RE: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Re-proposed] Adopt Code of Conduct

That's been in my queue for a while... > -----Original Message----- > From: Andrea Faulds [mailto:ajf@ajf.me] > Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2016 6:26 PM > To: internals@lists.php.net > Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Re-proposed] Adopt Code of Conduct > > Hi, > > > Namely - decision by consensus. This is absolutely required in a topic as far- > reaching as this, which is very clearly outside the scope of the RFC process. > > What do you consider to constitute consensus? Absolute unanimity, or large > majority support? I think consensus is comprised of two things: 1. Truly trying to come up with a resolution that is not controversial - i.e., where you have either no or virtually no people who think the resolution is downright BAD. Note the difference from thinking that it's not good or unhelpful, or people that are indifferent to it - but rather, people thinking it's bad. As long as you have a fair number of people who think the resolution is downright bad - it's outside the consensus IMHO - regardless of any particular majority bar. So it's not only the amount of people who are voting no, but also their level of opposition to the proposal. I think the amount of people who've expressed strong opposition to the principals laid out by Anthony as mandatory for an acceptable CoC (scope of applicability, teeth, etc.) are clear indicators for lack of consensus around a controversial proposal. 2. Once you have a proposal that doesn't have strong opposition - you still need an overwhelming majority to ratify it, to make sure people aren't only comfortable with the general idea but also with the details. I think it's pretty easy to spot consensus, and most of our decisions win what I would call consensus. Looking again at bit.ly/php7rfcs - I'd say an 85-90% bar would be reasonable. As a flipside example, I suspect we should be able to agree on values and mediation principals with a majority that will be well above 90%, and without anybody arguing that it would be bad for the project. There'll probably still be people voting against it because they'd think it's not needed, a waste of time or whatnot - but you'd be very unlikely to find people actively campaigning against it. That's indicative of consensus. > My fear here does not come from the PHP mailing list. PHP internals, for all > its "toxic kindergarten"-ness, is mostly civil. We're not the Linux Kernel > Mailing List, and I think that's something we can all be proud of. The broader > PHP community, however, is not always quite so friendly. I *very* much appreciate your words here. Although I'm personally not a subscriber to the idea that internals is a toxic kindergarten (although it can certainly become one at times) - I'm happy you're viewing internals as (mostly) civil. Thanks, Zeev