Hi, On 22 January 2016 at 18:15, Chase Peeler <chasepee...@gmail.com> wrote: > 1.) I think everyone already knows how to be an adult. The fact that > sometimes we don't act in a civil manner isn't because we don't have > something telling us what civil behavior entails. Putting it in writing > might make us feel good, but it isn't going to change how anyone behaves. > Putting it in writing is necessary only if you intended to have a way to > enforce it - which requires some form of punitive measures for those that > don't, as well as a way to determine if someone violated them.
I agree. Which is why the COC only notes actions within the scope of the project. Just because the COC may not alter behaviour in 100% of cases, it does not follow that the project should sit idly by and do absolutely nothing at all. Either we're a community of humans that will close ranks to protect a fellow community member, or we're a collection of code emitting machines with the empathic capability of a brick. I'm sure that's a great place for machines, but it's not so great for humans. > 2.) Instead of focusing on what is and is not proper behavior, and how to > punish someone that doesn't follow the rules, we should focus on how we can > help out one or more individual that feels they were harmed in some way by > one or more other individual. The only initial restriction on whether we > help them out is if they are both involved in the PHP community. This means > we don't have to define what is and isn't considered "harm" nor do we have > to define where such actions must take place. This is what many of us are > talking about in reference to conflict mediation. The best thing about this That's great, but it makes no sense. If we pick any extreme issue, like harrasment, you cannot both refuse to take action against the offender, and also state that the victim has the community's undying support. Those would be contrary statements. You also cannot assume that all parties in mediation will act in good faith and make no provision for when they don't. This is why a COC should define harms (or alternatively, goals to prevent the same harms), and then also define what happens when the COC is not obeyed. Mediation is a great step that should cover 99% of all cases with ease, but it can never ever be a long drawn out affair without concluding. Eventually, should mediation fail, something else needs doing for the 1% of cases that mediation cannot resolve. Defining that "something else" is the ultimate statement that the COC will be actively enforced, i.e. that it has teeth when teeth are called for. > 3.) Finally, I think a Code of Conduct that includes punitive measures is a > bad idea. I won't go into details on why, as we've gone over them in > detail, but I'll sum it up as follows: a Code of Conduct that gives a small > group of people the ability to punish others is open to abuse. I'm not > saying that anyone proposing such a code of conduct has evil intentions, or > even that anyone on this list would purposely act in an evil way if a > member of the committee. In fact, the reason I feel such Codes of Conduct > is dangerous is that someone acting in what they feel IS a noble way can > easily do the opposite. The current process is open to abuse...already. Anyone at anytime is completely free to poke Internals with an email detailing a laundry list of charges against anyone. The absence of a defined process doesn't mean there's no process at all. It's also important to note that the COC makes it clear that the proposed small team has very limited abilities, with any additional action needing to be taken to the entire project, and can be overruled in the same manner via the appeals mechanism. All steps are also clearly tied to the existence of evidence. This is significantly less open to abuse that the status quo. Paddy -- Pádraic Brady http://blog.astrumfutura.com -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
