On Mon, 11 Jan 2016 11:00:23 -0800 "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is > purely a recipients response and usually because the recipient is > more interested in being a victim than moving forward. I've seen text like the preceding in over 10 messages in this thread. I could be interpreting them wrong, but they seem to be saying the offended recipient is more interested in being a victim than moving forward, or with some of the responses, the recipient is being a cry baby. In my opinion, this is a much easier position to take when it's the other person regularly spoken of as "misinformed", "ignorant", "neckbeard", or whatever. Much harder position when your technical posts are regularly greeted by such personal insults, and few folks rise to your defense. Well, whatever, survival of the fittest. 90% of the time, the party being personally insulted silently leaves, and is not missed. But sometimes the community has something to lose. Let me tell you a story. ============================================= ============================================= 12 years ago, one guy in my LUG continually replied to me in what I think most reasonable people would call an insulting manner. Some of his posts called me "ignorant", "unprofessional", lack of "checking my work", "committing libel", "lies and hypocracy", and "reinventing history". I called for the LUG's Executive Committee to reign in his rhetoric, explaining that it had gotten to such a point that I could no longer bring friends, or possible business associates into the LUG because they would be hearing a constant barrage of anti-Litt rhetoric, and some of it might stick. The Exec Committee told me I was being too sensitive and I should just let it slide. So I got a new domain name, started a new LUG, drew membership both from the old LUG and from the greater area. Immediately those same people who said I was being too sensitive begged me to cancel the new LUG and they'd institute anti-personal-insult rules. But it was too late: I'd already done it. Over the next several years, the new LUG grew and still meets every month, maintaining an active mailing list and IRC channel. Meanwhile, the old LUG lost membership, lost their nonprofit corporate status, lost their mailing list, lost their domain name, and their remnants hold an "installfest" once a month in a venue with no Internet (it's BYOI). ============================================= ============================================= Most of the time, chalking things up to "recipient is more interested in being a victim" does the community no harm. But every once in a while, the costs are considerable. All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else, repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her valuing his/her victimhood. About a CoC, here's what I want to know: What *possible* value to a free software community could come of a sentence structured like the following: "You <something negative>" What possible harm would it do to ban such sentences? What features do such sentences introduce into the software? Why is it difficult to discuss features instead of people on the mailing list? How many potential contributors have silently left after seeing personal insults to themselves or others? My opinion: Whether you call it CoC or mailing list rules or anything else, some degree of it is needed, because the community allowing a wild west of personal insults fails to achieve its potential at best, and disintegrates at worst. SteveT Steve Litt January 2016 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting http://www.troubleshooters.com/28 -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
