Re: Code of Conduct plan

On Sun, Jun 3, 2018 at 8:29 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Two years ago, there was considerable discussion about creating a
> Code of Conduct for the Postgres community, as a result of which
> the core team announced a plan to create an exploration committee
> to draft a CoC [1]. That process has taken far longer than expected,
> but the committee has not been idle. They worked through many comments
> and many drafts to produce a version that seems acceptable in the view
> of the core team. This final(?) draft can be found at
>
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

Reading through this, it seems like a generally useful and fair set of
rules. I want to offer some comments though about some specific issues
here.

>
>
> We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
> Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
> If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
> coc(at)postgresql(dot)org(dot)
>
> The initial membership of the CoC committee will be announced separately,
> but shortly.
>

One of the issues I see here is the issue of cross-cultural attacks, and a
certain American slant on where inappropriate behavior might begin when it
comes to disparaging remarks. In my blog I covered one hypothetical about
an argument via email signatures over a culture war issue like same-sex
marriage for example where one side might put forth an American viewpoint
and someone else might condemn sexual ethics that permit accepting
homosexual contact using, say, Gandhi as an authority.

This is a serious issue. It won't go away. There will be, at some point,
Americans trying to push these sorts of issues via email signatures and the
like, and it will cause conflict. The current code of conduct makes it
very clear that the second viewpoint is not welcome, but is very ambiguous
on the first viewpoint. I.e. arguing that marriage shouldn't be a bond
that binds parents to their children but solely exists for the benefit of
the spouses could be a cultural attack and hence an attack on the national
backgrounds of many people in the community around the world but that isn't
clear. My concern is that the current code of conduct will lead to these
disputes ensuring that the CoC community gets to decide who gets to feel
like they are not protected, and I think we all agree that's not what we
want.

For this reason I think the introduction should be left as is, but I would
suggest one of two modifications to the second section (Inclusivity):

1. Either include culture as a part of the protected criteria to indicate
that this definitely is protected and that culture-war pushing will not be
tolerated any more than any other disturbance of the peace, or
2. Note that trolling or divisive political behavior likely to threaten
the peace will be dealt with as a violation of the code of conduct, or
3. Simply demand civility and leave a lot of the examples out.

On to the code of conduct committee:

This needs to be explicitly international and ideally people from very
different cultures. This is the best protection against one small group
within one country deciding to push a political agenda via the Code of
Conduct. I would recommend adding a note here that the committee will be
international and culturally diverse, and tasked with keeping the peace and
facilitating a productive and collegial environment.

> Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a result
> of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
> July 1 2018.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> [1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/56A8516B.8000105@agliodbs.com
>
>

--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

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