A bit late for the vote but here is, for whatever it's worth, my
current perspective on the matter. The many interesting and
complementary view points that were expressed in this discussion were
quite influential; so thanks everybody for your participation!
Feel free to jump down to the conclusion of this e-mail; everything in
between is just personal ranting.
Altogether, I find this community rather friendly, and voluntarily
so. And indeed, when I present Sage, I state, as a half-joke, that
when I first read the Sage mission, ``a viable alternative '', I found
it super bold. And then I complement it with the statement that I dub
even bolder: ``with a friendly community of users and developers''.
In practice, my perception is that we are doing a relatively good job
there. Personally, being part of this community is a rather amazing
experience, which made me grow and brought back much satisfaction.
Dad would have loved to work in this new time where it's possible to
collaborate at this scale.
That being said, there were many occasions where I got hurt
feelings. Usually, I try to voice it out on the thread (you've have
seen my ``grumpy old'Pa'' signature). I know the hurting is almost
always unintentional and is just hard to always avoid. I also know
that I really have a soft skin. I have had great experience with
William apologizing in such circumstances, and I found he was setting
a strong example here. But in any cases, it's not so much about
apology or whatnot, but about giving some explicit feedback since in
e-mails one can't rely on body language to connect to our interlocutor
and tune our wording accordingly. Reciprocally, even if I am trying
really hard to avoid hurting others feelings, that certainly did
happen inadvertently. It will certainly happen again; I apologize in
advance, and would love feedback to adjust the discussion and
hopefully improve.
On occasions, my feedback was tramped over, and that was really hard
to take. I mean, to the point of spending nights and days in a row
grumbling and seriously considering dropping everything and quitting
Sage. As I said, I have a soft skin; luckily this is compensated by
resilience and strong beliefs in the importance of Sage. So don't
worry, I am not going to quit :-)
More important than whatever feelings I may have had, is that this was
very much counter-productive. The fact is that harmony and support
boost my productivity, while conflict ruins it. Other people have
other internal motors. This is totally fine as long as we respect each
other and do our best making each other productive.
Btw: I also saw other's feelings being tramped over, and that was also
hard to take.
Conclusion:
I believe that having a friendly community is a critical asset for
Sage (I am simultaneously totally fine with consenting adults having
fun fighting each other in the mud on sage-flame). I further believe
that we can make further progress in this direction.
I don't know what's the best mean to this aim though.
Of course, nothing beats leading by example.
Given that a formal Code of Conduct seems to make uncomfortable some
developers for whom I have a strong respect, I am not anymore in favor
of it.
On the other hand, I am in favor of putting a bit more emphasis on the
original 2006 statement about cooperation and collaboration. There can
be value to stating the obvious. In practice I for example like the
earlier suggestion of a short "Recommendations" web page. Possibly
with links to the classic netiquette, and maybe with links to sites
about "Non Violent Communication" or similar.
Cheers,
Nicolas
PS: if you get hurt feelings at some point in some discussion and you
believe that it might be helpful for someone to step in, watch the
discussion, and maybe say a few words to try to cool things down by
showing support, I recommend getting in touch with e.g. Karl or
William.
--
Nicolas M. Thiéry "Isil"
<nthi...@users.sf.net> http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/
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