Code of Conduct plan

On 2018-09-16 00:00, Mark Kirkwood wrote:
> On 15/09/18 08:17, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Yeah, this.  The PG community is mostly nice people, AFAICT.  I'll be
>> astonished (and worried) if the CoC committee finds much to do.  We're
>> implementing this mostly to make newcomers to the project feel that
>> it's a safe space.
>
> Agreed. However I think the all-of-life clause gives an open door to
> potential less than well intentioned new members joining up to extend a
> SJW agenda. So in fact the unintended consequence of this may be a
> *less* safe place for some existing members - unless all of their social
> media utterances are agreeable to the angry militant left.

This is my only concern, there are some very sensitive people out there
just looking for scandal / publicity. No reason to give them a larger
attack surface. Maybe that sounds paranoid but look around, there are
folks that want to spread the US culture war to every front, including
open source projects on the internet.

This sentence in the CoC should be worded to exclude things that are not
directed harassment when outside of the community spaces. For example,
some "incorrect opinion" on Twitter should have little bearing if it
wasn't meant as an "attack". Maybe for extreme cases there could be a
"hey you're making us look bad and scaring people away, chill with the
hate speech or leave" clause, but that should only apply if it is
someone whose name is publicly associated with Postgres and they are
saying really terrible things. I feel there is a big difference between
keeping it civil/safe in the lists and conferences, and making people
afraid to say anything controversial (in the USA) anywhere ever.

Maybe the way the committee is set up, it will handle this fairly. But
it's better to be explicit about it IMO, so as not to attract
professional complainers.

-- Stephen