Thank you for the thoughtful reply! You gave me a lot to think about, and I'll do so over the weekend, rather than rushing.
Best, Martin On Friday 1 March 2024 at 18:21:59 UTC+1 David Roe wrote: > Thank you for starting the conversation Martin. I certainly think that > all of these suggestions are appropriate to discuss, and that sage-devel is > probably a better venue for discussion like this than the PR. > > On Fri, Mar 1, 2024 at 5:49 AM 'Martin R' via sage-devel < > sage-...@googlegroups.com> wrote: > >> I would like to ask whether we might want to add some of the following to >> the code of conduct, I could not find it covered there. >> >> I admit that it is unclear to me whether the discussion should be on pull >> requests only. I don't want to add the following to John's pull request, >> because it definitely doesn't belong there. Opening another one makes >> things even harder to follow, so I'm trying to be brave. >> >> I imagine that the issues below may be cultural things, so I would >> perfectly understand that all or some of it is perfectly OK in some >> communities, and therefore should not be part of the sage code of conduct. >> >> I also admit that some of the issues below are attitudes that make it >> hard for me to work on sage. There were some situations in which I would >> possibly have stopped contributing to sage, if sage wasn't a professional >> necessity for me. >> > > I'm sorry to hear that there were situations like this. If you think it > would be helpful to describe them in more detail privately (even if you're > not seeking any kind of action), feel free to write to the Code of Conduct > committee. > > Here are my thoughts on your suggestions. I think that some of them > should definitely be included, though it's not completely clear to me where > (it feels awkward to add yet another enumerated list). > > >> 0. sage is a community effort, and not the project of a single or even a >> few persons. Try to not identify yourself with the code in sage. >> > > The community aspect of Sage is currently discussed in the introduction, > and perhaps we can tweak that to incorporate this suggestion. As for the > second half, I don't understand how it fits into a code of conduct, since > it seems aimed at internal processes (like how to cope if your code is > removed from Sage), rather than behavior. > > Currently our introduction is "The Sage community is comprised of an > international mixture of mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, > researchers, teachers, amateurs, and others with varied backgrounds. This > diversity is one of our strengths, but it can also lead to communication > problems and unhappiness. People who love working on Sage can more > effectively collaborate with others if they follow this code." What do you > feel is missing from this that you're trying to include? > > >> 1. It is not OK to judge somebody else's attempts to improve sage other >> than critisising it technically or casting a negative vote. By contrast, >> emphasising the positive aspects and appreciating the effort is welcome. >> > > I like the idea of including more about positivity, and this fits in with > Guideline 2: "Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and > supports people of all backgrounds and identities." Maybe we can append a > sentence here like "When discussing contributions, endeavor to encourage > positive aspects and avoid overly harsh criticism." > > I do think there are cultural differences here, and personally I think > restricting negative feedback to just voting and "technical" criticism goes > too far, partly because I don't think technical is very clearly defined. > There are judgement calls to be made about what should be included into > Sage, which are not always a matter of what method is technically > superior. I don't think we want to restrict developer's ability to offer > negative feedback, but instead to encourage people to be positive and > welcoming. I'd like to hear other perspectives on this. > > >> 2. It is not OK to emphasise oneselves contributions or stressing that >> one has been right. By contrast, it is fine to express that one is happy >> or perhaps even proud to have solved a particular technical problem. >> > > I'm struggling to translate this idea into something concrete that I feel > comfortable adding to the code of conduct. I think it's important to allow > people to get credit for the contributions that they've made to Sage, so I > don't know what part of emphasizing your own contributions is problematic. > Similarly, I think it's too much to ask people to not claim that they are > on the correct side of an argument if a discussion gets contentious. Is > there some other aspect of this kind of behavior that we might focus on? > > >> 3. It is not OK to modify the description of a pull request or issue of >> somebody else without explicit permission, ideally on the ticket so that >> the permission is visible to all readers. >> > > I actually think that modifying someone else's pull request to clarify it, > fix typos, or adjust it once the scope has changed is fine. I'm curious > what other people think, and what our community standard should be. > Martin, what aspects of this bother you? Are there any kinds of > modifications that you think are alright? > > >> 4. It is not OK to change a pull request to "positive review" if someone >> has already expressed explicitly that it shouldn't be merged, and there >> hasn't been a vote. >> > > Once we settle on a process for managing disagreement about PRs (as we're > discussing in this thread > <https://groups.google.com/g/sage-devel/c/XDvKkMRoDk4/m/0yrtdKkGAwAJ>), I > think adding something like this would be appropriate. > David > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/79fdce9d-97fd-4f14-a746-938d074e0da4n%40googlegroups.com.
