> My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
> we change Master/Slave to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
> and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Regina

+1

--
Tim Clarke

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 01:44:37PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:
> 1) Are helpful when I ask a question
> 2) Stick to the topic
> 3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
> and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do
>
> 4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
> preferred.

That seems like a pretty good scratch CoC to me. (See my other note
about how other communities deal with this.) It's concrete, short, to
the point, and a useful thing to point to when some flamewar breaks
out over irrelevant stuff. If people want a CoC, I think it should be
something like the above.

> My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
> we change Master/Slave to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
> and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.

If someone did that, it would fall under (2), no? (I note that a
recent RFC, of which I am a co-author, about DNS terminology did say
that "primary" and "secondary" were to be preferred over "master" and
"slave". I didn't personally agree with the claim, but that's what
got consensus.)

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca

On 11/01/16 07:44, Regina Obe wrote:
[...]
> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
> you
>
> 1) Are helpful when I ask a question
> 2) Stick to the topic
> 3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
> and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do
>
> 4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
> preferred.
I once went out of my way to help someone with Mac. They were so Mac
centric they did not realize that they were not giving us the right
information to help them, but this was not obvious until later in the
thread. I made some comment about Linux - next moment they were
accusing everyone of not helping them properly because they were using a
Mac, as though we had been deliberately discriminating against them!

So yes, I am sensitive to the O/S people are using, I will now avoid
helping people who don't use Linux. As I may not understand their needs
properly, and I don't want to be accused of picking on them because they
not using the "RIGHT OPERATING SYSTEM"! But I have neither the time nor
the expertise to even help everyone who uses Linux, even if they DO use
the "ONE TRUE LINUX DISTRIBUTION" (being very careful not to mention the
distribution I'm using - not wanting to start a flame war!!!).

I've twice been effective in supporting people with programs written in
BASIC, were the version of BASIC was unfamiliar to me and I could not
test my suggested change because they used a Microsoft O/S and I did not
have access to any Microsoft boxen for testing purposes (at the time).
In a recent project, I even ran a Microsoft O/S in a VM on my Linux box
to test something for a project I was leading. So I don't have an
overriding religious type objections to helping people with other
operating systems!
>
> One thing that really pushes my buttons is when I ask for help as a windows
> user and some person makes a snide remark about why don't I switch to
> Linux - problem solved
> Or because I'm on windows, I don't care about performance.
>
> Here is an example thread I recall from a while back on PostGIS list.
>
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-users/2008-June/020331.html
>
> In PostGIS group people are very good at calling out other people when
> they think they've said something mean-spirited
> and I think people are greatful for being called out because the nasty
> person had no idea
> their joke was mean.
>
> My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
> we change Master/Slave to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
> and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.

Comrades, we are all equal! So to set one program above another is an
anathema! :-)
>
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>
>
Chers,
Gavin

On 01/10/2016 10:44 AM, Regina Obe wrote:

>> JD
>
> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
> you

I think this is reasonable but my point is that we don't care if you are
sexist (in terms of .Org). We care if you allow your sexism to bleed
into the community.

In short, as long as you are professional and respectful, your personal
beliefs may remain your own.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

> On 01/10/2016 10:44 AM, Regina Obe wrote:

>>> JD
>>
>> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor I
>> don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long
>> as you

> I think this is reasonable but my point is that we don't care if you are
sexist (in terms of .Org). We care if you allow your sexism to bleed into
the community.

> In short, as long as you are professional and respectful, your personal
beliefs may remain your own.

> JD

Josh,

I read the image and thought, you meant you can't have a racist, sexist
thought in your body and I looked at myself and thought
"I have racist and sexist thoughts. I might be a racist sexist pig. I am
not welcome here. Let me find another project."

I would remove the word professional. I think people have used that word so
much to mean newspeak that people are now scared of the term.

So something like:

Try to be helpful and respectful when talking with people in the community.

Thanks,
Regina

Gavin,
> I once went out of my way to help someone with Mac. They were so Mac
centric they did not realize that they were not giving us the right
information to help them, but this was not obvious until later in the
thread. I made some comment about Linux - next moment they were accusing
> everyone of not helping them properly because they were using a Mac, as
though we had been deliberately discriminating against them!

I hear ya. I do the same thing setting up a Linux VM to try to help someone
on Ubuntu or CentOS.
My main point was if you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say
anything at all.

I recall someone posting something earlier about on the lists we should have
a section like:

HELP US HELP YOU

That details the information anyone having a problem should provide to make
it easy for others to help them.
Can't find that item on mailing list.

Thanks,
Regina

On 01/10/2016 02:05 PM, Regina Obe wrote:
> Gavin,
>> I once went out of my way to help someone with Mac. They were so Mac
> centric they did not realize that they were not giving us the right
> information to help them, but this was not obvious until later in the
> thread. I made some comment about Linux - next moment they were accusing
>> everyone of not helping them properly because they were using a Mac, as
> though we had been deliberately discriminating against them!
>
> I hear ya. I do the same thing setting up a Linux VM to try to help someone
> on Ubuntu or CentOS.
> My main point was if you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say
> anything at all.
>
> I recall someone posting something earlier about on the lists we should have
> a section like:
>
> HELP US HELP YOU
>
> That details the information anyone having a problem should provide to make
> it easy for others to help them.
> Can't find that item on mailing list.

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Guide_to_reporting_problems
>
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 5:09 PM, Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com>
wrote:

> On 01/10/2016 02:05 PM, Regina Obe wrote:
>
>> Gavin,
>>
>>> I once went out of my way to help someone with Mac. They were so Mac
>>>
>> centric they did not realize that they were not giving us the right
>> information to help them, but this was not obvious until later in the
>> thread. I made some comment about Linux - next moment they were accusing
>>
>>> everyone of not helping them properly because they were using a Mac, as
>>>
>> though we had been deliberately discriminating against them!
>>
>> I hear ya. I do the same thing setting up a Linux VM to try to help
>> someone
>> on Ubuntu or CentOS.
>> My main point was if you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say
>> anything at all.
>>
>> I recall someone posting something earlier about on the lists we should
>> have
>> a section like:
>>
>> HELP US HELP YOU
>>
>> That details the information anyone having a problem should provide to
>> make
>> it easy for others to help them.
>> Can't find that item on mailing list.
>>
>
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Guide_to_reporting_problems

Maybe I'm out of sync with everyone else, but, I think of list- and IRC
guidelines as distinctly separate from a code of conduct. I see a code of
conduct as a legal document that allows the community to protect itself
(and individuals its individuals) from illegal and possibly predatory
behavior. Guidelines for posting: "don't top post, don't paste 500 lines
in to IRC etc... " are things that could get the community to *ignore* you,
but not necessarily cause them to participate in a legal showdown directly
or as a 'third-party'.

ISTM that if we develop a code of conduct, it would need to be designed
to insulate the community and individuals within it from becoming targets
of legal action. "Mike said I was bad at postgres, it hurt my consulting
and I want to sue Joe for replying-all and upping the hit-count on
google... "

--Scott

>
>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Regina
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Adrian Klaver
> adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com
>
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 9:44 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:

> > On 01/10/2016 08:07 AM, Bill Moran wrote:
>
> >> So, the purpose of a CoC is twofold:
> >>
> >> A) Define what "being excellent" means to this particular
> >> community.
> >> B) Provide a process for how to resolve things when "being
> >> excellent" doesn't happen.
> >>
> >> Without #1, nobody will want to do #2, as it's basically a
> >> job that can never be done correctly.
>
> > I agree with you completely. That is actually why I included the link to
> > the graphic in the last post. My point was, I have no intention of
> > having a CoC that is full of drivel. I would want a clear, concise,
> > no-B.S. CoC.
>
> > JD
>
> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
> you
>
> 1) Are helpful when I ask a question
> 2) Stick to the topic
> 3) Don't get into petty etiquettes like "Please stop top posting"
> and if you really need to - A polite we prefer top posting would do
>
> 4) Are sensitive to people on other operating systems other than your
> preferred.
>

+1

>
>
> My other concern about CoCs is I fear someone is going to come and demand
> we change Master/Slave to Leader/Follower, because Master is a male term
> and Slave is insensitive to grand-children of slaves.
>

Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example, we
in Russia are not really concern about this.

>
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 3:13 PM, Oleg Bartunov <obartunov(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example, we
> in Russia are not really concern about this.

This depends on how the language is built. For example in French I
think it would matter (not living there for long though so perhaps my
perception is incorrect), and in Japanese it just doesn't matter,
there is no such concept.
--
Michael

On 11/01/16 19:13, Oleg Bartunov wrote:
[...]
>
> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for
> example, we in Russia are not really concern about this.
>
[...]

I started using 'Gender Appropriate' language long before this PC
nonsense started up. Back in those days the word 'he' in instructions
included the female gender, which I though was stupid. Back then, and
also these days, I see no point in mentioning gender unless it is relevant.

So I use: one, they, their, and them. Which avoids the gender specific
problem, and also suggests (as is usually the case) that one or more
people are involved.

The problem with he/she is also that it is not totally politically
correct either, what about people who are a bit of both, and/or can't
decide? Not to mention people with multiple personalities, not always
of the same gender (I spent a few years conversing with people in the
usenet group alt.sexual.abuse.recovery - long story, but I got into it
when I did a project on network traffic). I also did some research when
I read an article that said about 10% of children born on an island
started life looking like girls, but changed into males at the time of
puberty, apparently about 0.5% (depending on precise definitions) of
children world wide are born not definitely of any particular gender.

Cheers,
Gavin

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 09:13:32AM +0300, Oleg Bartunov wrote:

> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example, we
> in Russia are not really concern about this.

Russian offers a "Mr.Bartunov" and a "Mrs.Bartunova". Am I mistaken ?

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

On 1/11/16, Karsten Hilbert <Karsten(dot)Hilbert(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 09:13:32AM +0300, Oleg Bartunov wrote:
>
>> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example,
>> we
>> in Russia are not really concern about this.
>
> Russian offers a "Mr.Bartunov" and a "Mrs.Bartunova". Am I mistaken ?
>
> Karsten Hilbert

Yes, but I guess Oleg meant pronouns in documents.
In situations like 'When the user has to do something, firstly _he_
must do something else'.
In Russian pronouns have their own "gender" not necessarily connected
to a gender of real user who is reading the doc and in most cases such
pronouns are "masculine", that's why we don't concern to replace "he"
to "he/she" or somewhat else.
--
Best regards,
Vitaly Burovoy

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 01:50:50AM -0800, Vitaly Burovoy wrote:

> > On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 09:13:32AM +0300, Oleg Bartunov wrote:
> >
> >> Some people don't understand all these issues with she/he, for example,
> >> we
> >> in Russia are not really concern about this.
> >
> > Russian offers a "Mr.Bartunov" and a "Mrs.Bartunova". Am I mistaken ?
> >
> > Karsten Hilbert
>
> Yes, but I guess Oleg meant pronouns in documents.
> In situations like 'When the user has to do something, firstly _he_
> must do something else'.
> In Russian pronouns have their own "gender" not necessarily connected
> to a gender of real user who is reading the doc and in most cases such
> pronouns are "masculine", that's why we don't concern to replace "he"
> to "he/she" or somewhat else.

I understand. Thank you for the explanation.

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

> On Jan 10, 2016, at 2:59 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On 01/10/2016 10:44 AM, Regina Obe wrote:
>
>>> JD
>>
>> This may come as a big shock to many of you, but as a contributor
>> I don't care if you are racist, sexist, transphobic or whatever as long as
>> you
>
> I think this is reasonable but my point is that we don't care if you are sexist (in terms of .Org). We care if you allow your sexism to bleed into the community.
>
> In short, as long as you are professional and respectful, your personal beliefs may remain your own.
>

My problem with all of this is when there is a demand for no tolerance. People cannot comfortably live and work without some level of their essence (good or bad) bleeding into their work.

I think Regina’s comment above is the most important comment I have read. I want to work with Regina, right attitude, right focus. And if I did step over the line and Regina felt the need to address the issue I would very very much respect it. This is the attitude that a code of conduct should project, not all of the politically correct crap that is normally written.

It is important to protect the community from people who are on a mission to rid the world (or the community) of all ass-holes, racists, sexists, etc. That is never going to happen and their personal hate trip and lack of tolerance should not be in the community either. Certainly there is a line that should not be crossed from both extremes, but we need to be tolerant while people are learning and adapting so the gap between the two lines needs to be as wide as possible. The code of conduct IMO must address both extremes.

Honestly, I would rather work with someone that offended me every day than someone that was so easily offended that I had to watch every word in our communications. In managing projects, my experience is that more often that not, the people that focused on the style of the communications (politically correct, pleasing words, etc.) and were easily offended by style of communications had contributions that were much less valuable than people that were neutral or rough around the edges. The community will make more progress if it can find a way to accept these ‘rough around the edges’ people, not because they are rough, but because roughness does not degrade value except at the extreme. Often someone that is ‘rough around the edges’ has to be better at their work to make up for it. These are good people to keep around if possible.

Neil

> ISTM that if we develop a code of conduct, it would need to be designed to insulate the community and individuals within it from becoming targets of legal action. "Mike said I was bad at postgres, it hurt my consulting and I want to sue Joe for replying-all and upping the hit-count on google... "

> --Scott

I've given some more thought to this and come up with a draft Contributor Code of Conduct. My strategy is that rather than focusing on things like Harassment that we can't all agree on the definition of.

Focus on more absolutes that if you violate are harassment or cause psychological stress. It is also clear, that we need to protect people in our community from looters, I would say we need to protect our own even more so than we need to make new people feel welcome.

So here's my draft Contributor Code of Conduct (CCC) to try to achieve that.

Like the open source technical community as a whole, our community is made up of a mixture of professionals and volunteers with vast differences of opinions and

styles of communication.

Our community is made up of people from many cultures and walks of life who have come together

with the common goals of making a great piece of software and helping others use this software.

We value contributions from everybody. By contributions we mean code, documentation, project outreach in form of setting up conferences or working groups,

package maintenance, answering and asking questions in our forums which further our mission, and providing bug reports.

If you have contributed to our project, then we consider you a member

of our extended family and value your opinions and concerns very highly.

We value the opinions of members who have contributed most more than we value the opinions of others.

This is because major contributors have already proved their desire to further our mission, and for newcomers,

their intention has not yet been established.

We want everyone entering our community willing to help out to feel welcomed.

To maintain and encourage a welcoming environment we ask all people interacting with our community to follow these guidelines when in our

public spaces. By public spaces we mean mailing lists, IRC channels, Code repositories, and reporting bug reports

GUIDELINES

1) When in discussions keep focused on the topic being discussed.

2) Say helpful things, and if you feel you have nothing to say that furthers the discussion, say nothing.

By helpful we mean for example:

If someone asks a question, even if it's one that you think has an obvious answer, either provide an example or a link to the section of the manual that covers it.

If you feel a person does not provide enough information for someone to help, point them to this link: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Guide_to_reporting_problems

3) Do not switch the topic to yourself unless the topic happens to be about you.

For example if someone is asking a question about replication, and the words master and slave come up in discussion,

do not talk about the great master/slave sex you had last night.

4) Do not ask questions that are unrelated to the mission of our project.

USE OF TRIGGER TERMS

We have long standing terms like Master/Slave that may trigger some past trauma for some people.

While we do consider people's feelings, we weigh that against the effort of changing long understood terminology and the psychological trauma

such changes would cause for the larger majority of people who are not as sensitive to the usage.

As such we entertain change requests for naming of new features more than we do of renaming old features.

HANDLING ISSUES

We understand that through no fault of anybody, a person may make a comment they consider harmless that others find very offensive or makes another feel small. As project maintainers

we will monitor these and gently call people out on them even if they are a member of our maintainer group.

By gentle call out, we mean something like "I think what X was trying to say was that you need to do this" or point them to this document and the specific bullet point you feel they violated.

We expect of everyone in our spaces to try their best to do the same in a kind and gentle manner. If you feel it's just a minor offense and the person didn't mean harm by it,

simply ignore it unless the pattern of talk continues. If the person continues or they say something you feel is very offensive or degrading to another,

tell a project maintainer preferably off-list and we will talk with the person to affect a change in their behavior or kick them out if we determine behavior change is not possible.

If anyone makes you feel uncomfortable please notify the project maintainer group at ... with the specific occurrence and evidence that made you feel this way.

We do not tolerate those we feel are trying to derail our project by injecting

discussions that have little to do with the mission of our project.

If you have contributed nothing to our project and you make demands for change, we will try to tell you that kindly

and request you to change or leave.

We promise as project maintainers to apply the same standards on ourselves as we apply to others.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> We expect of everyone in our spaces to try their best to do the same in a
> kind and gentle manner. If you feel it's just a minor offense and the person
> didn't mean harm by it,
>
> simply ignore it unless the pattern of talk continues. If the person
> continues or they say something you feel is very offensive or degrading to
> another,
>
> tell a project maintainer preferably off-list and we will talk with the
> person to affect a change in their behavior or kick them out if we determine
> behavior change is not possible.

I am concerned about this particular wording as it implicitly assumes
that the offended party is correct based on how they 'feel' and
requires punishment of/change by the 'offender' regardless of the
severity, or even validity of the claim. I don't think that is the
intent, but that is how it reads (to me).

Brian,

>> We expect of everyone in our spaces to try their best to do the same
>> in a kind and gentle manner. If you feel it's just a minor offense and
>> the person didn't mean harm by it,
>>
>> simply ignore it unless the pattern of talk continues. If the person
>> continues or they say something you feel is very offensive or
>> degrading to another,
>
>> tell a project maintainer preferably off-list and we will talk with
>> the person to affect a change in their behavior or kick them out if we
>> determine behavior change is not possible.

> I am concerned about this particular wording as it implicitly assumes that the offended party is correct based on how they 'feel' and requires punishment of/change by the 'offender' regardless of the severity, or even validity of the claim. I don't think that is the intent, but that is how it reads (to me).

Good point. Rereading the last part, sounds like the victim is always right and is actually not needed since the next paragraph addresses it. So how is this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We expect of everyone in our spaces to try their best to do the same in a kind and gentle manner. If you feel it's just a minor offense and the person didn't mean harm by it,
simply ignore it unless the pattern of talk continues.

If anyone makes you feel uncomfortable and you feel they are purposely antagonistic please notify the project maintainer group at ... with the specific occurrence and evidence that made you feel this way.
We will judge if your complaints are valid and if we deem they are valid we will talk with the person to affect a change in their behavior or kick them out if we determine behavior change is not possible.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks,
Regina

Hello,

A lot of good discussion has happened on this thread and as a whole I
think it has been determined that if done correctly, a CoC would not be
a bad idea. Of course we need to write one.

A CoC is about providing a safe, respectful, productive, and
collaborative place for any person who is willing to contribute in a
safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way.

A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a
recipients response and usually because the recipient is more interested
in being a victim than moving forward.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://the.postgres.company/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
If your social views are from the Silicon Valley or The Bay, please
leave them there.

Josh,

If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym. I'm going to say something very sensitive here, so don't think I am joking.

When I was 5 I was raped by a next door neighbor. Everytime I here people talk about Cocs and how silencing they are I think about that.

Thanks,
Regina

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com]
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 2:00 PM
To: Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us>; 'Brian Dunavant' <brian(at)omniti(dot)com>
Cc: 'Scott Mead' <scottm(at)openscg(dot)com>; 'Adrian Klaver' <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com>; 'Gavin Flower' <GavinFlower(at)archidevsys(dot)co(dot)nz>; 'PostgreSQL General' <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

Hello,

A lot of good discussion has happened on this thread and as a whole I think it has been determined that if done correctly, a CoC would not be a bad idea. Of course we need to write one.

A CoC is about providing a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way.

A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a recipients response and usually because the recipient is more interested in being a victim than moving forward.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://the.postgres.company/ 503-667-4564 PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
If your social views are from the Silicon Valley or The Bay, please leave them there.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:39:12PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:

> HANDLING ISSUES

...

> If you have contributed nothing to our project and you make
> demands for change, we will try to tell you that kindly and
> request you to change or leave.

May I kindly ask for a bit more explanation on this one ?

It seems a bit narrow ?

Thanks,
Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

On 01/11/2016 11:10 AM, Regina Obe wrote:
> Josh,
>
> If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym. I'm going to say something very sensitive here, so don't think I am joking.
>
> When I was 5 I was raped by a next door neighbor. Everytime I here people talk about Cocs and how silencing they are I think about that.

Regina,

Although I can appreciate your sensitivity to the terminology based on
your experience (and I am very sorry to read about that), I don't think
it is reasonable to change from an Industry Standard acronym on that basis.

Sincerely,

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://the.postgres.company/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
If your social views are from the Silicon Valley or The Bay, please
leave them there.

> Regina,

> Although I can appreciate your sensitivity to the terminology based on your experience (and I am very sorry to read about that), I don't think it is reasonable to change from an Industry Standard acronym on that basis.

> Sincerely,

> JD

Fair enough.

Sorry screwed up sending this email the first time. Trying again:

> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:39:12PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:

>> HANDLING ISSUES

>...

>> If you have contributed nothing to our project and you make
>> demands for change, we will try to tell you that kindly and
>> request you to change or leave.

> May I kindly ask for a bit more explanation on this one ?

> It seems a bit narrow ?

> Thanks,
> Karsten Hilbert
> --
> GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
> E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

Karsten,

I'm not sure the best way to word this one. I agree it needs more
clarity. The reason I put it in there is because of this:

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942

You see that guy strand. From the way he talked, I thought he was a core
member of Opal and had contributed a lot.

On further inspection I discovered his only contribution was the
contributor code of conduct.

So the purpose is to try to prevent people who don't care about our
project from telling us how to run our project.

Thanks,
Regina

"Regina Obe" <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> writes:
> Sorry screwed up sending this email the first time. Trying again:
>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:39:12PM -0500, Regina Obe wrote:
>>> If you have contributed nothing to our project and you make
>>> demands for change, we will try to tell you that kindly and
>>> request you to change or leave.

>> May I kindly ask for a bit more explanation on this one ?

> I'm not sure the best way to word this one. I agree it needs more
> clarity. The reason I put it in there is because of this:
> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942
> You see that guy strand. From the way he talked, I thought he was a core
> member of Opal and had contributed a lot.
> On further inspection I discovered his only contribution was the
> contributor code of conduct.
> So the purpose is to try to prevent people who don't care about our
> project from telling us how to run our project.

Hmm. I'm not sure that telling us that should amount to an offense;
such a person might even have a good idea from time to time.

Now, if the person is rude about it, that would be an offense, but
that should already be covered under other sections of the CoC no?

Another possibly offensive aspect of the example you're describing
is someone trying to pass themselves off as a major contributor when
they're not. But I hesitate to try to draw guidelines for that either.

regards, tom lane

> Hmm. I'm not sure that telling us that should amount to an offense; such
a person might even have a good idea from time to time.

> Now, if the person is rude about it, that would be an offense, but that
should already be covered under other sections of the CoC no?

> Another possibly offensive aspect of the example you're describing is
someone trying to pass themselves off as a major contributor when they're
not. But I hesitate to try to draw guidelines for that either.

> regards, tom lane

Tom,
How would you feel about the original thread that started this.

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

I would dismiss her as a troll and kindly say, don't tell us who we can have
and who we can't.

Thanks,
Regina

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:

> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
>
> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
find said speech or actions.

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Kevin Grittner wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:
>
> > How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
> >
> > https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
>
> I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
> with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
> they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
> actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
> of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
> find said speech or actions.

I didn't look at this one either, but I looked at the "contributor
covenant" Regina linked to earlier (as an example of what not to do) and
was shocked to see that any random outsider can *demand* a project admin
to take action on harassment accusations, or have *the admin* be removed
from the project. I found that totally backwards and I'd certainly be
against anything that contains such language.

--
Álvaro Herrera http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

I don't know about others.

But this whole thread has completely gone off the original track. With so many splinter topics. It has no hope of ever completing with any kind of resolution satisfying even 10% of contributors.

Can be please stick to the core original topics? Whether we agree with them or not doesn't matter but let's have some direction and closure so we can all move on and new ideas can be formed and be discussed.

Thank you all.

On 01/11/2016 01:36 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Kevin Grittner wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:
>>
>>> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
>>>
>>> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
>>
>> I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
>> with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
>> they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
>> actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
>> of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
>> find said speech or actions.
>
> I didn't look at this one either, but I looked at the "contributor
> covenant" Regina linked to earlier (as an example of what not to do) and
> was shocked to see that any random outsider can *demand* a project admin
> to take action on harassment accusations, or have *the admin* be removed
> from the project. I found that totally backwards and I'd certainly be
> against anything that contains such language.

You would never get me on board with that either. To iterate my thoughts
around a CoC are exactly this:

""" A CoC is about providing a safe, respectful, productive, and
collaborative place for any person who is willing to contribute in a
safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way.

A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a
recipients response and usually because the recipient is more interested
in being a victim than moving forward. """

>

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 3:42 PM, FarjadFarid(ChkNet)
<farjad(dot)farid(at)checknetworks(dot)com> wrote:

Five days (and I don't know how many posts) ago, there was this:

http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20160106184818.GT21041@crankycanuck.ca

Which said in part:

> The other thing I note is that the IETF got
> most of these documents because someone thought the problem was
> important enough to write a draft proposal first. As I said in a
> recent IETF plenary, the organization works partly because at the IETF
> you don't need anyone's permission to try something; you don't even
> need forgiveness. The worst that can happen is that people reject the
> proposal. It always seemed to me that the Postgres project worked in
> a similar way, so I'd encourage those who think there is a problem to
> be solved to make a scratch proposal and see whether it flies. It's
> always easier to discuss a concrete proposal than to try to figure out
> whether something is a good idea in the abstract.

I'm going to give this a belated +1, and ignore any further posts on
this thread.

If someone wants to take the step of posting a concrete proposal,
please start a new thread with a different subject line.

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Regina Obe wrote:
>
> If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.

Notwithstanding the most regrettable childhood trauma, this request is
exactly the kind of ridiculousness that the Political Correctness
nonsense associated with CoCs that we should be worried about in the
aftermath of proposed adoption.

Complaining that the acronym "CoC" is anything remotely like the thing
the work "cock" means is, well, cockamamie

It's like someone becoming upset over the work "niggardly" as a racist
epithet. In fact that word and the one you are thinking of are
completely unrelated: entirely different etymology. Nothing in common
except, on the one hand, as you imagine the acronym might be pronounced,
and on the other because there are six similar letters.

Hello,

Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:

토토 사이트 (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):

1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing
a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person
who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and
collaborative way.

2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
interested in being a victim than moving forward.

3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
appearance, body size or race.

4. Any sustained disruption of the collaborative space (mailing lists,
IRC etc..) or other PostgreSQL events shall be construed as a violation
of the CoC and appropriate action will be taken by the CoC committee.

5. The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your
private and public lives outside of the PostgreSQL community are your own.

6. The CoC is not about Social Justice.

Sincerely,

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

"Regina Obe" <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> writes:
> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
> I would dismiss her as a troll and kindly say, don't tell us who we can have
> and who we can't.

Hm ... that thread makes me uncomfortable, because I can see both points
of view. I really don't care for the idea that "you should throw this
longtime contributor off your project because he espoused some not-
politically-correct views in an unrelated forum". On the other hand,
the argument that the person's actions might drive away potential
community members isn't without merit.

Also, does it really matter whether the complaint comes from someone
who's in the community already, or not? It's going to be equally
messy either way. Unless you choose to ignore the complaint simply
because a non-community-member made it, which seems to me to be a
bad idea. A lot of the argument for having a CoC seems to be to help
draw new people in, and that approach won't do that.

This might be in the category of "hard cases make bad law". Probably
an ideal outcome for the situation described there would have been for
the contributor to recognize that his actions didn't reflect well on
the community, and to *voluntarily* stop doing that. Or at least,
stop posting divisive views from an account explicitly claiming a
close relationship to the opal community. But should the community
have tried to force him to stop? Dunno, but I doubt it would have
ended well if they had.

Moving on from the substance of the complaint, neither side of that
argument gets any points from me for being civil about how they went
about discussing it. The complainant seems to have started out with
a public call for removal from the project, which is about as good
a way as I can think of for ensuring that the discussion will not
be pleasant or productive. (Maybe there were some private contacts
beforehand, but I don't see any evidence of that; not that I had the
patience to read the entire thread.) And the responses were not on
any higher level; which is unsurprising maybe, but they certainly did
nothing to defuse the situation.

In my admittedly-limited experience with dealing with such problems,
it's a lot easier to achieve positive results if you can discuss
issues in private, before people's positions harden.

In short, I wouldn't characterize that complainant as "a troll" for
the substance of her complaint, but maybe so for the way in which
she went about making it. If we're to have a CoC, I'd really like
it (and any associated enforcement mechanism) to be designed to
discourage this sort of let's-begin-with-public-attacks approach to
problem resolution. How we get to that exactly, I don't know.

regards, tom lane

On 01/11/2016 02:00 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:
>
> 토토 사이트 (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):
>
> 1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing
> a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person
> who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and
> collaborative way.
>
> 2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
> purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
> interested in being a victim than moving forward.
>
> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
> appearance, body size or race.

Well that renders this thread:

http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4579835F.11355.1DE571@rod.iol.ie

out of bounds and I thought it was quite productive.

>
> 4. Any sustained disruption of the collaborative space (mailing lists,
> IRC etc..) or other PostgreSQL events shall be construed as a violation
> of the CoC and appropriate action will be taken by the CoC committee.
>
> 5. The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your
> private and public lives outside of the PostgreSQL community are your own.
>
> 6. The CoC is not about Social Justice.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com

Kevin Grittner <kgrittn(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> I'm going to give this a belated +1, and ignore any further posts on
> this thread.
> If someone wants to take the step of posting a concrete proposal,
> please start a new thread with a different subject line.

I thought we were already at that point; see Regina Obe's posts.

regards, tom lane

On 01/11/2016 02:08 PM, Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 01/11/2016 02:00 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:
>>
>> 토토 사이트 (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):
>>
>> 1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing
>> a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person
>> who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and
>> collaborative way.
>>
>> 2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
>> purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
>> interested in being a victim than moving forward.
>>
>> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
>> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
>> appearance, body size or race.
>
> Well that renders this thread:
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4579835F.11355.1DE571@rod.iol.ie
>
> out of bounds and I thought it was quite productive.

No it doesn't. That thread was clearly a technical question based on a
specific gender problem domain. That is perfectly within bounds.

That said there is an obvious typo in #3:

3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
of comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
appearance, body size or race.

We could add the word inappropriate (I thought negative but that doesn't
work either because positive comments can be just as bad).

JD

P.S. please use new thread WIP: CoC

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

Regina Obe wrote:
>
> If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.

> Notwithstanding the most regrettable childhood trauma, this request is exactly the kind of ridiculousness that the Political Correctness nonsense associated with CoCs that we should be worried about in the aftermath of proposed adoption.

> Complaining that the acronym "CoC" is anything remotely like the thing the work "cock" means is, well, cockamamie

> It's like someone becoming upset over the work "niggardly" as a racist epithet. In fact that word and the one you are thinking of are completely unrelated: entirely different etymology. Nothing in common except, on the one hand, as you imagine the acronym might be pronounced, and on the other because there are six similar letters.

Exactly. That's why I added that section:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

USE OF TRIGGER TERMS

We have long standing terms like Master/Slave that may trigger some past trauma for some people.
While we do consider people's feelings, we weigh that against the effort of changing long understood terminology and the psychological trauma
such changes would cause for the large majority of people who are not as sensitive to the usage.
As such we entertain change requests for naming of new features more than we do of renaming old features.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all you have no proof whether I was raped or not, so you don't know if I'm just playing the "Poor woman was raped, give her a break" card or if my sad luck story is genuine.
In the end it's irrelevant, because as Josh apologetically explained to me - Coc is standard in our vernacular so would cause more damage to others if we change it.

I have to learn to cope with my suffering when someone says Coc and it's not your problem that I was raped and I have traumatic memories everytime
I hear someone say "We have a Coc. I think that should make you feel safer."

Josh did the right thing. If we had this Coc -- Josh could just point at this section and say

"I feel your pain, but according to our Code of Conduct, we can't change it."

Thanks,
Regina

Thanks Joshua for creating this list. Great starting point and hopefully points to focus on to conclude this thread.

Here are my humble comments on them.

I think point two is already covered by respecting other people's opinion. At times specially over email ,where we don't see others reactions , people can unintentionally be more confrontational than normal. Therefore it is not just the recipient.

Perhaps Point 3 should read "free from".

Thanks again Joshua.

Best Regards

Farjad

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com]
Sent: 11 January 2016 22:00
To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Kevin Grittner'; 'Regina Obe'
Cc: 'Tom Lane'; 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time? (WIP CoC)

Hello,

Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:

토토 사이트 (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):

1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and collaborative way.

2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more interested in being a victim than moving forward.

3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size or race.

4. Any sustained disruption of the collaborative space (mailing lists, IRC etc..) or other PostgreSQL events shall be construed as a violation of the CoC and appropriate action will be taken by the CoC committee.

5. The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your private and public lives outside of the PostgreSQL community are your own.

6. The CoC is not about Social Justice.

Sincerely,

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564 PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

Kevin Grittner <kgrittn(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:
>> How would you feel about the original thread that started this.
>> https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

> I'm not interested in opal, and don't have time to read a thread
> with (when I looked) 374 messages, but if the gist of it is that
> they have a code of conduct that attempts to control the speech or
> actions of contributors outside of the venue of the lists or events
> of the project, count me as -1, regardless of how offensive I might
> find said speech or actions.

FWIW, I did read some of that thread, and the point that seemed to me
to possibly bring that situation within reach of a CoC was that the
contributor was posting offensive-to-some views from an account that
explicitly identified him as a core opal contributor. As such, it
wasn't totally unreasonable to see him as representing the project
in those statements.

(Note: I have not verified the facts of the matter, but this is what
was alleged in the thread.)

regards, tom lane

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 02:00:22PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
> appearance, body size or race.

... for of _off-topic_ comments related to ...

Since I am using PostgreSQL for storing Electronic Medical
Record data I fear I will need to be able to discuss schema
layout related to gender, sexual orientation, disability,
physical appearance, body size, and race.

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 01/11/2016 02:00 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> >3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
> >comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
> >appearance, body size or race.
>
> Well that renders this thread:
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4579835F.11355.1DE571@rod.iol.ie
>
> out of bounds and I thought it was quite productive.

How about this one
/message-id/20150825203743.2090.73356%40wrigleys.postgresql.org

--
Álvaro Herrera http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
of comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability,
physical appearance,
body size or race.

why not

> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
of ad hominem. (Tip: Ask your self "Would I make this same comment if my
best friend or parent stated what I was replying to" if you're unsure.)

The tip being optional, of course :-p I don't see why we need to limit
comments like in the original: that's not the point! The point is that
people shouldn't be attacked!

Moreover,

> 2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
interested in being a victim than moving forward.

is very harsh. It definitely needs to be rephrased or built on. What is
the point of this, by the way? If we state that personal attacks are
unbecoming of a member of this group, then does it matter if I'm offended
when someone says we should have a table that lacks 1-M 1-F constraints for
marriage? It's not an attack and trying to clarify the differences between
being offended because of an attack on me or just in general might make
things too awkward to write.

Jim

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 5:15 PM, FarjadFarid(ChkNet) <
farjad(dot)farid(at)checknetworks(dot)com> wrote:

>
> Thanks Joshua for creating this list. Great starting point and hopefully
> points to focus on to conclude this thread.
>
> Here are my humble comments on them.
>
> I think point two is already covered by respecting other people's opinion.
> At times specially over email ,where we don't see others reactions , people
> can unintentionally be more confrontational than normal. Therefore it is
> not just the recipient.
>
> Perhaps Point 3 should read "free from".
>
> Thanks again Joshua.
>
> Best Regards
>
>
> Farjad
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com]
> Sent: 11 January 2016 22:00
> To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Kevin Grittner'; 'Regina Obe'
> Cc: 'Tom Lane'; 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time? (WIP CoC)
>
> Hello,
>
> Below please find a WIP CoC for the PostgreSQL.Org project:
>
> 토토 사이트 (PGDG) Code of Conduct (CoC):
>
> 1. The CoC is to provide community guidelines for creating and enforcing a
> safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person who is
> willing to contribute in a safe, respectful, productive and collaborative
> way.
>
> 2. The CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
> purely a recipient response and usually the offended individual is more
> interested in being a victim than moving forward.
>
> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
> appearance, body size or race.
>
> 4. Any sustained disruption of the collaborative space (mailing lists, IRC
> etc..) or other PostgreSQL events shall be construed as a violation of the
> CoC and appropriate action will be taken by the CoC committee.
>
> 5. The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your
> private and public lives outside of the PostgreSQL community are your own.
>
> 6. The CoC is not about Social Justice.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>
> --
> Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564
> PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
> Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't control
> your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.
>
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
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> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>

ALL:

Please move comments to the new thread: WIP: CoC

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Kevin Grittner <kgrittn(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:

>> If someone wants to take the step of posting a concrete proposal,
>> please start a new thread with a different subject line.
>
> I thought we were already at that point; see Regina Obe's posts.

Oh, are you referring to this:?

http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/001201d14c96$fc26ed70$f474c850$@pcorp.us

For some reason that shows up as a quote of a quote in my gmail, so
I skipped over it without noticing it. Apologies.

Even after finding it, formatting is mangled, and I see an
amendment was just posted. Can we get this into a more readable
format somehow, where changes can be reflected without sequentially
scanning the thread?

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Kevin Grittner <kgrittn(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> I thought we were already at that point; see Regina Obe's posts.

> Oh, are you referring to this:?
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/001201d14c96$fc26ed70$f474c850$@pcorp.us
> For some reason that shows up as a quote of a quote in my gmail, so
> I skipped over it without noticing it. Apologies.

> Even after finding it, formatting is mangled, and I see an
> amendment was just posted. Can we get this into a more readable
> format somehow, where changes can be reflected without sequentially
> scanning the thread?

Also, since JD already took Kevin's advice to start a new thread,
Regina please post your latest into that thread not this one.

regards, tom lane

On 12/01/16 11:21, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 02:00:22PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
>> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is free
>> comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical
>> appearance, body size or race.
> ... for of _off-topic_ comments related to ...
>
> Since I am using PostgreSQL for storing Electronic Medical
> Record data I fear I will need to be able to discuss schema
> layout related to gender, sexual orientation, disability,
> physical appearance, body size, and race.
>
> Karsten Hilbert
And what about people who want to construct a database to help survivors
of sexual abuse, and/or doing research into sexual abuse?

Dear all,

Please let's not be pedantic and expect absolute legalistic perfection in
the wordings that has been put forward.

No doubt we all understand the spirit and the purpose of the wording. Which
is when we are consulting in the community we
are not to here to discuss other people's gender, sexuality etc.

Joshua can I put forward that two further points should be considered for
possible inclusion.

One is prejudices towards one's own religious persuasion and secondly age
related should not be part of discussions or reasoning.

We are effectively here to focus on helping each other and improving the
overall functioning of postgresql etc in a very practical manner.

Please let's move on.

Best Regards

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Karsten Hilbert
Sent: 11 January 2016 22:21
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time? (WIP CoC)

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 02:00:22PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> 3. A safe, respectful, productive and collaborative environment is
> free comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability,
> physical appearance, body size or race.

... for of _off-topic_ comments related to ...

Since I am using PostgreSQL for storing Electronic Medical Record data I
fear I will need to be able to discuss schema layout related to gender,
sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, and race.

Karsten Hilbert
--
GPG key ID E4071346 @ eu.pool.sks-keyservers.net
E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346

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To make changes to your subscription:
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On Mon, 11 Jan 2016 11:00:23 -0800
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:

> A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
> purely a recipients response and usually because the recipient is
> more interested in being a victim than moving forward.

I've seen text like the preceding in over 10 messages in this thread. I
could be interpreting them wrong, but they seem to be saying the
offended recipient is more interested in being a victim than moving
forward, or with some of the responses, the recipient is being a cry
baby.

In my opinion, this is a much easier position to take when it's the
other person regularly spoken of as "misinformed", "ignorant",
"neckbeard", or whatever. Much harder position when your technical
posts are regularly greeted by such personal insults, and few folks
rise to your defense.

Well, whatever, survival of the fittest. 90% of the time, the party
being personally insulted silently leaves, and is not missed. But
sometimes the community has something to lose. Let me tell you a story.

=============================================
=============================================
12 years ago, one guy in my LUG continually replied to me in
what I think most reasonable people would call an insulting
manner. Some of his posts called me "ignorant", "unprofessional", lack
of "checking my work", "committing libel", "lies and hypocracy", and
"reinventing history".

I called for the LUG's Executive Committee to reign in his rhetoric,
explaining that it had gotten to such a point that I could no longer
bring friends, or possible business associates into the LUG because
they would be hearing a constant barrage of anti-Litt rhetoric, and
some of it might stick. The Exec Committee told me I was being too
sensitive and I should just let it slide.

So I got a new domain name, started a new LUG, drew membership both
from the old LUG and from the greater area. Immediately those same
people who said I was being too sensitive begged me to cancel the new
LUG and they'd institute anti-personal-insult rules.

But it was too late: I'd already done it. Over the next several years,
the new LUG grew and still meets every month, maintaining an active
mailing list and IRC channel. Meanwhile, the old LUG lost membership,
lost their nonprofit corporate status, lost their mailing list, lost
their domain name, and their remnants hold an "installfest" once a
month in a venue with no Internet (it's BYOI).
=============================================
=============================================

Most of the time, chalking things up to "recipient is more interested
in being a victim" does the community no harm. But every once in a
while, the costs are considerable.

All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
valuing his/her victimhood.

About a CoC, here's what I want to know:

What *possible* value to a free software community could come of a
sentence structured like the following:

"You <something negative>"

What possible harm would it do to ban such sentences? What features do
such sentences introduce into the software? Why is it difficult to
discuss features instead of people on the mailing list? How many
potential contributors have silently left after seeing personal insults
to themselves or others?

My opinion: Whether you call it CoC or mailing list rules or anything
else, some degree of it is needed, because the community allowing a
wild west of personal insults fails to achieve its potential at best,
and disintegrates at worst.

SteveT

Steve Litt
January 2016 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
http://www.troubleshooters.com/28

Steve,

Please see the new thread WIP: CoC V2

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 503-667-4564
PostgreSQL Centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world you can't
control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.

Tom Lane wrote:
> In my admittedly-limited experience with dealing with such problems,
> it's a lot easier to achieve positive results if you can discuss
> issues in private, before people's positions harden.
>
> In short, I wouldn't characterize that complainant as "a troll" for
> the substance of her complaint, but maybe so for the way in which
> she went about making it. If we're to have a CoC, I'd really like
> it (and any associated enforcement mechanism) to be designed to
> discourage this sort of let's-begin-with-public-attacks approach to
> problem resolution. How we get to that exactly, I don't know.

There's a time-tested idea in Mt 18, 15-17:

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just
between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.
But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that
'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'
If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse
to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

"Take one or two others along" could be a CC.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

A couple thoughts rather late to the discussion from a more international
perspective.

I remember a lecture I saw by a comparative law professor (the lecture was
about why many Danes are unhappy with the EU pressures on their tradition
of law and the general lack of subsidiarity in the EU) who described the
difference between the Danish and the American system as "Make love not
codes." The pun here is that "love" is the plural form of the word for law
in Danish. Scandinavian laws tend to be short and rely on human judgment
by judges rather than precedent and complexity like the American system or
the equivalents in the civil law/Continental systems. Without bringing up
those political issues, I think the approach to decentralization is a good
one for many projects.

I think this might give us a happy middle ground. Something very basic,
very brief which sets forth principles of the community but doesn't amount
to real rule-making and respects the general decentralized nature of the
project.

We have a highly decentralized community and an approach needs to reflect
that. I think therefore it is important to keep things brief and vague on
details but specific in shared principles.

I would also be concerned that someone who is overly worried about not
having a code of conduct might be interested in lawyering about it.
Another concern may be "is there a place for me in the project?" and I
think that can be answered differently.

So with these thoughts, how about something more like:

I: Be Respectful and Collaborative

We are a global project and expect that people from a wide variety of
backgrounds and viewpoints will work together. Personal attacks are not
appreciated, and the same goes for attacks on the basis of nationality,
culture, or other factors of inter- and intra-cultural identity.

At the same time, understand that people often cannot see across different
perspectives and may unintentionally say things that cause offense. It is
also a matter of respect and collaboration not to make these into issues.

II: Be Responsible

If you have taken on responsibility in a community project and are unable
to continue, please step down gracefully and help facilitate others taking
your place. This includes being around to facilitate knowledge transfer
and much more.

III: Respect the Commons

We are all here to build an outstanding open source project or set of such
projects. Act in a way which furthers the commons generally, as a
custodian of what we have inherited from the efforts of others, and
borrowed from the future.

In the event of serious problems, the core committee or those they
designate, or the maintainers of other affiliated projects (in their
domains) may be called upon to mediate or even address issues (particularly
in the case of serious and repeated problems). However, the community is
expected to operate in a way which prevents this from becoming necessary by
adhering to the principles above even in the process of addressing
disputes..

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 11:13 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:

>
> Regina Obe wrote:
> >
> > If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.
>
> > Notwithstanding the most regrettable childhood trauma, this request is
> exactly the kind of ridiculousness that the Political Correctness nonsense
> associated with CoCs that we should be worried about in the aftermath of
> proposed adoption.
>
> > Complaining that the acronym "CoC" is anything remotely like the thing
> the work "cock" means is, well, cockamamie
>
> > It's like someone becoming upset over the work "niggardly" as a racist
> epithet. In fact that word and the one you are thinking of are completely
> unrelated: entirely different etymology. Nothing in common except, on the
> one hand, as you imagine the acronym might be pronounced, and on the other
> because there are six similar letters.
>
> Exactly. That's why I added that section:
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> USE OF TRIGGER TERMS
>
> We have long standing terms like Master/Slave that may trigger some past
> trauma for some people.
> While we do consider people's feelings, we weigh that against the effort
> of changing long understood terminology and the psychological trauma
> such changes would cause for the large majority of people who are not as
> sensitive to the usage.
> As such we entertain change requests for naming of new features more than
> we do of renaming old features.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> First of all you have no proof whether I was raped or not, so you don't
> know if I'm just playing the "Poor woman was raped, give her a break" card
> or if my sad luck story is genuine.
> In the end it's irrelevant, because as Josh apologetically explained to
> me - Coc is standard in our vernacular so would cause more damage to
> others if we change it.
>
> I have to learn to cope with my suffering when someone says Coc and it's
> not your problem that I was raped and I have traumatic memories everytime
> I hear someone say "We have a Coc. I think that should make you feel
> safer."
>
> Josh did the right thing. If we had this Coc -- Josh could just point at
> this section and say
>
> "I feel your pain, but according to our Code of Conduct, we can't change
> it."
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>

--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Chris,

The first part up to (I is fine), but part II and below reads more like a Core Contributor riot act you force all the main contributor's to read before you bless them with water and give them keys to commit stuff to your code base.

Like our committer guidelines -- https://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/wiki/DevWikiComitGuidelines

For a Coc – I think it should be light, but make it clear that we do not tolerate strangers coming into our group and demanding us to accept their code, cause we want to be welcoming and show we have at least 15% of code contributions from women.

Thanks,

Regina

From: Chris Travers [mailto:chris(dot)travers(at)gmail(dot)com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 3:05 AM
To: Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us>
Cc: Buford Tannen <buford(at)biffco(dot)net>; Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>; Brian Dunavant <brian(at)omniti(dot)com>; Scott Mead <scottm(at)openscg(dot)com>; Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com>; Gavin Flower <GavinFlower(at)archidevsys(dot)co(dot)nz>; PostgreSQL General <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?

A couple thoughts rather late to the discussion from a more international perspective.

I remember a lecture I saw by a comparative law professor (the lecture was about why many Danes are unhappy with the EU pressures on their tradition of law and the general lack of subsidiarity in the EU) who described the difference between the Danish and the American system as "Make love not codes." The pun here is that "love" is the plural form of the word for law in Danish. Scandinavian laws tend to be short and rely on human judgment by judges rather than precedent and complexity like the American system or the equivalents in the civil law/Continental systems. Without bringing up those political issues, I think the approach to decentralization is a good one for many projects.

I think this might give us a happy middle ground. Something very basic, very brief which sets forth principles of the community but doesn't amount to real rule-making and respects the general decentralized nature of the project.

We have a highly decentralized community and an approach needs to reflect that. I think therefore it is important to keep things brief and vague on details but specific in shared principles.

I would also be concerned that someone who is overly worried about not having a code of conduct might be interested in lawyering about it. Another concern may be "is there a place for me in the project?" and I think that can be answered differently.

So with these thoughts, how about something more like:

I: Be Respectful and Collaborative

We are a global project and expect that people from a wide variety of backgrounds and viewpoints will work together. Personal attacks are not appreciated, and the same goes for attacks on the basis of nationality, culture, or other factors of inter- and intra-cultural identity.

At the same time, understand that people often cannot see across different perspectives and may unintentionally say things that cause offense. It is also a matter of respect and collaboration not to make these into issues.

II: Be Responsible

If you have taken on responsibility in a community project and are unable to continue, please step down gracefully and help facilitate others taking your place. This includes being around to facilitate knowledge transfer and much more.

III: Respect the Commons

We are all here to build an outstanding open source project or set of such projects. Act in a way which furthers the commons generally, as a custodian of what we have inherited from the efforts of others, and borrowed from the future.

In the event of serious problems, the core committee or those they designate, or the maintainers of other affiliated projects (in their domains) may be called upon to mediate or even address issues (particularly in the case of serious and repeated problems). However, the community is expected to operate in a way which prevents this from becoming necessary by adhering to the principles above even in the process of addressing disputes..

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 11:13 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us <mailto:lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> > wrote:

Regina Obe wrote:
>
> If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.

> Notwithstanding the most regrettable childhood trauma, this request is exactly the kind of ridiculousness that the Political Correctness nonsense associated with CoCs that we should be worried about in the aftermath of proposed adoption.

> Complaining that the acronym "CoC" is anything remotely like the thing the work "cock" means is, well, cockamamie

> It's like someone becoming upset over the work "niggardly" as a racist epithet. In fact that word and the one you are thinking of are completely unrelated: entirely different etymology. Nothing in common except, on the one hand, as you imagine the acronym might be pronounced, and on the other because there are six similar letters.

Exactly. That's why I added that section:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

USE OF TRIGGER TERMS

We have long standing terms like Master/Slave that may trigger some past trauma for some people.
While we do consider people's feelings, we weigh that against the effort of changing long understood terminology and the psychological trauma
such changes would cause for the large majority of people who are not as sensitive to the usage.
As such we entertain change requests for naming of new features more than we do of renaming old features.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all you have no proof whether I was raped or not, so you don't know if I'm just playing the "Poor woman was raped, give her a break" card or if my sad luck story is genuine.
In the end it's irrelevant, because as Josh apologetically explained to me - Coc is standard in our vernacular so would cause more damage to others if we change it.

I have to learn to cope with my suffering when someone says Coc and it's not your problem that I was raped and I have traumatic memories everytime
I hear someone say "We have a Coc. I think that should make you feel safer."

Josh did the right thing. If we had this Coc -- Josh could just point at this section and say

"I feel your pain, but according to our Code of Conduct, we can't change it."

Thanks,
Regina

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Best Wishes,

Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.

http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 9:16 AM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:

> Chris,
>
>
>
> The first part up to (I is fine), but part II and below reads more like a
> Core Contributor riot act you force all the main contributor's to read
> before you bless them with water and give them keys to commit stuff to your
> code base.
>

I am not sold on the specifics of what is covered. But it is worth noting
that responsibility can include a lot of other stuff too, not just keys for
committing. Thing about side projects and the like. That's why I included
it. It could easily be replaced by something else (perhaps addressing
what you are discussing below).

>
>
> Like our committer guidelines --
> https://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/wiki/DevWikiComitGuidelines
>
>
>
> For a Coc – I think it should be light, but make it clear that we do not
> tolerate strangers coming into our group and demanding us to accept their
> code, cause we want to be welcoming and show we have at least 15% of code
> contributions from women.
>

One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues which
may or may not become real problems. I think if we try to be clear on all
of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general expectation of
what we do expect.

So my question would be how do you turn this around and frame it as a
positive value and direction?

I assume respecting the commons is insufficient. Maybe a brief note about
the fact that this is critical software and we have to maintain very high
standards of code?

>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Regina
>
>
>
> *From:* Chris Travers [mailto:chris(dot)travers(at)gmail(dot)com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 12, 2016 3:05 AM
> *To:* Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us>
> *Cc:* Buford Tannen <buford(at)biffco(dot)net>; Joshua D. Drake <
> jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>; Brian Dunavant <brian(at)omniti(dot)com>; Scott Mead <
> scottm(at)openscg(dot)com>; Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com>; Gavin
> Flower <GavinFlower(at)archidevsys(dot)co(dot)nz>; PostgreSQL General <
> pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
> *Subject:* Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?
>
>
>
> A couple thoughts rather late to the discussion from a more international
> perspective.
>
> I remember a lecture I saw by a comparative law professor (the lecture was
> about why many Danes are unhappy with the EU pressures on their tradition
> of law and the general lack of subsidiarity in the EU) who described the
> difference between the Danish and the American system as "Make love not
> codes." The pun here is that "love" is the plural form of the word for law
> in Danish. Scandinavian laws tend to be short and rely on human judgment
> by judges rather than precedent and complexity like the American system or
> the equivalents in the civil law/Continental systems. Without bringing up
> those political issues, I think the approach to decentralization is a good
> one for many projects.
>
> I think this might give us a happy middle ground. Something very basic,
> very brief which sets forth principles of the community but doesn't amount
> to real rule-making and respects the general decentralized nature of the
> project.
>
> We have a highly decentralized community and an approach needs to reflect
> that. I think therefore it is important to keep things brief and vague on
> details but specific in shared principles.
>
> I would also be concerned that someone who is overly worried about not
> having a code of conduct might be interested in lawyering about it.
> Another concern may be "is there a place for me in the project?" and I
> think that can be answered differently.
>
> So with these thoughts, how about something more like:
>
> I: Be Respectful and Collaborative
>
> We are a global project and expect that people from a wide variety of
> backgrounds and viewpoints will work together. Personal attacks are not
> appreciated, and the same goes for attacks on the basis of nationality,
> culture, or other factors of inter- and intra-cultural identity.
>
> At the same time, understand that people often cannot see across different
> perspectives and may unintentionally say things that cause offense. It is
> also a matter of respect and collaboration not to make these into issues.
>
>
>
> II: Be Responsible
>
> If you have taken on responsibility in a community project and are unable
> to continue, please step down gracefully and help facilitate others taking
> your place. This includes being around to facilitate knowledge transfer
> and much more.
>
>
>
> III: Respect the Commons
>
> We are all here to build an outstanding open source project or set of such
> projects. Act in a way which furthers the commons generally, as a
> custodian of what we have inherited from the efforts of others, and
> borrowed from the future.
>
>
>
> In the event of serious problems, the core committee or those they
> designate, or the maintainers of other affiliated projects (in their
> domains) may be called upon to mediate or even address issues (particularly
> in the case of serious and repeated problems). However, the community is
> expected to operate in a way which prevents this from becoming necessary by
> adhering to the principles above even in the process of addressing
> disputes..
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 11:13 PM, Regina Obe <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:
>
>
> Regina Obe wrote:
> >
> > If we do write a CoC, can we give it a different acronym.
>
> > Notwithstanding the most regrettable childhood trauma, this request is
> exactly the kind of ridiculousness that the Political Correctness nonsense
> associated with CoCs that we should be worried about in the aftermath of
> proposed adoption.
>
> > Complaining that the acronym "CoC" is anything remotely like the thing
> the work "cock" means is, well, cockamamie
>
> > It's like someone becoming upset over the work "niggardly" as a racist
> epithet. In fact that word and the one you are thinking of are completely
> unrelated: entirely different etymology. Nothing in common except, on the
> one hand, as you imagine the acronym might be pronounced, and on the other
> because there are six similar letters.
>
> Exactly. That's why I added that section:
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> USE OF TRIGGER TERMS
>
> We have long standing terms like Master/Slave that may trigger some past
> trauma for some people.
> While we do consider people's feelings, we weigh that against the effort
> of changing long understood terminology and the psychological trauma
> such changes would cause for the large majority of people who are not as
> sensitive to the usage.
> As such we entertain change requests for naming of new features more than
> we do of renaming old features.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> First of all you have no proof whether I was raped or not, so you don't
> know if I'm just playing the "Poor woman was raped, give her a break" card
> or if my sad luck story is genuine.
> In the end it's irrelevant, because as Josh apologetically explained to
> me - Coc is standard in our vernacular so would cause more damage to
> others if we change it.
>
> I have to learn to cope with my suffering when someone says Coc and it's
> not your problem that I was raped and I have traumatic memories everytime
> I hear someone say "We have a Coc. I think that should make you feel
> safer."
>
> Josh did the right thing. If we had this Coc -- Josh could just point at
> this section and say
>
> "I feel your pain, but according to our Code of Conduct, we can't change
> it."
>
> Thanks,
> Regina
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Chris Travers
>
>
>
> Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor
> lock-in.
>
> http://www.efficito.com/learn_more
>

--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Chris,

>> For a Coc – I think it should be light, but make it clear that we do not tolerate strangers coming into our group and demanding us to accept their code, cause we want to be welcoming and show we have at least 15% of code contributions from women.

> One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues which may or may not become real problems. I think if we try to be clear on all of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general expectation of what we do expect.

> So my question would be how do you turn this around and frame it as a positive value and direction?

> I assume respecting the commons is insufficient. Maybe a brief note about the fact that this is critical software and we have to maintain very high standards of code?

Well we could just explain what we already do but be terse about it.

We accept contributions from everybody. Because our code is used in critical software and of a complex nature, we generally prefer contributions from members familiar with our code base, especially in core areas.

This generally means frequent contributors have a more likely chance of having their code accepted or accepted faster than newcomers.

A member of our community will inspect your contribution and if it is unacceptable in its current state, we will make suggestions for improvement.

In some cases, your contribution may not fit into our current code/documentation base. In these cases, we will reject it and explain why it cannot be used.

--- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That feels long and wordy I know, but not sure how to make it shorter.

Thanks,

Regina

On Jan 12, 2016 9:48 AM, "Regina Obe" <lr(at)pcorp(dot)us> wrote:
>>
>> Chris,
>>
>> >> For a Coc – I think it should be light, but make it clear that we do
not tolerate strangers coming into our group and demanding us to accept
their code, cause we want to be welcoming and show we have at least 15% of
code contributions from women.
>
>
>
> > One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues
which may or may not become real problems. I think if we try to be clear
on all of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general
expectation of what we do expect.
>
> > So my question would be how do you turn this around and frame it as a
positive value and direction?
>
>
>
> > I assume respecting the commons is insufficient. Maybe a brief note
about the fact that this is critical software and we have to maintain very
high standards of code?
>>
>> Well we could just explain what we already do but be terse about it.
>>
>> We accept contributions from everybody. Because our code is used in
critical software and of a complex nature, we generally prefer
contributions from members familiar with our code base, especially in core
areas.

>>
>> This generally means frequent contributors have a more likely chance of
having their code accepted or accepted faster than newcomers.
>>
>> A member of our community will inspect your contribution and if it is
unacceptable in its current state, we will make suggestions for improvement.
>>
>> In some cases, your contribution may not fit into our current
code/documentation base. In these cases, we will reject it and explain why
it cannot be used.

I like that idea.
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> That feels long and wordy I know, but not sure how to make it shorter.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Regina

On 12 January 2016 at 09:25, Chris Travers <chris(dot)travers(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues which
> may or may not become real problems. I think if we try to be clear on all
> of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general expectation of
> what we do expect.

Another consideration.

Last night I was thinking this issue over and then remembered that
normally very reasonable persons (which I count myself among) can
react quite poisonous when they are tired or stressed and people start
pushing their buttons. Those people probably would not be violating
any CoC rules, but can cause someone else to do so.

Moreover, some people are exceptionally good at pushing all the wrong
buttons, whether doing that willingly (out of malice) or not.
I'm a bit concerned that a CoC could give the malicious among those
the ammunition they need to push buttons of their victims. Now of
course, they could do that just as well without a CoC and I don't
recall any instances of this problem on this list.

To add to that, non-native speakers sometimes make mistakes that set
it off. I remember an embarrassing case where I thought the word
"gross" came from the German "Grosshaft", which means quite the
opposite (great, fabulous), and responded to a new idea on a list with
a heartily meant "Gross!". And then you suddenly get angry mails from
all over the place without understanding how that happened. Oops.

Where I stand? I do not know whether a CoC for PG is a good idea or
not, I can't decide. Anyway, in my case it's nothing more than an
opinion anyway - my contributions are pretty much limited to offering
help on this ML.

--
If you can't see the forest for the trees,
Cut the trees and you'll see there is no forest.

> To add to that, non-native speakers sometimes make mistakes that set
> it off. I remember an embarrassing case where I thought the word
> "gross" came from the German "Grosshaft", which means quite the
> opposite (great, fabulous), and responded to a new idea on a list with
> a heartily meant "Gross!".

Indeed, that German word would be "großartig!" (often spelled "grossartig"
especially in environments without easy access to the German "ß".

Responding "Gross!" would amount to saying "That's a great idea in that
it is all-encompassing and using a generic concept to nicely solve a
specific (class of) problem(s) and then some.". Entirely reasonable (if
a bit unusually worded) in German :-)

Karsten Hilbert

> On 12 January 2016 at 09:25, Chris Travers <chris(dot)travers(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

>> One of the dangers of a CoC is that there are many potential issues
>> which may or may not become real problems. I think if we try to be
>> clear on all of them, then we risk creating codes instead of a general
>> expectation of what we do expect.

> Another consideration.

> Last night I was thinking this issue over and then remembered that normally very reasonable persons (which I count myself among) can react quite poisonous when they are tired or stressed and people start pushing their buttons.
> Those people probably would not be violating any CoC rules, but can cause someone else to do so.
I should add you can be very hurtful without meaning to and without violating Coc rules. I'm sure Josh pushing his agenda was not intentional.
But I really felt slighted by it.

I think we are just going to have to accept that we are going to accidentally push each others buttons and that's okay and acceptable. If you don't know someone it's even easier to push their buttons.

> Moreover, some people are exceptionally good at pushing all the wrong buttons, whether doing that willingly (out of malice) or not.
> I'm a bit concerned that a CoC could give the malicious among those the ammunition they need to push buttons of their victims. Now of course, they could do that just as well without a CoC and I don't recall any instances of this problem on this list.

Some people - study their victims carefully and figure out where their buttons are so they can push them and everyone can laugh. Considerate people study people in the community, figure out where their buttons are and try to avoid pushing them.
It's more likely a malicious person is going to be someone who doesn't contribute much to the project. Thus my need to give contributors preferential treatment in ambiguous disputes.

> To add to that, non-native speakers sometimes make mistakes that set it off. I remember an embarrassing case where I thought the word "gross" came from the German "Grosshaft",
> which means quite the opposite (great, fabulous), and responded to a new idea on a list with a heartily meant "Gross!". And then you suddenly get angry mails from all over the place without understanding how that happened. Oops.

It's not just non-native speakers, it's also American. I'm from New York and we tend to be very blunt and make jokes about everything. I'm half Nigerian and Nigerian's have more than their share of people with a sick sense of humor.
Worse, my mother was a Medical Examiner (someone who does autopsies on murder victims) and so her humor was very death centered and I thus had this very sick humor that offended everyone I came across except other children
Of medical examiners. Those kids would make jokes when they broke their arm - "Go away dad, I want someone who works on living people. I'm not dead yet."
I won't even go into the jokes Medical Examiners tell to each other as I know few of you could see the humor in it.

> Where I stand? I do not know whether a CoC for PG is a good idea or not, I can't decide. Anyway, in my case it's nothing more than an opinion anyway - my contributions are pretty much limited to offering help on this ML.
The only reason I think we need a Coc is if we are concerned that

a) Some people won't feel welcome if they don't see one
b) Malicious people will spread rumors about our project for not having one , but if we have one, it has to protect us from them working within the rules, but pushing everyone's buttons.

Thanks,
Regina

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Steve Litt <slitt(at)troubleshooters(dot)com> wrote:
> All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
> repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
> recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
> valuing his/her victimhood.

+1

I was thinking along the same lines when I saw JD's original list
containing that "victimhood" line. I think that one line pretty much
eviscerates the entire purpose of having the CoC.

> On Jan 12, 2016, at 7:50 AM, Vick Khera <vivek(at)khera(dot)org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Steve Litt <slitt(at)troubleshooters(dot)com> wrote:
>> All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
>> repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
>> recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
>> valuing his/her victimhood.
>
> +1
>
> I was thinking along the same lines when I saw JD's original list
> containing that "victimhood" line. I think that one line pretty much
> eviscerates the entire purpose of having the CoC.
>

I don’t remember the “victimhood” line, but it is important to make sure people understand that the problem manifests itself both by being to sensitive by the complainer and not being sensitive enough by the group. I do believe that in any document it needs to be stated that everyone is expected to be tolerant of others. A free society cannot exist without some level of tolerance.

Neil

This line has already been substantially changes. Can we keep discussion of the language of the WIP in the thread meant for it? This way people don't waste time discussing language which no longer exists.

Jim

On January 12, 2016 9:17:55 AM EST, Neil Tiffin <neilt(at)neiltiffin(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> On Jan 12, 2016, at 7:50 AM, Vick Khera <vivek(at)khera(dot)org> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Steve Litt
><slitt(at)troubleshooters(dot)com> wrote:
>>> All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
>>> repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
>>> recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or
>her
>>> valuing his/her victimhood.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> I was thinking along the same lines when I saw JD's original list
>> containing that "victimhood" line. I think that one line pretty much
>> eviscerates the entire purpose of having the CoC.
>>
>
>I don’t remember the “victimhood” line, but it is important to make
>sure people understand that the problem manifests itself both by being
>to sensitive by the complainer and not being sensitive enough by the
>group. I do believe that in any document it needs to be stated that
>everyone is expected to be tolerant of others. A free society cannot
>exist without some level of tolerance.
>
>Neil
>
>--
>Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
>To make changes to your subscription:
>http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

On 1/12/2016 5:42 AM, Regina Obe wrote:
> a) Some people won't feel welcome if they don't see one
> b) Malicious people will spread rumors about our project for not having one , but if we have one, it has to protect us from them working within the rules, but pushing everyone's buttons.

c) and if we DO have one, malicious people will try and either work
around perceived cracks in said CoC, or use the CoC against people in
malicious ways, just because they can. Trolls be Trolls

--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 3:21 PM, James Keener <jim(at)jimkeener(dot)com> wrote:

> This line has already been substantially changes. Can we keep discussion
> of the language of the WIP in the thread meant for it? This way people
> don't waste time discussing language which no longer exists.
>

I think the question though is relevant to a more general question of codes
of conduct.

Here is where I see the danger.

This is a global project. It is going to involve people with wide
perspectives on controversial and sensitive issues. It is not
inconceivable that we will include groups on the email lists who see the
mere presence of eachother as a personal attack. Coming up with examples
would probably be inappropriate but PostgreSQL is widely used and so that
may happen.

In LedgerSMB we have had civilians on the project in countries that were
threatening to go to war with eachother. But at least those weren't
culture war issues so we more or less just worked through the situation.

A second problem is that my experience is that folks who are going to push
people's buttons are going to be careful to do so in order to ensure the
community doesn't see it. To be frank, bullies usually have a level of
political sophistication that their victims lack and I don't see how a CoC
fixes that. (If it is just to say "yes we have one" then my experience is
also such that I worry about those people who worry about that.)

One of the nice things about the Ubuntu Code of Conduct is that it focuses
primarily on the positive. It is long, perhaps overly verbose, but it does
focus on what the community wants rather than what the community wants to
avoid.

It is easy to say "don't do these things." But it is perhaps better to say
"these are the values our community lives by. Please respect them."

>
> Jim
>
> On January 12, 2016 9:17:55 AM EST, Neil Tiffin <neilt(at)neiltiffin(dot)com>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Jan 12, 2016, at 7:50 AM, Vick Khera <vivek(at)khera(dot)org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Steve Litt <slitt(at)troubleshooters(dot)com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
>>>> repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
>>>> recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
>>>> valuing his/her victimhood.
>>>>
>>>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> I was thinking along the same lines when I saw JD's original list
>>> containing that "victimhood" line. I think that one line pretty much
>>> eviscerates the entire purpose of having the CoC.
>>>
>>>
>> I don’t remember the “victimhood”
>> line, but it is important to make sure people understand that the problem manifests itself both by being to sensitive by the complainer and not being sensitive enough by the group. I do believe that in any document it needs to be stated that everyone is expected to be tolerant of others. A free society cannot exist without some level of tolerance.
>>
>> Neil
>>
>>
> --
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>

--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

On 1/12/2016 11:32 PM, Chris Travers wrote:
>
> One of the nice things about the Ubuntu Code of Conduct is that it
> focuses primarily on the positive. It is long, perhaps overly
> verbose, but it does focus on what the community wants rather than
> what the community wants to avoid.
>
> It is easy to say "don't do these things." But it is perhaps better
> to say "these are the values our community lives by. Please respect them."

+1, except for the overly verbose part.

--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 9:00 AM, John R Pierce <pierce(at)hogranch(dot)com> wrote:

> On 1/12/2016 11:32 PM, Chris Travers wrote:
>
>>
>> One of the nice things about the Ubuntu Code of Conduct is that it
>> focuses primarily on the positive. It is long, perhaps overly verbose, but
>> it does focus on what the community wants rather than what the community
>> wants to avoid.
>>
>> It is easy to say "don't do these things." But it is perhaps better to
>> say "these are the values our community lives by. Please respect them."
>>
>
>
> +1, except for the overly verbose part.

I probably should have said "overly verbose for our uses here."

I won't second guess a different project with a different scope.

>
>
> --
> john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz
>
>
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
>

--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more