Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Russ Allbery 
Steve Langasek  writes:
> On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 01:42:04PM +0900, Norbert Preining wrote:

>> Wow, I am impressed, 5 emails out of 15150 (current search result
>> on lists.debian.org) makes me:
>> 
>> > As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
>>  ^

>> That is your definition of "routinely": 0.033% ?

>> Assuming that you missed 100 other emails that would still remain < 1%

>> Thanks for this enlightment on what "routinely" means in English, for you.

> Thanks for continuing to be a walking case study of why we need an
> enforceable code of conduct on Debian mailing lists.

This isn't really helping either.  There's really no way that anyone can
respond positively to this sort of message, which means that even if you
feel it's warranted, it's not productive.  The original point gets lost in
the back and forth of which of you can snark at the other most
effectively.

-- 
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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Steve Langasek 
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 01:42:04PM +0900, Norbert Preining wrote:
> Wow, I am impressed, 5 emails out of 15150 (current search result
> on lists.debian.org) makes me:
> 
> > As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
>  ^

> That is your definition of "routinely": 0.033% ?

> Assuming that you missed 100 other emails that would still remain < 1%

> Thanks for this enlightment on what "routinely" means in English, for you.

Thanks for continuing to be a walking case study of why we need an
enforceable code of conduct on Debian mailing lists.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/
slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Russ Allbery 
Norbert Preining  writes:

>> As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
>  ^

> That is your definition of "routinely": 0.033% ?

> Assuming that you missed 100 other emails that would still remain < 1%

> Thanks for this enlightment on what "routinely" means in English, for
> you.

I've noticed the same pattern as Steve, and it bothers me too, which means
I probably should say something rather than letting this look like
something between you and him.  Your interactions on debian-devel when you
do post there, which indeed isn't too frequently, usually come across as
quite angry and confrontational and, yes, abusive.

I *think* this is largely because you mostly post to debian-devel when
something is getting in your way or interfering with something you're
trying to get done (at least, that's my impression of most of the cases I
remember).  If I'm right, that means you mostly post in a frustrated mood.
But, that being said, it makes me cringe, and I really wish you would
rephrase the way that you post there.  I've gotten to the point where I
dread reading a debian-devel thread when your name shows up in the list of
senders, and I don't want to feel that way!  You do lots of great work on
TeX packaging, something that I care quite a bit about, and I want to look
forward to reading your posts.

I know this is hard feedback to receive.  The point isn't to say that
you're a horrible person; the impression I have is that it's just
situational and mood.  But you tend to post things there that come across
as very hostile, which isn't really appropriate and makes people feel
attacked and demotivated.

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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Norbert Preining 
Wow, I am impressed, 5 emails out of 15150 (current search result
on lists.debian.org) makes me:

> As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
 ^

That is your definition of "routinely": 0.033% ?

Assuming that you missed 100 other emails that would still remain < 1%

Thanks for this enlightment on what "routinely" means in English, for you.

Norbert


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JAIST, Japan TeX Live & Debian Developer
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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Steve Langasek 
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 12:24:51AM +0900, Norbert Preining wrote:
> On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
> > fellow developers: not you.

> Thus neither you ..., logic wins.

> Wow, being told most abusive posters ... would you kindly use your
> browser and browse my posts on debian-tex-maint lists and let
> me know the ratio of "you-consider-abusive" to "you-consider-ok"?!?!?

Abuse does not become acceptable by being embedded in a mass of politeness.
Abuse is abuse and is always unacceptable.  The ratios do not matter.

Likewise, debian-tex-maint has no relevance to my comment.  Even if you're
perfectly polite there, all that establishes is that you're nice to people
when you're in charge.  It doesn't excuse your abusive posts on other lists
(like debian-devel).

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 09:44:31AM +0900, Norbert Preining wrote:
> I openly request an apology from you. That is unbearable:

> You publicly defamed me by stating:

> On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
> > fellow developers: not you.

> Onto which I asked for evidence:

> On Mi, 22 Mai 2013, Norbert Preining wrote:
> > Wow, being told most abusive posters ... would you kindly use your
> > browser and browse my posts on debian-tex-maint lists and let
> > me know the ratio of "you-consider-abusive" to "you-consider-ok"?!?!?

> If you cannot come up with support for the insult you posted here
> (which was btw the first personal insult in these threads!) I will
> take further steps necessary.

You don't think it's a bit excessive to escalate to the DPL after 9 hours
with no response?  I do have other things to do with my day besides digging
up references to mailing list posts.

However, I do agree with you that, having accused you of being abusive to
your peers on mailing lists and being asked for evidence, I have a
responsibility to back up my statements.

So, here we go:

  https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/06/msg00441.html

  "And I am pissed that the alioth people are soo crazy ..."

  https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/06/msg00442.html

  "It is simply SNAFU!!!"

In fairness, once you recognized you had a local configuration error, you
apologized to the alioth admins.  And perhaps as a non-native speaker, you
don't know the expansion of "SNAFU", or recognize that it's offensive.  But
it is; and this is disrespectful of the work of the alioth team, and would
be an inappropriate way to approach this problem even if the error had not
been on your side.

And this is not the only instance of such abuse from you.

  https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/12/msg00771.html

  "Can someone of the proposers of this (nice? stupid? rubbish?) format
  explain me please why on earth:
  - git-buildpackage
  - dpkg-buildpackage
  - and in fact at the bottom dpkg-source
  fuck around in my git repository, applying patches, just for builing
  a source package?"

You tried the 3.0 (quilt) format and you didn't like it.  That's
understandable; it's not a perfect solution, many other people don't like it
either, and its interactions with a package VCS are particularly
frustrating.

What's not ok is to refer to the format as "nice/stupid/rubbish", which is
not made nicer by using the word "nice" as an option; or to describe what
dpkg-source is doing as "fuck[ing] around in [your] git repository".  This
is rude, and disrespectful of the work of the dpkg maintainers.

And again two years later:

  https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/01/msg00478.html

  "So what is it that dpkg-buildpackage, dpkg-source, and all the quilt 3.0
  stuff is s braindamaged"

Calling other people's work "braindamaged" is not respectful.

And finally, in the most recent example:

  https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/05/msg01138.html

  "Of course, RM will go hell for another embedded copy, but I don't give
  a big cake of chocolate or so for that."

You may think this is just a matter of you being honest in a technical
discussion.  But it isn't; you went out of your way to mention that you
don't care what the release team thinks of your plan.  You later go on to
explain why the upload you've done is perfectly safe and is not a security
issue () - so
why do you describe this as "another embedded copy" and claim that the
release team will have a problem with it?  Either you think the release team
is too stupid to recognize that this copy included *only* in the source is a
non-issue; or you're deliberately antagonizing them.

All of this is inappropriate, abusive behavior towards your fellow
developers.  It does not belong on our mailing lists.  And the fact that you
don't realize this (as evidenced by the repeated occurrences, and that you
challenged me for examples) is exactly why you should not be the arbiter of
what's acce

Re: Dealing with ITS abuse

2013-05-21 Thread Filipus Klutiero 

Hi Don,

Don Armstrong wrote:

On Sun, 14 Apr 2013, Chris Knadle wrote:
>  On Saturday, April 13, 2013 13:34:23, Don Armstrong wrote:
>  >  On Sat, 13 Apr 2013, Chris Knadle wrote:
[...]

>  >  Why should there be consequences that you can see?
>
>  A man you work with is treating you badly [...] -- the behavior
>  continues in the same way it did before.
>
>  Now the question: why would you need to know what consequences there
>  were?

The only consequence I should be concerned about is whether the
behavior stops or continues.
No, if someone behaved abusively, you should in this case first be 
concerned about the abusive contributor justifying his actions, then 
about him recognizing his error(s) and apologizing (or in other words, 
promising to change his behavior). It's only at this point where respect 
is restored, cooperation can resume, and where you can simply watch out 
for new abusive behavior, indeed.
Unless you're *aware* that the consequence to the contributor was a 
restriction.

[...]


>  People need feedback.

That's why owner@ responds to the reporters to indicate that we have
received their communication and addressed the issue.


My own experience unfortunately infirms that.


  [And in cases
where we do not respond, it's because we've missed or have not
received the communication.]


[Highly unlikely]


>  If from the point of view of the reporter the feedback isn't
>  working, then it begs the question of what the feedback was.

If the behavior doesn't change or improve, reporting it again is the
appropriate action.


If the reporter isn't aware that ow...@bugs.debian.org reacted 
appropriately to the first report, I have to disagree, the reporter 
should escalate.



You can also always escalate problems to leader@.

Re: Dealing with ITS abuse

2013-05-21 Thread Filipus Klutiero 

Sune Vuorela wrote:

On 2013-04-06, Filipus Klutiero  wrote:
>  It's not a /good/ way in absolute terms, but it's pretty much the only
>  way for now, so I guess it's currently the best way (see
>  https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2011/11/msg00030.html  ).

My experience with contacting owner@bugs, listmaster, wikiadmins and
other people to get abusers banned or in getting them to voice in has
been only good.

But of course, since my interactions mostly have been to getting a
certain french-canadian with a irc nick that might rhyme with 'healer',
there is quite a chance that that you can have had different
experiences.


It's really too bad that this experience is private, then. Had it been 
public, its interest here wouldn't be nullified by a certain barely 
intelligible Danish's untrustworthiness.

Oh well - just another example of transparency's relevance, I suppose.


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Norbert Preining 
Steve,

I openly request an apology from you. That is unbearable:

You publicly defamed me by stating:

On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Steve Langasek wrote:
> As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
> fellow developers: not you.

Onto which I asked for evidence:

On Mi, 22 Mai 2013, Norbert Preining wrote:
> Wow, being told most abusive posters ... would you kindly use your
> browser and browse my posts on debian-tex-maint lists and let
> me know the ratio of "you-consider-abusive" to "you-consider-ok"?!?!?

If you cannot come up with support for the insult you posted here
(which was btw the first personal insult in these threads!) I will
take further steps necessary.

I consider it not acceptable do spread lies and not stand to them
or retract them.

Norbert


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Don Armstrong 
On Tue, 21 May 2013, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Tue, 2013-05-21 at 10:32 +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > 6. You should avoid sending attachments; this generates a lot of
> > unnecessary bandwidth on our listservers. Instead, put the file you
> > would like to attach online somewhere and post a link.
> 
> It may be worth clarifying that this applies only to the mailing
> lists, not the BTS.

And in both cases, I'd really like to be able to support
RFC2017+RFC1521 style mime external-body attachments. Unfortunately,
I'm not sure if anything else actually supports them.

-- 
Don Armstrong  http://www.donarmstrong.com

"What, now?"
"Soon equates to good, later to worse, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.
Therefore, immediacy."
  -- Iain M. Banks _Look to Windward_ p 213


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Russ Allbery 
Enrico Zini  writes:

> Please note that a society where every single citizen is well behaved,
> and every single deviant is promptly corrected, is a police state.
> Bruce Schneier's "Liars and outliers" has some very interesting thoughts
> on this.

I don't think those thoughts can be extended into a general rule against
institutional pressures (which is what this code of conduct is).  Rather,
Schneier's point is that some people will always defect from the
institutional pressures, and that's to be expected.  That does *not* mean,
in Schneier's analysis, that there should be no consequences for doing so,
just that one should not attempt to proactively prevent all defections.

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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Brian Gupta 
On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 6:30 AM, Wouter Verhelst  wrote:
> On 21-05-13 11:37, Norbert Preining wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
>>> 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
>>>disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere
>>
>> And who defines that?
>
> The community as a whole.
>
>> If you can give me a definition of "foul language" or "abusive"
>> or "disrespectful" I would be happy.
>>
>> The old code of conduct was only containing "foul", which also
>> was already too much. Nobody can be declared authorative in
>> deciding what is foul/abusive language.
>
> Actually, if you read it carefully, you'll find that the first item in
> our current code of conduct reads as follows:
>
>   The mailing lists exist to foster the development and use of Debian.
>   Non-constructive or off-topic messages, along with other abuses, are
>   ^^^
>   not welcome.
>
> I've simply merged it with some other items into one "be polite"
> guideline.
>
> Yes, it's hard to spot; the current code of conduct doesn't read very
> well. It's part of the reason why I want to revise it ;-)
>
>> Short example: People from Siena (Italy) have a tendency for strong
>> words, very strong words. And between friends it is very common.
>> What is foul/abusive here?
>
> It is certainly true that it is very hard to define "foul" or "abusive"
> language, which is why I'm not attempting to do that. There's a fairly
> large gray area between "polite behaviour" and "abusive behaviour",
> which includes things like late-night emotional messages that one
> regrets the day after, cultural differences, and unwanted puns that
> could be construed to be offensive.
>
> I think any code of conduct should be interpreted to allow people to
> make mistakes. This is why I added another paragraph explaining what to
> do when people fail to adhere to the CoC, stressing that they may have a
> bad day or may be unaware of any offensive intent. Do you think I should
> clarify that some more?

I'm wondering if there can be a guidelines/advice section also? For
example, perhaps we want to capture something along the lines of (The
wording needs a ton of tweaking): Please remember that Debian is a
multicultural organization, with members from around the world, who
speak a variety of native languages. Please think twice about how
someone might take your words in the context of their own culture. In
all cases, please remain respectful and professional in your dealings
with other project members, especially if you do not know them well.
Conversely, when reading communications from other project members, do
bear in mind cultural differences.

> --
> This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space.
>
> If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
> will not go to space today.
>
>   -- http://xkcd.com/1133/
>
>
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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread MJ Ray 
Wouter Verhelst  proposed:
> The Debian mailinglists exist to foster the development and use of
> Debian. This Code of Conduct exists to help towards that goal.
> 
> In particular, the following rules should be adhered to by participants
> to discussion on Debian mailinglists:

That second paragraph looks like it should get complaints from
debian-l10n-english, so let's rephrase:

Participants in discussions on Debian mailing lists should follow these
rules:

> 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
>disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere
>in Debian. That type of behaviour is not constructive and can quickly
>lead to a degradation of the quality of a discussion.

I feel it would be nicer to open with a positive point rather than a
big "DO NOT".  I'd rephrase even "do not flame" as a positive
instruction, so I'd reorder/rewrite the first three items like so:

  1. You're welcome to use our mailing lists to ask questions, but
 please use the most appropriate list you can see.  If you are
 unsure, use debian-user for support-related questions, or
 debian-mentors for development-related questions.  Be prepared to
 ask your question on a different list if told to do so, and
 mention that it is a resent question.

  2. Avoid flaming, cursing and other abusive or disrespectful
 behaviour as much as you can.  That usually distracts from the
 real discussion and is not constructive.

  3. Use the correct language when sending mails to our lists. This is
 usually English, unless otherwise noted in the description of the
 mailing list in question.

I think "mailing list" is still usually two words, so I'd change that
throughout.

Oh and I added mentioning that a question has been resent, as it can
be annoying to find half a discussion months later.

>[...] You should preferably also use a
>mailer which respects the Mail-Followup-To: header, or make a
>best-effort attempt at respecting it manually if you don't.

Yeah, I hope there's significant opposition to this change!  I think
it's a great shame that Mail-Followup-To is still stumbling around, 15
years after its fatal wounding in IETF DRUMS.  It still doesn't work
and last I knew, mutt implemented it a different way to djb's spec and
some other clients, which complicates its use.  For one typical
discussion, see http://www.imc.org/ietf-822/mail-archive/msg05692.html

In short, I'd prefer the code of conduct to encourage people to take
control rather than recommend rejected / divergently-implemented headers:

 You should check whether to reply to the List-Post address only,
 or whether the original author would like to be a Cc recipient.
 This may be indicated in the non-standard Mail-Followup-To header.

> Repeated offenders may be temporarily of permanently banned from posting

s/ of / or /

Other than that, I think it's pretty unobjectionable, as far as I could tell.

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Norbert Preining 
On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Steve Langasek wrote:
> As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
> fellow developers: not you.

Thus neither you ..., logic wins.

Wow, being told most abusive posters ... would you kindly use your
browser and browse my posts on debian-tex-maint lists and let
me know the ratio of "you-consider-abusive" to "you-consider-ok"?!?!?

I love it when people just blow out unsupported opinions.

Norbert


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Steve Langasek 
On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 06:37:39PM +0900, Norbert Preining wrote:
> On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
> >disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere

> And who defines that?

As one of the most routinely abusive posters on Debian lists towards your
fellow developers: not you.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/
slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Ben Hutchings 
On Tue, 2013-05-21 at 10:32 +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
[...]
> The Debian mailinglists exist to foster the development and use of
> Debian. This Code of Conduct exists to help towards that goal.
> 
> In particular, the following rules should be adhered to by participants
> to discussion on Debian mailinglists:
> 
> 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or

'flame' is slang and I suspect it is not that widely understood among
those who are unused to mailing lists.  Try to find a standard English
term instead.

>disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere
>in Debian. That type of behaviour is not constructive and can quickly
>lead to a degradation of the quality of a discussion.
[...]
> 4. [...] You should preferably also use a
>mailer which respects the Mail-Followup-To: header, or make a
>best-effort attempt at respecting it manually if you don't.

I think we should give up on M-F-T; it has never been standardised and
is not widely supported.

The most annoying reply behaviour I see is people replying to one list
rather than the multiple lists I sent the original message to.  We
should encourage use of Reply-to-all instead, as erring on the side of
inclusion is safer than erring on the side of exclusion.

[...]
> 6. You should avoid sending attachments; this generates a lot of
>unnecessary bandwidth on our listservers. Instead, put the file you
>would like to attach online somewhere and post a link.

It may be worth clarifying that this applies only to the mailing lists,
not the BTS.

[...]
> Thoughts?

I think it should incorporate the appropriate parts of the Debian
Community Guidelines.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
friends: People who know you well, but like you anyway.


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Wouter Verhelst 
Hi Enrico,

On 21-05-13 14:19, Enrico Zini wrote:
> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 10:32:09AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> 
>> So, without further ado, here's my draft:
> [...]
> 
> As a general principle, I object to any attempt to codify good
> behaviour. The DCG, which I thank Lars for mentioning, was attempting to
> give clues and reasonable expectations to people looking for them, not
> to give rules for people to enforce.
>
> It is hard to define what is "good" behaviour in our environment. I'd
> even think that being unable to define and enforce "good" behaviour is a
> prerequisite where creativity is sought.

I understand (and agree with) that goal. In fact, I have actively
advocated against a formal code of conduct in the past[1]. However, if
we have a code of conduct, it should be both useful and enforced; in my
opinion, it currently isn't very useful, and is enforced only to a
limited extent (the listmasters take steps when things go really out of
hand, and there is some peer pressure, but that's often ignored).

I still think that too much policing of our mailinglists is a bad idea.
However, I have also come to believe that there is some behaviour that
should not be tolerated from anyone, yet sometimes it is. This is
precisely what a (good) code of conduct is for.

So, logically, if the outcome of this discussion that we decide to
abolish our code of conduct altogether, then I would not be unhappy.
However, I think a better move is to have a code of conduct that is
actually sensible.

> Please note that a society where every single citizen is well behaved,
> and every single deviant is promptly corrected, is a police state.

Correct.

> Bruce Schneier's "Liars and outliers" has some very interesting thoughts
> on this.
> 
> I tend to work well in communities that are generally made of adults
> endowed with reasonable judgement and common sense, rather than
> communities of misbehaved kids in need of supervision. Adding rules
> tends to nudge things towards the latter.

Agreed, which is why I'm not attempting to make any part of my proposal
a hard-and-fast rule, and why I explicitly note that people "(...) may
have a bad day".

> People who don't act like adults should just be treated as such and be
> politely asked to grow up, keeping in mind that all of us may
> occasionally slip into a childish behaviour on the occasional bad day,
> and often all that is required to recover is a friend who kindly gives
> the right feedback.

Exactly; I have tried to word that, but may have failed. Is there any
part of my proposal that you have a problem with, in particular, or were
you just speaking in general?

[1] See, for example,


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Enrico Zini 
On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 10:32:09AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:

> So, without further ado, here's my draft:
[...]

As a general principle, I object to any attempt to codify good
behaviour. The DCG, which I thank Lars for mentioning, was attempting to
give clues and reasonable expectations to people looking for them, not
to give rules for people to enforce.

It is hard to define what is "good" behaviour in our environment. I'd
even think that being unable to define and enforce "good" behaviour is a
prerequisite where creativity is sought.

Please note that a society where every single citizen is well behaved,
and every single deviant is promptly corrected, is a police state.
Bruce Schneier's "Liars and outliers" has some very interesting thoughts
on this.

I tend to work well in communities that are generally made of adults
endowed with reasonable judgement and common sense, rather than
communities of misbehaved kids in need of supervision. Adding rules
tends to nudge things towards the latter.

People who don't act like adults should just be treated as such and be
politely asked to grow up, keeping in mind that all of us may
occasionally slip into a childish behaviour on the occasional bad day,
and often all that is required to recover is a friend who kindly gives
the right feedback.


Ciao,

Enrico

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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Wouter Verhelst 
Hi Lars,

On 21-05-13 11:55, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
> I suggest Enrico's "Debian Community Guidelines" would form a good
> base document for this discussion.
> 
> http://people.debian.org/~enrico/dcg/

I know about this document, and agree that it consists of generally good
advise, worthy to be heeded.

However, it is far too long to be a good code of conduct in itself,
IMHO. To be effective, a code of conduct should be short and concise.
Much of what's in there also doesn't belong in a mailinglist code of
conduct. For example, much of chapter 3 is more about packaging together
collaboratively rather than about behaving on mailinglists.

With all that baggage (which makes sense in the context of which it is
written, just not in the context of a mailinglist coc), I think it's
better to start from something smaller rather than from Enrico's
otherwise excellent document.

Regards,

-- 
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space.

If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
will not go to space today.

  -- http://xkcd.com/1133/


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Wouter Verhelst 
On 21-05-13 11:37, Norbert Preining wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
>> 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
>>disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere
> 
> And who defines that?

The community as a whole.

> If you can give me a definition of "foul language" or "abusive"
> or "disrespectful" I would be happy.
> 
> The old code of conduct was only containing "foul", which also
> was already too much. Nobody can be declared authorative in
> deciding what is foul/abusive language.

Actually, if you read it carefully, you'll find that the first item in
our current code of conduct reads as follows:

  The mailing lists exist to foster the development and use of Debian.
  Non-constructive or off-topic messages, along with other abuses, are
  ^^^
  not welcome.

I've simply merged it with some other items into one "be polite"
guideline.

Yes, it's hard to spot; the current code of conduct doesn't read very
well. It's part of the reason why I want to revise it ;-)

> Short example: People from Siena (Italy) have a tendency for strong
> words, very strong words. And between friends it is very common.
> What is foul/abusive here?

It is certainly true that it is very hard to define "foul" or "abusive"
language, which is why I'm not attempting to do that. There's a fairly
large gray area between "polite behaviour" and "abusive behaviour",
which includes things like late-night emotional messages that one
regrets the day after, cultural differences, and unwanted puns that
could be construed to be offensive.

I think any code of conduct should be interpreted to allow people to
make mistakes. This is why I added another paragraph explaining what to
do when people fail to adhere to the CoC, stressing that they may have a
bad day or may be unaware of any offensive intent. Do you think I should
clarify that some more?

-- 
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space.

If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you
will not go to space today.

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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Lars Wirzenius 
On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 06:37:39PM +0900, Norbert Preining wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
> >disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere
> 
> And who defines that?

We do.

Really. It's our code of conduct, and we, as a project and as a
development community, get to define what it means.

> If you can give me a definition of "foul language" or "abusive"
> or "disrespectful" I would be happy.
> 
> The old code of conduct was only containing "foul", which also
> was already too much. Nobody can be declared authorative in
> deciding what is foul/abusive language.
> 
> Short example: People from Siena (Italy) have a tendency for strong
> words, very strong words. And between friends it is very common.
> What is foul/abusive here?

Strong language is fine, if you know all the recipients are OK with it.
If you don't know that, you do your best to moderate your language. It
may, of course, take you a while to learn how to do that, and that is
OK: mistakes happen, we fix them, we learn, and we do better the next
time. When people have goodwill and respect to each other, that kind
of thing isn't a big deal.

What you are suggesting, instead, is that anybody should be able to
say anything, just because they can point at a cultural background,
regardless of how it will affect others. That is ... not a good idea.

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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Charles Plessy 
Hi Wouter,

many thanks for this initiative !

Here are some comments.

 - I think that we shoud encourage more private replies.  For instance,
   "If you want to complain to someone who sent you a carbon copy when
   you did not ask for it, do it privately" (from the current CoC), but also
   for +1 messages, etc.  To balance this, we may mention that people starting
   and fuelling a long thread would be very welcome to post a summary at
   the end.

 - I think that in typical threads where the number of messages is expected to
   be large (perhaps this one for instance), people should really do their best
   to limit the number of messages they post.  If others agree, I recommend
   to add this to the CoC.

 - How about recommending to let a discussion start before answering to an
   email ?  Here is one interesting extract from another CoC:

When responding to a very simple question, use the following algorithm:

 - compose your response
 - type 4*runif(1) at the R prompt, and wait this many hours
 - check for new posts to R-help; if no similar suggestion, post your 
response

  (This is partly in jest, but if you know immediately why it is suggested, 
you
  probably should use it! Also, it's a nice idea to replace 4 by the number 
of
  years you have been using R or S-plus.)

  http://www.r-project.org/posting-guide.html

 - How about separating the technical and social aspects ?  I feel that comments
   about Cc headers, length of lines or presence of HTML tags tend to inflate
   tensions, rather than helping others to optimise their communication.  For 
instance I
   find some recommendations against to posting borderline insulting.

Hopefully, this will be my only message in this tread.

Cheers,

-- 
Charles


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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Lars Wirzenius 
I suggest Enrico's "Debian Community Guidelines" would form a good
base document for this discussion.

http://people.debian.org/~enrico/dcg/

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Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Norbert Preining 
Hi all,

On Di, 21 Mai 2013, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
>disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere

And who defines that?

If you can give me a definition of "foul language" or "abusive"
or "disrespectful" I would be happy.

The old code of conduct was only containing "foul", which also
was already too much. Nobody can be declared authorative in
deciding what is foul/abusive language.

Short example: People from Siena (Italy) have a tendency for strong
words, very strong words. And between friends it is very common.
What is foul/abusive here?

>in Debian. That type of behaviour is not constructive and can quickly
>lead to a degradation of the quality of a discussion.

Again one of those weasel words, I think Wikipedia calls them...
"degradation of the quality"

Norbert


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JAIST, Japan TeX Live & Debian Developer
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Revising the Code of Conduct

2013-05-21 Thread Wouter Verhelst 
Hi,

I've long thought that our code of conduct, as currently written, is
fairly useless. Because it contains things that are totally irrelevant
("swearing is illegal on packet radio, some people receive mailinglists
on packet radio, so don't swear"??? [citation needed]) and some things
that are ineffective in today's world ("don't spam"), people tend to
ignore it.

As such, one of the things I wanted to do if elected last year would be
to overhaul the code of conduct[1]. Since I didn't get elected, I didn't
pursue this with as much vigour as would have been the case otherwise;
but I still think this is useful.

So I'd like to propose the following *draft* update of the code of
conduct. The methodology used for this was:
- Rather than have several items enumerating things you shouldn't do,
  merge related items into one. Items in this class include:
  - Most of the first item ("no abuse") with the penultimate ("don't
flame) are merged into a generic point, the first item in my new
CoC.
  - Two form-related items ("plain text only" and "wrap content at 80
characters") are merged together with a recommendation to use
mail-followup-to: (see below) into a "fix your mailer" point (number
4)
  - merge the "no off-topic" and the "use the proper list" into a point
3.
- Remove or replace things that aren't relevant anymore, or that could
  be done differently.
  - I've replaced the "Don't Cc" recommendation with a "Respect
Mail-Followup-To:" recommendation. As I've stated before, I
personally believe the "Do not Cc" recommendation is a very bad
idea, because, first, some people actually prefer to be Cc'd if
they're not subscribed to a mailinglist; and second, it goes against
the defaults of many MUA's, which is contrary to my goal of having
our code of conduct be easy for people to follow, not difficult.  By
recommending that people use a mailer which respects that header,
people can express their preference.
However, I do recognize that this particular change may be
controversial; if there is significant opposition, I don't insist on
it.
  - The "don't spam" and "swearing is illegal" bits have been removed,
as well as the "use common sense" bit. What's "common" sense depends
very much on culture and background, which isn't something we can
rely on in a Debian context.
  - The "don't send subscription requests" item belongs in the
mailinglist documentation, not in the code of conduct. If people
don't read documentation, repeating that documentation in the code
of conduct isn't likely to help (they're unlikely to read that, too,
anyway), so I think we should remove it.
  - The "don't send test messages" should be moved to the documentation
IMHO, also stating that if you have issues, you should talk to
listmasters. I was a bit in doubt about this one, but finally
decided that it feels too much like singling out one type of
messages that doesn't belong on our lists, which isn't something I
think a generic code of conduct should do.
- Add some things that aren't there but, I think, do belong in a code of
  conduct:
  - Note that in general, replies to a post should go to the same
mailinglist. Replying in private robs the rest of the list from that
particular part of the discussion; replying to a different list can
be disruptive to a discussion, too, and is unlikely to succeed.
There are some exceptions where this is the right thing to do, so
note them.
  - Add some final language with advise on what to do when misbehaviour
is observed. This also formalizes what today already is effectively
the case, namely that listmasters may ban people temporarily or
permanently from posting on our mailinglists for behaviour contrary
to the code of conduct.

So, without further ado, here's my draft:

---
The Debian mailinglists exist to foster the development and use of
Debian. This Code of Conduct exists to help towards that goal.

In particular, the following rules should be adhered to by participants
to discussion on Debian mailinglists:

1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
   disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere
   in Debian. That type of behaviour is not constructive and can quickly
   lead to a degradation of the quality of a discussion.
2. Make sure to use the correct language when sending mails to our
   mailinglists. This is usually English, unless otherwise noted in the
   description of the mailinglist in question.
3. Use the correct list when posting a question. If unsure, use
   debian-user for support-related questions, or debian-mentors for
   development-related questions. Be prepared to ask your question on a
   different mailinglist if told to do so.
4. Configure your mailer to send mail in plain text format, wrapping
   lines at 80 characters for regular content. Exceptions to the
   word-wrapping rule may i