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

Hi, >>> This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public >>> spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community. >> >> I think this is way too broad. "individual is representing the project >> or its community" can be construed to mean basically anything - if a >> person is known in the community, any of their actions, even without >> relation to the community functions, can always be construed as >> "representing", especially by people with an ax to grind. We'd get >> people complaining "how could prominent member of this project vote for >> that vile politician X" and "how could prominent member of this >> community support that awful law Y" and we definitely not want to go there. > > It is broad for a reason. If harassment that's obviously connected > with the project (it would need to be obviously connected) happens > off-list, that's still problematic. I think limiting the scope to just > the project territories is dangerous as it provides too easy of a way > for members to cause problems with no resolution possible. Define "harassment." Define "connected." Define "obvious." The broadness makes it possible to punish project member for any opinion they hold that is not what an accuser holds. If a prominent project member tweets from their personal account that there is no category for "hate speech" under US law, and thus it does not exist as a legal concept in the US, it is entirely possible for an accuser to say that they feel unsafe communicating inside the project with someone who believes "hate speech" is "protected speech". (Insert any unpopular political opinion here: pro-gun, pro-life, anti-3rd-wave-feminist, anti-immigration, whatever.) The broadness of the language makes that project member liable *within* the project context for their political opinion *outside* the project context. It is, to reiterate my earlier point, fascist in its scope: it binds person, politics, and project, in such a way as to police the political speech of that person in all arenas, under cover of "abiding by the code of conduct." > > Well, what's the alternative? To let them continue to cause trouble? I > would never vote for a ban (temporary or permanent) unless there was a > strong pattern of significant abuse, and I think many here would agree > to that. Define "significant." Define "abuse." (I myself have been labeled "abusive" on Twitter for the presentation of my dissenting opinions here; I can see "loud", or rude, or stubborn, or passionate, but "abusive"? No.) > I wanted to avoid citing personal examples for personal reasons. But > since you refuse to read between the lines, here it goes: > > I have received no less than 4 direct threats of violence that were > directly due to my involvement with the Scalar Type Declarations RFC. Did you report them to the police? If not, why not? > I believe that both Zeev and myself crossed significant lines during > that discussion as well, to which there should have been some level of > recourse or moderator that could have stepped in to cool us down and > help. A code-of-conduct won't help much there, although the conflict-resolution stuff might, so long as it does not reach beyond the scope of the project. > Since posting this RFC, there have been people openly speculating > about my gender, sexual orientation and other personal matters. In > contexts that are purely obvious that it is connected to this RFC, and > hence the project. I've been called a Nazi for having views at odds with popular opinion; threatened with being stabbed in my sleep (not credible), and with castration (credible, and reported to the police). Is there something in the COC about not threatening to cut off someone's balls? > And that's just me. I know for a fact that several other people have > had incidents. I know that several people avoid internals and the > project because of fear of incidents. I won't speak for them, that's > their prerogative. If their fear of words on a screen overrides their desire to contribute, what does that say? > But please stop pretending nothing's ever happened. My experience > alone should be enough to justify. For myself, I'm not "pretending nothing's ever happened." I get hammered daily for my opinions. I just don't let mere words get in my way. When the words are *credible threats* I report them to the police. Thankfully that has been rare. I reiterate: the Code-of-Conduct as presented, and specifically the Contributor Covenant, is political protection for certain political views, overly broad in its scope, totalitarian speech-policing in practice, and to be dismissed out of hand with derision and malice. A conflict-resolution document limited to the project scope alone is much more preferable. -- Paul M. Jones pmjones88@gmail.com http://paul-m-jones.com Modernizing Legacy Applications in PHP https://leanpub.com/mlaphp Solving the N+1 Problem in PHP https://leanpub.com/sn1php