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-devel@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. 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