On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 6:21 PM, James Keener <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I also think that a CoC focuses on the wrong things. If someone is disruptive, they need to be told to leave, just like in every forum ever.
We should focus on ensuring that the code and documentation is free from slurs and culturally specific idioms. We should hold gatekeepers accountable for making decisions based on technical merit and not the person who proposed an idea or submitted a patch.
We can't control the behavior of the internet as a whole. We can control our codebase and our gatekeepers.
I think in our case those fears are overblown.
There is a very well-founded fear among a lot of people of ideological litmus tests being imposed on economic commons. The current impetus for a code of conduct here followed one attempt at that on some other projects. On my blog I have discussed these things. One can find them there. I think a whole lot of us understand that at some point there will be an attempt to use our code of conduct to that end. This has been discussed before and one of the key points is that not having a code of conduct doesn't really protect us because the MO in these cases has been "Look at that extremely offensive viewpoint! You should have a code of conduct we can use to throw him out!" So having a code of conduct doesn't hurt and it may provide a bulwark against some of the larger efforts in this regard. In essence often not having a code of conduct is an encouragement for people to push a politically charged code of conduct. Having a politically neutral code of conduct at least suggests we have rejected the politically charged ones.
We are an international and largely politically neutral project. I doubt that as a community we would have tolerated trying to harass, for example, either side in the recent Irish referendum to stop using PostgreSQL if they were, or that we would tolerate an effort to politically hijack the community for culture war issues, or trying to drive people out for trying to form viable third parties in the US political landscape. An international CoC committee is our best defense against an effort to co-opt the community in the way you are worried about.
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.
