Re: [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of Conduct

Hi, Le 05/01/2016 10:32, Zeev Suraski a écrit :

One thing I really like about the covenant Anthony is proposing (besides it being the same as the one a bunch of other projects are using) is that it actually is pretty short, considering what it is. The English version fits on one screen on my laptop.

I actually find that a bad thing. As I think the Voting RFC proved (IMHO beyond a reasonable doubt) - what's not clearly defined in the text, may evolve in unpredictable directions in the future. Specifically, the Contributor Covenant has text which in my opinion, is either too open for interpretation or needs to be narrowed down - e.g. 'Personal Attacks' and even more so 'Other unethical or unprofessional conduct'. What one may find a legitimate part of a heated discussion - another may find as a personal attack. What one may consider perfectly fine - another may find completely unethical. These are subjective matters and giving a group of five (or seven, or nine) people judicial power over them is very problematic. While I understand the position that even though it's "a solution waiting for a problem" - proactively providing such a CoC makes sense - I think the open-endedness and the risk of bad things happening as a result of it are far greater than any positives. I would focus on creating as-clear-cut-as-possible CoC (probably a trimmed down version of the Contributor Covenant), but would leave the 'teeth' part (i.e. the council part and any sanctions) out. In the very extreme situations where someone truly needs to be banned or otherwise sanctioned, any one of us can propose an RFC to do it. I would require a 2/3 majority and probably no less than X voters voting in favor of the ban, given the far-reaching implications (X being at least several dozen people IMHO). Personally, I would advise to never issue permanent bans - people do sometimes change. People get second chances for doing much worse things; I'd go for a 1yr or at most 2yr bans (again, in exceptional cases only). My 2c. Zeev +1. The proposed CoC is too vague for a multi-cultural environment like ours. Reference to ethics, for example, is subjective by nature. But I'm OK for a more precise text that everybody must explicitely approve before getting any karma.

But I am opposed to any form of law enforcement board. I understand it ensures privacy but my feeling is that we don't need privacy here, and we never needed such a mechanism during 20 years. Most questionable messages are published on the mailing list. If someone receives an offending private mail or is victim of harassment in any other way, he can just publish it on the list and everyone will judge if it is offending or not. Then, if we need to consider banning someone, anybody can create a specific RFC for this, but it is an extreme case that, fortunately, has a very low probability.. Regards François