As long as subscribers to the list or attendants at a conference do not violate explicit or implicit house rules, what business does Postgres have worrying about what they do or say elsewhere? Some version of an 'all-of-life' clause may be appropriate to the Marines or federal judges, but it strikes me as overreach for a technical listserv whose subject is a particular relational database. The overreach is dubious on both practical and theoretical grounds. "Stick to your knitting " or the KISS principle seem good advice in this context.
On 9/16/18, 7:08 AM, "Stephen Cook" <sclists@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2018-09-16 00:00, Mark Kirkwood wrote:
> On 15/09/18 08:17, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Yeah, this. The PG community is mostly nice people, AFAICT. I'll be
>> astonished (and worried) if the CoC committee finds much to do. We're
>> implementing this mostly to make newcomers to the project feel that
>> it's a safe space.
>
> Agreed. However I think the all-of-life clause gives an open door to
> potential less than well intentioned new members joining up to extend a
> SJW agenda. So in fact the unintended consequence of this may be a
> *less* safe place for some existing members - unless all of their social
> media utterances are agreeable to the angry militant left.
This is my only concern, there are some very sensitive people out there
just looking for scandal / publicity. No reason to give them a larger
attack surface. Maybe that sounds paranoid but look around, there are
folks that want to spread the US culture war to every front, including
open source projects on the internet.
This sentence in the CoC should be worded to exclude things that are not
directed harassment when outside of the community spaces. For example,
some "incorrect opinion" on Twitter should have little bearing if it
wasn't meant as an "attack". Maybe for extreme cases there could be a
"hey you're making us look bad and scaring people away, chill with the
hate speech or leave" clause, but that should only apply if it is
someone whose name is publicly associated with Postgres and they are
saying really terrible things. I feel there is a big difference between
keeping it civil/safe in the lists and conferences, and making people
afraid to say anything controversial (in the USA) anywhere ever.
Maybe the way the committee is set up, it will handle this fairly. But
it's better to be explicit about it IMO, so as not to attract
professional complainers.
-- Stephen
