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

On 1/8/16 1:20 AM, Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

Hi!

And yes, I am aware that a large part of the concern is the definition of "malicious jackass who hurts people" and "hostile, insulting storm".

Not only that. But that even if we have the definition, nobody walks around with a convenient label of "malicious jackass who hurts people" on their foreheads. That's not where the problem lies. What we'd be dealing with is people coming to us complaining said something offensive to them (or to somebody) at resource X, which may not even be public, conveniently providing only evidence that supports it, and we'd have to decide whether it's true or not, knowing no context, no prior history, no full information about what happened, etc. And since we declared universal jurisdiction, not taking sides is no longer an option.

Sure, and the CRT would be fully within their rights to say "this is not a real issue" or "this is too unrelated to the project". In practice, based on my experience elsewhere I think we're likely to see two broad categories of issue: 1) This conversation is getting too aggressive, why don't you both go outside for a while to cool down then come back and hug it out. 2) Seriously, that's not even remotely OK by any stretch of the imagination, get the heck out. And by nipping the first one in the bud more often, the second becomes less acceptable and therefore less common. I'd also say that the first one can be handled more or less privately in most cases, and I'm fine with that. It's category two where the public review would be more needed. Although in both cases the accuser and accused (or the issue reporter and the other parties involved, if we want to be less draconian in the wording) will know who each other are. It's inappropriate for them not to, and in practice impossible for them not to either so let's not even pretend.

There *is* a risk of that turning into a "morality clause". That's true. But it could go either direction on such matters, not necessarily just in the "evil PC witch hunt" direction. That's where, as has been

That's not exactly encouraging phrase - it's like saying "take this pill, it would not *necessarily* kill you, it could go both ways". Would you take it?

A pill is an excellent analogy. Pick up any medication off the shelf at your local drugstore. Take too little of it and it does nothing. Take too much and you'll get sick, possibly die. Take an appropriate amount and it helps cure what ails you. We acknowledge the potential dangers of over-doing it, even put it on the label, and yet we all use medication on a regular basis for all sorts of things and are generally much healthier for it. The Goldilocks Rule applies here, as in most places.

Do you think we can find 5 people in the PHP community that we can trust to make fair decisions (NOT that we would always agree with, but that are fair) that don't fall too far into "thought policing", in *any* direction? If not, then the community is already lost beyond all hope

Again, as I explained already before, it's not a matter of people being "corrupt" or "unfair". It's the matter of dealing with uncertain information and also - unfortunately - potentially some dishonest players trying to abuse the system. People can be misled and manipulated - that happens routinely to much more robust systems than ours, such as courts - so ignoring it and not having security against it besides "we are all good people, we can do no wrong" looks naive to me.

Feel free to swap "unfair" for "mislead". We're not perfect (obviously), and no conflict resolution team will be either. But I am confident that we can find 5 people in PHP who are fair enough, insightful enough, and impartial enough to get the job done. Judges are human and subject to bias, but we still have laws and courts and are a better society for it. Honestly the point you're making sounds close to "perfect or nothing", which if applied generally would preclude PHP from existing. :-) -- --Larry Garfield