Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
Hello, Realistically, that is not how we operate. Somebody opens a ticket, works on it, and then posts the result for review. I have found quite a number of random failures on the buildbot (tagged by the random_fail keyword: http://trac.sagemath.org/query?keywords=~random_fail) and nobody jumped in to fix them for me. That doesn't mean that we live under the dictatorship of those who step up to the plate and hammer out a proposal for review. Trac tickets and comments, however, are public. Thus, among the many good questions raised by Thierry which deserve an answer, I am also interested by the answer to the following question: I consider myself as a Sage developer, i have never heard about this initiative before. Could you please tell us more about the context, e.g. - who is on the short list ? - with which motivation ? - which concrete examples in mind ? Thanks for your answer, Nathann -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
Trac tickets and comments, however, are public. Thus, among the many good questions raised by Thierry which deserve an answer, I am also interested by the answer to the following question: I consider myself as a Sage developer, i have never heard about this initiative before. Could you please tell us more about the context, e.g. - who is on the short list ? - with which motivation ? - which concrete examples in mind ? I am also interested in this, and for the record only heard about it when the first email came through, but because ANYONE (group or not) could have sent such an email at any point, and since it is clear that the community can discuss and/or reject it (even before the current voting thread), I was not particularly worried about it. There are in fact hundreds of Sage developers, and most of them do not seem to be voting or discussing at all. I am glad you brought up a lot of these points. A brief rejoinder as to why I do not see them as particularly bad, *in the current Sage context* (important qualifier): Establishing such a list is (again) a strong attack against the Sage community whose existence relies in openness and diversity: I disagree; it seems unwise, but there are many successful and open and diverse open source projects who have a committers list or something like that of people who are allowed to make commits, which is a far stronger power; it is the exercise of the power that makes the difference. To paraphrase Stalin, How many divisions does Sage have? Answer: none. Again, I don't think it is wise, but in reality any use of beyond serious cases would be With such a perspective, people who organize Sage days and tutorial sessions, teach with Sage, report bugs, write books, review patches, ask questions, provide support to newcomers, discuss code design, help in Sage deployment, maintain the infrastructure, provide buildbots,... are not really useful, not really contributing to Sage's development. This is insulting ! It seemed to me that this was an attempt to provide some slightly less arbitrary measure than the BDFL and whoever he likes or the release manager and his friends. I am pretty sure that there were calls to perhaps find a different measure. Naturally, it is still arbitrary, but in the end any such list would be arbitrary, which is why I don't see it as necessary or welcome. But the effort was honest enough, I believe. It could have also been based on posts to sage-devel or changes on Trac or reputation on ask.sagemath (my favorite ;-) j/k) but in the end it was just a suggestion, and I don't think it went anywhere. Did it? This thread is VERY long... [Edited because this should be a family show] Because of the linguistic issues you mentioned earlier, perhaps you were not aware that the insult you used for the list of names is considered fairly vulgar in the United States; I cannot speak to how it is perceived by English-speaking communities elsewhere, including those in the sciences using English as a lingua franca. This (and various people doing similar things on Trac) may turn off as many people to Sage development by 'proving' it is unprofessional than any rules here. I know that there are many who would disagree with me on whether strong language (whatever that means) should be used on sage-devel, or whether asking people to refrain even when angry is just censorship, but nonetheless it will also, incrementally (differential addition ala Tolstoy, maybe) do so. Hopefully others will have more cogent discussion of this. Again, I don't think there is any proto-oligarchy forming - for the zillionth time, I will recommend reading about governance in open source and why it is so different than in other domains - but it's definitely worth discussing. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
Hi, On 24/11/2014 15:06, kcrisman wrote: It seemed to me that this was an attempt to provide some slightly less arbitrary measure than the BDFL and whoever he likes or the release manager and his friends. I am pretty sure that there were calls to perhaps find a different measure. Naturally, it is still arbitrary, but in the end any such list would be arbitrary, which is why I don't see it as necessary or welcome. But the effort was honest enough, I believe. OK. From that perspective, it is better than worse. The Sage community still deserves far better. It could have also been based on posts to sage-devel or changes on Trac or reputation on ask.sagemath (my favorite ;-) j/k) but in the end it was just a suggestion, and I don't think it went anywhere. Did it? This thread is VERY long... As for me, any such ranking is wrong, by its hierarchical essence. Objective ranking does not means anything, the choice of criteria will only reflect the well-established point of view. This does not fosters diversity, since what is different does not score within the ranking. This creates spam (e.g. going back and forth within dirty commits, use loops instead of list comprehensions, taking even more place on sage-devel to keep one's dominant position, and so on). Let me tell a story. A vetcor of plague is a small jumping insect (flea) that lives on rats (resp. squirrel in America) skin. Killing rats is an efficient way to fight plague. During the plague epidemies of the previous century, there has been sometimes a bounty offered for killing rats, the population was paid by local government to bring dead rats. This makes sense. Guess what ? The population grew rats ! Once a measurement becomes an objective, it is no longer a measurement. We can see this phenomenon with bibliometry, let us not let enter this into Sage. [Edited because this should be a family show] Because of the linguistic issues you mentioned earlier, perhaps you were not aware that the insult you used for the list of names is considered fairly vulgar in the United States; I cannot speak to how it is perceived by English-speaking communities elsewhere, including those in the sciences using English as a lingua franca. This (and various people doing similar things on Trac) may turn off as many people to Sage development by 'proving' it is unprofessional than any rules here. I know that there are many who would disagree with me on whether strong language (whatever that means) should be used on sage-devel, or whether asking people to refrain even when angry is just censorship, but nonetheless it will also, incrementally (differential addition ala Tolstoy, maybe) do so. I am sorry if you felt shocked, and i apologize for that. If penis is an acceptable word, it works exactly the same in this case. This sentence was not meant as an insult toward members of the list (they did not chose to be here), i was just pointing the patriarchal nature of such a ranking (not the people). The fact that no women appear in this list is not random (btw, this is not better on ask.sagemath, nor sage-devel). This list is related to power, normalization and domination ; i can of course not speak for women, let me at least be sarchastic about patriarchy. Size of code does not matter. Hopefully others will have more cogent discussion of this. Again, I don't think there is any proto-oligarchy forming - for the zillionth time, I will recommend reading about governance in open source and why it is so different than in other domains - but it's definitely worth discussing. Of course this should be discussed, and this was the point of the missing dependencies subject ! What could be said about governance models in free software ? Perhaps just noticing that, according to flosspols 2006 study, while there are 28% of women in proprietary software development (which bias may be explained by the societal picture you rightly mentionned in a previous post), they are only 1.5% in free software development (6% is the highest estimation i found on the web), this difference can not be found on societal picture, but within our developments models. So, while learning about existing governance models is necessary, we have to find our way. Having a look to the Sage developper map may be pretty depressing at this point :( Ciao, Thierry On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 06:06:56AM -0800, kcrisman wrote: Trac tickets and comments, however, are public. Thus, among the many good questions raised by Thierry which deserve an answer, I am also interested by the answer to the following question: I consider myself as a Sage developer, i have never heard about this initiative before. Could you please tell us more about the context, e.g. - who is on the short list ? - with which motivation ? - which concrete examples in mind ? I am also interested in this, and for the record only heard about it when the first email came through, but
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
[Edited because this should be a family show] I was trying to be sarcastic and make visible a risk for machismo or androcracy that could follow from establishing some kind of competition within the community. I realize that the way i wrote those two lines somehow strengthen such theses. I am not good in this register, and i am sorry for this sentence (which was not even my point). I sincerely want to apologize for this. Ciao, Thierry -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
[Edited because this should be a family show] I was trying to be sarcastic and make visible a risk for machismo or androcracy that could follow from establishing some kind of competition within the community. I realize that the way i wrote those two lines somehow strengthen such theses. I am not good in this register, and i am sorry for this sentence (which was not even my point). I sincerely want to apologize for this. No worries - I'm sure I watch more on this front and less on other potential flash points than I should, and of course many on this list won't care either way. As you say, it was not at all the main point! The risk for machismo etc. is definitely a real problem - to my eyes, more than simply not having a 50-50 ratio for sage-devel posts. In fact, I think the proposal is partly intended to make it easier to call out evident events of that nature. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
Hello guys, Once more, the rules make a point to enforce politeness but they seem to avoid things like having the respect to answer a honest question. Could we thus have an answer to the ones aked by Therry ? Not ignoring anybody is also part of elementary friendliness. Nathann On 25 November 2014 at 06:50, kcrisman kcris...@gmail.com wrote: [Edited because this should be a family show] I was trying to be sarcastic and make visible a risk for machismo or androcracy that could follow from establishing some kind of competition within the community. I realize that the way i wrote those two lines somehow strengthen such theses. I am not good in this register, and i am sorry for this sentence (which was not even my point). I sincerely want to apologize for this. No worries - I'm sure I watch more on this front and less on other potential flash points than I should, and of course many on this list won't care either way. As you say, it was not at all the main point! The risk for machismo etc. is definitely a real problem - to my eyes, more than simply not having a 50-50 ratio for sage-devel posts. In fact, I think the proposal is partly intended to make it easier to call out evident events of that nature. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups sage-devel group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/sage-devel/iGxa2F01rFc/unsubscribe. To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
Once more, the rules make a point to enforce politeness but they seem to avoid things like having the respect to answer a honest question. Collated for ease of reply, though there were also implicit questions and examples of what was meant in the email. - what is our commitment to free software ? - should we collaborate (fund, advertise,...) with closed proprietary software ? - how do we take decisions (equality, transparency, collaboration, taking care of minorities,...) ? - are there some reserved territories within the source code ? - is the acceptation of google terms of service a necessary condition for a person to be allowed to take part to the decisions ? - who is on the short list ? - with which motivation ? - which concrete examples in mind ? - Should google's rules rule our policy ? Could we thus have an answer to the ones aked by Therry ? Not ignoring anybody is also part of elementary friendliness. Though to be fair, the right not to answer is probably also a right. I'll comment briefly on a couple of these, with no claims to accuracy, just my impressions. I do think it's fair for people to respond, though I also think a lot of this is pretty far from the code of conduct discussion. * re: Google - I believe that on various occasions William has invited personal emails when it was appropriate to keep things off the record, and I am sure that if anyone asked, a proxy vote by such means would be accepted, though it would probably have to be from someone who didn't just say Yeah, sure, I read sage-devel all the time without subscribing ... yeah, sure. * re: free vs. proprietary - there is a VERY wide range of opinion on the appropriateness here, and healthy discussion of it. It seems that Sage as an entity (insofar as such a thing exists) has the in practice position (not that any one actual human holds this position!) that a strong free license like GPL is necessary for mathematical reasons, but that depending on the situation it will remain agnostic as to collaboration with other software. However, I don't think the current discussion impacts this either way - and in any case it would be in practice impossible to change the license, as William pointed out sometime earlier. So in some ways Sage is living the tension of the open source community. That isn't going to go away; there will never be a unified position on these points among Sage developers. * re: reserved territory - I don't agree with Raymond on everything, but his point in Homesteading the Noosphere is still true that in projects like ours authority follow[s] responsibility. So there are people who have poured a lot of time into certain areas and really *understand* them, and so do have some de facto claim on what happens. But this is not measurable in lines of code or commits or Trac edits or anything like that, and becomes fluid. No one is incapable of being overruled on Trac, though typically practice has been that if something comes to sage-devel and then no one really responds, the conflicting parties need to work it out on their own - usually in such cases a ticket simply is abandoned, as a release manager would be pretty reluctant to intervene except in the case of a serious bug. (For an example not related to most of the parties most aggrieved by this discussion, for a long time Burcin was the symbolics guy for this reason; yet even as he has moved to other responsibilities, newer folks like mjo and rws have been helping and gaining that authority. It is totally organic, yet when Burcin makes a comment on this code now, naturally it's taken very seriously - and gratefully.) -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct (missing dependencies)
For example: - what is our commitment to free software ? - should we collaborate (fund, advertise,...) with closed proprietary software ? - how do we take decisions (equality, transparency, collaboration, taking care of minorities,...) ? - are there some reserved territories within the source code ? - is the acceptation of google terms of service a necessary condition for a person to be allowed to take part to the decisions ? These questions are fundamental but I admit that discussing them and implementing them require time and efforts. I do not claim that these are not important, but rather that it would be really hard to get people involved on something that looks secondary (the first being coding what I need for my research). It would have instead been so easy to open a page on the existing wiki, and send an email about Hey, why not working together on this ? Did you fear the result so that you prefered such a closed debate ? This is not fair. Writing a community expectation was proposed by Karl-Dieter Crisman and supported by Harald Schilly and Francois Bissey. And William pointed a (short) sentence that is doing so Both the Sage development model and the technology in Sage itself are distinguished by an extremely strong emphasis on openness, community, cooperation, and collaboration: we are building the car, not reinventing the wheel. I started a copy-paste of the previous thread http://wiki.sagemath.org/SageCommunityProposal that everybody is welcome to edit. Vincent -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
I have abstained from the thread but read quite a bit of it and I think that the idea there are really two issues is correct. I have been thinking for a while but abstained because there is a lot of stuff already on the thread and we are at a stage where the signal/noise is quite low. So anyway since now I started: We should have a statement of intent on the kind of community we want to be. This is not a code of conduct this is the aspirations we have as a community. François On 21/11/2014, at 18:38, Vincent Delecroix 20100.delecr...@gmail.com wrote: In the form it was presented at the very beginning I am strongly against. This is completely infantilizing. That is a good idea to make a vote, but please make it clear what the vote is about... Vincent 2014-11-20 14:14 UTC−07:00, Bruno Grenet bruno.gre...@gmail.com: Dear all, I've read the whole thread, and I have the impress that there are two distinct issues that are addressed. That's part of the reason people don't agree I think on the proposals. The first issue is to make sure that there are no public insults on sage-devel, trac, etc. by organizing a procedure to deal with such events. The second issue is to make this place (sage-devel, trac, etc.) a friendly place where people, especially newcomers, feel good so that they want to contribute. The two issues are quite different, and we should as a first step make sure we know which one we want to address right now. I feel like the second one is more important since public insults are not real problem here. Any proposal with formal rules that people have to obey to if they do not want to be punished won't solve the second issue. In some sense, as soon as somebody feels insulted, it is too late. To me, the only thing that can be done is to have somewhere some advice to be as polite as possible, to make constructive comments and be kind with people, especially newcomers. Right, this sounds like common sense! But if people feel the need that it is written somewhere, why not? Personally, I'd rather call this Advices than Code of Conduct that sounds too formal to my taste... Cheers, Bruno -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 9:51 PM, Francois Bissey francois.bis...@canterbury.ac.nz wrote: I have abstained from the thread but read quite a bit of it and I think that the idea there are really two issues is correct. I have been thinking for a while but abstained because there is a lot of stuff already on the thread and we are at a stage where the signal/noise is quite low. So anyway since now I started: We should have a statement of intent on the kind of community we want to be. This is not a code of conduct this is the aspirations we have as a community. We wrote something like this in 2006 [1]: Both the Sage development model and the technology in Sage itself are distinguished by an extremely strong emphasis on openness, community, cooperation, and collaboration: we are building the car, not reinventing the wheel. [1] http://www.sagemath.org/doc/tutorial/ -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On 21/11/2014, at 18:54, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 9:51 PM, Francois Bissey francois.bis...@canterbury.ac.nz wrote: I have abstained from the thread but read quite a bit of it and I think that the idea there are really two issues is correct. I have been thinking for a while but abstained because there is a lot of stuff already on the thread and we are at a stage where the signal/noise is quite low. So anyway since now I started: We should have a statement of intent on the kind of community we want to be. This is not a code of conduct this is the aspirations we have as a community. We wrote something like this in 2006 [1]: Both the Sage development model and the technology in Sage itself are distinguished by an extremely strong emphasis on openness, community, cooperation, and collaboration: we are building the car, not reinventing the wheel.” Hum yes I remember that statement now. I haven’t seen it in some time. I remember it as dressing more technical aspect but yes there is a community feel about it. I wouldn’t want to alter it because it has the merit of being short. François -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On Saturday, November 15, 2014 2:10:04 PM UTC-8, P Purkayastha wrote: Yes. Typically, they ban the user for a period of time. The violations are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It seems quite a few requests (code of conduct violations, and otherwise) have piled up in http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-28820.html ! Since this seems to be one of the main questions that people have about the proposal, who in your community handles the code of conduct violations? How were they chosen? Best, Anne -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
[X ] Yes, this is a great idea. About time! To a newcomer, some of the posts may make the Sage community look aggressive and end up steering them in another direction. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
In an ideal world I think that a code of conduct would not be necessary. Sadly, the world is not ideal. I think that SImon's example of what happened with the German translation project is a great example of why it would be good to have a code of conduct: some one's comments turned him off working on the project. Simon said that he thinks that the current system worked perfectly in this example. I think it failed dismally because Simon stopped working on the project and, what's worse, he suggests that the project may have been abandoned. I think you misunderstand the motivation for not wanting any published code of conduct. I do *not* want to have an official code of conduct, because I *do* want to have civilised manners in our community. Note that in civilised countries there must(!) be a clear distinction between legislative, judiciary, and executive, a special training is required in each of these branches, and their actions must not be driven by personal interest. Having such a separation would, from my perspective, be the only acceptable way of having an official code of conduct. But I suppose most developers wouldn't like to quit writing code and studying law instead. I would be against having a code of conduct that s used to police now people post. Rather it should be just a guide. As the whole group is being asked to vote on, and suggest changes to, the code I don't see this as being driven by personal interest. I disagree with the issue of people not being trained to decide what is acceptable as, first, I think this is part of the current management speak: reasonable people can make reasonable decisions and choices. Secondly, you applaud some of these unqualified people for the support they gave with the German translation incident. So, I encourage all of us: If an offence happens, then please please take care of the person who is offended, but greatly ignore the offender. [my emphasis] If ignoring the offender has no effect, then we are likely in a situation where real law applies. But then it's the department of public prosecution. +1 Btw, as Ropbert said, people take their cues from members of the group who are perceived to be socially superior and I certainly consider Simon to be in this category. I have replied to Simon's post because I think that a code of conduct is potentially useful and he is the only person who is giving reasons for not having one. If people like Simon are against having a code of conduct I think this is significant. On the other hand, I fully endorse Simon's statement above and I think that it would be quite reasonable to have it as the official code of conduct. I am being quite serious. After all, the code of conduct should be an aspiratal statement about how we, as a group, go about achieving our aims. Andrew -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
It had never occurred to me that such a thing would ever be necessary. Any exclusions should be collective decisions not by some oligarchy, and should allow for reinstatement if the perpetrators are contrite. John On 15 November 2014 08:49, Andrew andrew.mat...@gmail.com wrote: In an ideal world I think that a code of conduct would not be necessary. Sadly, the world is not ideal. I think that SImon's example of what happened with the German translation project is a great example of why it would be good to have a code of conduct: some one's comments turned him off working on the project. Simon said that he thinks that the current system worked perfectly in this example. I think it failed dismally because Simon stopped working on the project and, what's worse, he suggests that the project may have been abandoned. I think you misunderstand the motivation for not wanting any published code of conduct. I do *not* want to have an official code of conduct, because I *do* want to have civilised manners in our community. Note that in civilised countries there must(!) be a clear distinction between legislative, judiciary, and executive, a special training is required in each of these branches, and their actions must not be driven by personal interest. Having such a separation would, from my perspective, be the only acceptable way of having an official code of conduct. But I suppose most developers wouldn't like to quit writing code and studying law instead. I would be against having a code of conduct that s used to police now people post. Rather it should be just a guide. As the whole group is being asked to vote on, and suggest changes to, the code I don't see this as being driven by personal interest. I disagree with the issue of people not being trained to decide what is acceptable as, first, I think this is part of the current management speak: reasonable people can make reasonable decisions and choices. Secondly, you applaud some of these unqualified people for the support they gave with the German translation incident. So, I encourage all of us: If an offence happens, then please please take care of the person who is offended, but greatly ignore the offender. [my emphasis] If ignoring the offender has no effect, then we are likely in a situation where real law applies. But then it's the department of public prosecution. +1 Btw, as Ropbert said, people take their cues from members of the group who are perceived to be socially superior and I certainly consider Simon to be in this category. I have replied to Simon's post because I think that a code of conduct is potentially useful and he is the only person who is giving reasons for not having one. If people like Simon are against having a code of conduct I think this is significant. On the other hand, I fully endorse Simon's statement above and I think that it would be quite reasonable to have it as the official code of conduct. I am being quite serious. After all, the code of conduct should be an aspiratal statement about how we, as a group, go about achieving our aims. Andrew -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On Friday, November 14, 2014 8:50:14 PM UTC+8, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote: On 13 November 2014 18:48, Volker Braun vbrau...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: and welcome everyone to vote on it. Code of Conduct --- If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. What will be the background of the group administrators, and the people who receive posts from sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:? Are these people going to have a background in human resources and/or be trained in this area? Dave You can just follow some guidelines. I am a member of the Gentoo Linux forums and they have very clear statements saying what is considered inappropriate in the forums. In gist, 1. No personal attacks, 2. No offensive language The guidelines are quite comprehensive and I think it helps keep the forum in general very civil and helpful. Reference: I) Guidelines for the forums: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-525.html II) Guidelines for a less moderated subforum: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-120351.html -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On 11/15/14 7:32 AM, P Purkayastha wrote: On Friday, November 14, 2014 8:50:14 PM UTC+8, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote: On 13 November 2014 18:48, Volker Braun vbrau...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: and welcome everyone to vote on it. Code of Conduct --- If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. What will be the background of the group administrators, and the people who receive posts from sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:? Are these people going to have a background in human resources and/or be trained in this area? Dave You can just follow some guidelines. I am a member of the Gentoo Linux forums and they have very clear statements saying what is considered inappropriate in the forums. In gist, 1. No personal attacks, 2. No offensive language The guidelines are quite comprehensive and I think it helps keep the forum in general very civil and helpful. Reference: I) Guidelines for the forums: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-525.html II) Guidelines for a less moderated subforum: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-120351.html Thanks for the links to the guidelines. It is interesting to see how other communities handle this. Dave's question was how situations will be handled when a violation occurs or that are reported. Does your community have experience with this? Best, Anne -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On 15 November 2014 16:44, Anne Schilling a...@math.ucdavis.edu wrote: Code of Conduct Thanks for the links to the guidelines. It is interesting to see how other communities handle this. Dave's question was how situations will be handled when a violation occurs or that are reported. Does your community have experience with this? Best, Anne Unless there is another Dave, my question is not what you describe Anne. We were asked to vote whether this code of conduct should be introduced, yet it seems illogical to vote when the makeup of the administrators and those reading sage-abuse are not stated. Things that come to mind are: 1) Are the administrators and readers of sage-abuse going to be professionally trained to handle such situations? 2) Is it going to be a sub-set of sage developers, and if so who chooses them? I think there is probably a closer relationship between the members of sage-devel than on many open-source projects. Many on sage-devel are students of others of sage-devel. Many have junior roles in universities where others have more senior roles in the same department. I doubt that situation is as common on other projects, so I believe care would be needed in making comparisons with the usefulness of similar codes of conduct on other open-source communities. Without knowing the makeup of those lists, and how they are chosen, in *my* opinion it is not possible to make an informed judgement about the proposal. Since opinions on this proposal are quite split, and those that have them quite vocal on it, I do wonder if the introduction of such a code of conduct might actually cause a bigger split. It may be a case of the medicine is worse than the symptoms. Dave -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On Sun Nov 16 2014 at 12:44:39 AM Anne Schilling a...@math.ucdavis.edu wrote: On 11/15/14 7:32 AM, P Purkayastha wrote: On Friday, November 14, 2014 8:50:14 PM UTC+8, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote: On 13 November 2014 18:48, Volker Braun vbrau...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: and welcome everyone to vote on it. Code of Conduct --- If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. What will be the background of the group administrators, and the people who receive posts from sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:? Are these people going to have a background in human resources and/or be trained in this area? Dave You can just follow some guidelines. I am a member of the Gentoo Linux forums and they have very clear statements saying what is considered inappropriate in the forums. In gist, 1. No personal attacks, 2. No offensive language The guidelines are quite comprehensive and I think it helps keep the forum in general very civil and helpful. Reference: I) Guidelines for the forums: http://forums.gentoo.org/ viewtopic-t-525.html II) Guidelines for a less moderated subforum: http://forums.gentoo.org/ viewtopic-t-120351.html Thanks for the links to the guidelines. It is interesting to see how other communities handle this. Dave's question was how situations will be handled when a violation occurs or that are reported. Does your community have experience with this? Best, Anne Yes. Typically, they ban the user for a period of time. The violations are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It seems quite a few requests (code of conduct violations, and otherwise) have piled up in http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-28820.html ! -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
To the extent that a code of conduct looks like an attempt to limit freedom of speech, it may be counterproductive. It is possible to legislate politeness by moderating newsgroups. I suppose it is possible to resolve disagreements about the course of open software development by (a) achieving consensus (b) force (imposition of some authority to make decisions) or (c) forking a project. Is this a well-known negative of open source development (resolving disputes?) Has it been explored in journals? (I'm not well-read on whatever literature there is on open source pro/con recently.) RJF On Thursday, November 13, 2014 10:40:00 PM UTC-8, john_perry_usm wrote: On Friday, November 14, 2014 3:55:34 AM UTC+1, Travis Scrimshaw wrote: Bullying can get so bad that the teachers need to step in and enact the correct punishment. ...yet, in my experience, they usually don't, and often because the bullies are likable, or socially influential (e.g., son of the superintendent/major donor, comes from a good family), etc. Sometimes a teacher can unintentionally make a student feel like s/he is bullying her or him. Speech codes are sometimes used simply to shut down debate on topics that become culturally unfashionable, and are often applied unevenly. I personally prefer civilized discourse, but I've also noticed that Western society seems to have adopted an undercurrent of thin-skinned outrage. If someone wanted to add a patch that verifiably improved the performance of Sage on [insert your favorite subsystem here], what would you do if her or his comments were frequently abusive toward other contributors, or previous contributions? i.e., profanity-laced, derogatory, etc. Not the code itself, mind, just the comments in the trac ticket and/or discussion in sage-devel. Presumably, someone would take her/ him aside talk to him, but what if (as often happens) that person ignored the intervention continued to heap abuse on you? Would you reject the patch? If not, what's the point of the proposed code? Again, I like civilized discourse, but a code without consequences strikes me as worse than no code at all. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
Hi William, Am Donnerstag, 13. November 2014 20:00:58 UTC+1 schrieb William: [ ] No, I greatly value the freedom to spout offensive profanity, and will fork Sage in frustration if there is such a code. I think you misunderstand the motivation for not wanting any published code of conduct. I do *not* want to have an official code of conduct, because I *do* want to have civilised manners in our community. To my understanding, what Volker suggests is as follows: Some people formulate and establish a law for the community. The same people claim that an offence to the law occurs. The same people investigate on it. The same people judge on it. And the same people eventually enforce the law. Needless to say that these people have no training whatsoever that would qualify them for any of these tasks, and moreover they have a personal interest. You may observe that the situation at schools is quite similar. Note that in civilised countries there must(!) be a clear distinction between legislative, judiciary, and executive, a special training is required in each of these branches, and their actions must not be driven by personal interest. Having such a separation would, from my perspective, be the only acceptable way of having an official code of conduct. But I suppose most developers wouldn't like to quit writing code and studying law instead. (We really do want to know if there are any developers who would quit working on Sage if we have this Code of Conduct; I would not *immediately* quit working on Sage if we had any official code of conduct. However, I do think that establishing an official enforceable code of conduct is presumptuous, and I would expect that it can be instrumented to do harm. And by Murphy's law it *will* eventually be instrumented to do harm. And then I *would* quit. I just want people to think -- having a code of conduct isn't _obviously_ the right thing to do.) I think that an official code of conduct is rather obviously *not* the right thing to have. A code of conduct has a high likelihood of doing nothing more than stating the obvious, and this might actually encourage some people (including myself) to start misbehaving, just in order to break the chains. It would all do more harm than good. As I stated in a previous post: A couple of years ago I was attacked, some person even posted a patch on trac that would have added a personally insulting comment into the Sage code. The reaction of the community, and especially of you, William, has been excellent: You encouraged me, on and off list, and nobody has fed the troll. When he did not get an exciting reaction, he tried to rampage a bit more, but his stampede ended in a vacuum, and thus he eventually disappeared. In other words, I can confirm that it does work when an authority (based on merits, I mean) sets a good example. So, I encourage all of us: If an offence happens, then please please take care of the person who is offended, but greatly ignore the offender. If ignoring the offender has no effect, then we are likely in a situation where real law applies. But then it's the department of public prosecution. Best regards, Simon -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On 13 November 2014 18:48, Volker Braun vbraun.n...@gmail.com wrote: and welcome everyone to vote on it. Code of Conduct --- If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-ab...@googlegroups.com. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. What will be the background of the group administrators, and the people who receive posts from sage-ab...@googlegroups.com? Are these people going to have a background in human resources and/or be trained in this area? Dave -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[sage-devel] Code of Conduct
Can we create an environment... where character matters, hard work is respected, humility is valued, and support for one another is unconditional? I admittedly stole that quote, but only because I wholeheartedly agree it is good to always aspire to better ourselves. Some of the Sage developers who are better with words than me went ahead and stole a lot more, mostly from Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct) and Django ( https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct), to formulate a Code of Conduct for the Sage project. I'm happy to present it here, and welcome everyone to vote on it. Code of Conduct --- 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. If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-ab...@googlegroups.com. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. It is also possible to move heated discussions to the mailing list sage-fl...@googlegroups.com. 1) Be friendly and patient. 2) Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. 3) Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and developers so you should take those consequences into account when making decisions. Conversely, Sage is constantly evolving, and earlier decisions that were made in good faith may sometimes need to be reconsidered. Nonetheless, we should still appreciate the hard work done in the past. 4) Be respectful and polite. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to morph into personal attacks. It is important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the Sage community should be respectful when dealing with other developers and users. When we disagree, we should try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint does not mean that they are wrong. Do not forget that it is human to err. Blame alone gets us nowhere, it is better to help resolve issues so we can all learn from our mistakes. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Volker Braun vbraun.n...@gmail.com wrote: Can we create an environment... where character matters, hard work is respected, humility is valued, and support for one another is unconditional? I admittedly stole that quote, but only because I wholeheartedly agree it is good to always aspire to better ourselves. Some of the Sage developers who are better with words than me went ahead and stole a lot more, mostly from Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct) and Django (https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct), to formulate a Code of Conduct for the Sage project. I'm happy to present it here, and welcome everyone to vote on it. For concreteness: [ ] Yes, this is a great idea. About time! [ ] This looks good, but it would be better if... (insert suggestions). [ ] No, I greatly value the freedom to spout offensive profanity, and will fork Sage in frustration if there is such a code. (We really do want to know if there are any developers who would quit working on Sage if we have this Code of Conduct; by definition such a person should have no hesitation publicly saying so in response to this email. I'm imagining what someone like Linus Torvalds might say if this were proposed on the Linux kernel mailing list. I just want people to think -- having a code of conduct isn't _obviously_ the right thing to do.) Code of Conduct --- 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. If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-ab...@googlegroups.com. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. It is also possible to move heated discussions to the mailing list sage-fl...@googlegroups.com. 1) Be friendly and patient. 2) Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. 3) Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and developers so you should take those consequences into account when making decisions. Conversely, Sage is constantly evolving, and earlier decisions that were made in good faith may sometimes need to be reconsidered. Nonetheless, we should still appreciate the hard work done in the past. 4) Be respectful and polite. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to morph into personal attacks. It is important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the Sage community should be respectful when dealing with other developers and users. When we disagree, we should try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint does not mean that they are wrong. Do not forget that it is human to err. Blame alone gets us nowhere, it is better to help resolve issues so we can all learn from our mistakes. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
Hi Great to have in place to refer to as an educational guideline (not to be abused as strict rules). It could also mention core values of Libre Software, with additional emphasis on scientific transparency. Regards, Jan On 13 November 2014 21:00, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Volker Braun vbraun.n...@gmail.com wrote: Can we create an environment... where character matters, hard work is respected, humility is valued, and support for one another is unconditional? I admittedly stole that quote, but only because I wholeheartedly agree it is good to always aspire to better ourselves. Some of the Sage developers who are better with words than me went ahead and stole a lot more, mostly from Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct) and Django (https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct), to formulate a Code of Conduct for the Sage project. I'm happy to present it here, and welcome everyone to vote on it. For concreteness: [ ] Yes, this is a great idea. About time! [ ] This looks good, but it would be better if... (insert suggestions). [ ] No, I greatly value the freedom to spout offensive profanity, and will fork Sage in frustration if there is such a code. (We really do want to know if there are any developers who would quit working on Sage if we have this Code of Conduct; by definition such a person should have no hesitation publicly saying so in response to this email. I'm imagining what someone like Linus Torvalds might say if this were proposed on the Linux kernel mailing list. I just want people to think -- having a code of conduct isn't _obviously_ the right thing to do.) Code of Conduct --- 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. If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-ab...@googlegroups.com. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. It is also possible to move heated discussions to the mailing list sage-fl...@googlegroups.com. 1) Be friendly and patient. 2) Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. 3) Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and developers so you should take those consequences into account when making decisions. Conversely, Sage is constantly evolving, and earlier decisions that were made in good faith may sometimes need to be reconsidered. Nonetheless, we should still appreciate the hard work done in the past. 4) Be respectful and polite. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to morph into personal attacks. It is important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the Sage community should be respectful when dealing with other developers and users. When we disagree, we should try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint does not mean that they are wrong. Do not forget that it is human to err. Blame alone gets us nowhere, it is better to help resolve issues so we can all learn from our mistakes. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- .~. /V\ Jan Groenewald /( )\
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
good to always aspire to better ourselves. Some of the Sage developers who are better with words than me went ahead and stole a lot more, mostly from Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct) and Django (https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct), to formulate a Code of Conduct for the Sage project. I'm happy to present it here, and welcome everyone to vote on it. This also seems to channel an inner Larry Wall :) For concreteness: [X] This looks good, but it would be better if... (insert suggestions). I'd suggest that the language of reporting a violation could be softened, since naturally there will even be disagreements about what constitutes a 'violation'... as we know, this has been debated over the years on various threads that may or may not have turned personal, including by very valuable members of the community. I'd hate to have some kicking out policy for that, referring to sage-flame seems like a very good idea. Indeed, eventually (already? I don't think so, but who knows) we will have people coming from very different cultural contexts as to what constitutes respect or considerateness - e.g. directness versus face-saving versus something yet again? What I do think this brings is a tool to remind all of us (!) that everything here reflects on Sage, whether or not you care about your own personal reputation. So more or less in support, and certainly in support very much of the values themselves. - kcrisman PS that includes trying to keep things PG and SFW! I fully expect our first elementary-schooler to contribute something within a year... am I kidding? I don't know! I wouldn't be surprised. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
I believe we need to have such a code-of-conduct posted stating the manner in which we should act. Like Jan and Simon, this should not be some strict set of rules that gets referenced every time someone feels another developer is out of line. By publishing such a code, we give explicit guideline which we want our contributors to try to adhere to. It should not be a zero tolerance policy, but it needs to be enforceable when necessary for clear repetitive violations. To give a counterpoint to Simon's analogy, we agree that bullying is bad, but by the rules, we can tell bullies explicitly what their doing is wrong, why we can't push the bullies down, and explain what will happen if the behavior escalates. Bullying can get so bad that the teachers need to step in and enact the correct punishment. Best, Travis On Thursday, November 13, 2014 11:00:58 AM UTC-8, William wrote: On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Volker Braun vbrau...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: Can we create an environment... where character matters, hard work is respected, humility is valued, and support for one another is unconditional? I admittedly stole that quote, but only because I wholeheartedly agree it is good to always aspire to better ourselves. Some of the Sage developers who are better with words than me went ahead and stole a lot more, mostly from Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct) and Django (https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct), to formulate a Code of Conduct for the Sage project. I'm happy to present it here, and welcome everyone to vote on it. For concreteness: [ ] Yes, this is a great idea. About time! [ ] This looks good, but it would be better if... (insert suggestions). [ ] No, I greatly value the freedom to spout offensive profanity, and will fork Sage in frustration if there is such a code. (We really do want to know if there are any developers who would quit working on Sage if we have this Code of Conduct; by definition such a person should have no hesitation publicly saying so in response to this email. I'm imagining what someone like Linus Torvalds might say if this were proposed on the Linux kernel mailing list. I just want people to think -- having a code of conduct isn't _obviously_ the right thing to do.) Code of Conduct --- 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. If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you report it by emailing sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:. The group administrators will consider the issue and explore resolutions. It is also possible to move heated discussions to the mailing list sage-...@googlegroups.com javascript:. 1) Be friendly and patient. 2) Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. 3) Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and developers so you should take those consequences into account when making decisions. Conversely, Sage is constantly evolving, and earlier decisions that were made in good faith may sometimes need to be reconsidered. Nonetheless, we should still appreciate the hard work done in the past. 4) Be respectful and polite. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to morph into personal attacks. It is important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the Sage community should be respectful when dealing with other developers and users. When we disagree, we should try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint does not mean that they are wrong. Do not forget that it is human to err. Blame alone gets us nowhere, it is better to help resolve issues so we can all learn from our mistakes. -- 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+...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
I agree with Travis that it is good to have guidelines that one can point people to if discussions escalate. I agree that it is best to try to work things out mutually, but this does not always seem possible. So ... [X ] Yes, this is a great idea. About time! Best, Anne -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct
On Friday, November 14, 2014 3:55:34 AM UTC+1, Travis Scrimshaw wrote: Bullying can get so bad that the teachers need to step in and enact the correct punishment. ...yet, in my experience, they usually don't, and often because the bullies are likable, or socially influential (e.g., son of the superintendent/major donor, comes from a good family), etc. Sometimes a teacher can unintentionally make a student feel like s/he is bullying her or him. Speech codes are sometimes used simply to shut down debate on topics that become culturally unfashionable, and are often applied unevenly. I personally prefer civilized discourse, but I've also noticed that Western society seems to have adopted an undercurrent of thin-skinned outrage. If someone wanted to add a patch that verifiably improved the performance of Sage on [insert your favorite subsystem here], what would you do if her or his comments were frequently abusive toward other contributors, or previous contributions? i.e., profanity-laced, derogatory, etc. Not the code itself, mind, just the comments in the trac ticket and/or discussion in sage-devel. Presumably, someone would take her/ him aside talk to him, but what if (as often happens) that person ignored the intervention continued to heap abuse on you? Would you reject the patch? If not, what's the point of the proposed code? Again, I like civilized discourse, but a code without consequences strikes me as worse than no code at all. -- 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 post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
