Benjamin (and all others still paying attention),
I love the Django code of conduct. It's not perfect but it's quite good.
How does a person who claims one or even many historically marginalized
identities know that the Django community is a safe place for them without
a published and enforced code of conduct? It can be scary enough to enter
into a field as white- (at least here in the U.S.) and male-dominated as
software development even with a code. Without one, you have no guarantee
that _safety_ is going to be given a higher priority than making sure those
with power and privilege have the freedom to say whatever they want,
whenever they want.
I'm glad that you're staff is comprised of 40% women. That is truly
something to be applauded. It's something I have never been able to achieve
myself and I'd be interested in hearing (elsewhere, not in this thread) how
you were able to do that. I hope that those women feel safe in their
working environment. I hope that when harassment does occur (let's be
honest, it's a matter of when, not if), they are not burdened with both the
pain of what they've experienced _and_ the difficulty of having to figure
out to whom to report it and how. I hope their complaints will be taken
seriously.
You want people to address your warning against unintended consequences.
Here goes. I think you're exaggerating this risk. We are not trying to
enforce an anti-social behavior code on the entire universe for all time.
What #86 does, as I noted in the commit message, is make an already
implicit policy explicit. It simply says, in deliberately vague language,
that if a member of the Django community is treated abusively by another
member of the Django community _outside_ a Django forum and that abuse is
reported to the conduct committee, the committee will not reject the report
outright simply on the basis of where the alleged abuse occurred. The
committee will take the report seriously and _may_ choose to act upon it.
As Daniele said early in this discussion, the language and the intent
provide plenty of room for a measured and proportionate response, which
may, as has been said, be no response.
You want people to address your conviction that affirmative language is
better. Here goes. I agree with you that affirmative language is most
helpful. It's certainly much more enjoyable to read and discuss since it
reflects the positive vision of where we _want_ to be. On the other hand I
also agree with the Ada initiative and others in this thread that the list
of don'ts is also necessary, for the reasons that have already been stated
("I'm not touching you," rule lawyering, etc.). As wonderful and socially
advanced as you think the Django community is, surely even you can agree
that we cannot control who will be entering the community in the future. In
fact, that's what we all want, right? We want a community open to all. Some
of those people entering the community in the future _may_ need the don'ts
spelled out for them. It may not be their fault, either. They may simply
have never had helpful and constructive relationships with people very
different from themselves modeled for them.
Or consider presenters. Humor is an excellent method of holding an
audience's attention. It's handy for a presenter to have a published CoC so
they know which jokes are appropriate in this community and which to avoid.
Heck, _I_ need the CoC for that.
Ultimately what this comes down to is that those of use with power and
privilege are going to have to give some of that up in order to share it
with those who haven't historically had it. Just one example of this
playing out in practice is giving up some of my right to free speech in
order to ensure that others feel welcome. For me, this looks like spending
time reflecting on the words I use and how they affect people very
different than myself _and then changing my words_. Since that takes a lot
of effort, I won't always be doing it; therefore I expect to be called out
on using oppressive language, knowing I will be unlearning my conscious and
unconscious prejudices all my life. I hope to respond to such corrections
in a way that encourages folks to keep being honest about how they
experience the community. This is the cost of creating and maintaining an
inclusive community.
I do not think need we need detailed records of reported abuse in order to
justify this change. Even if zero abuse has ever happened in the Django
community (which we all know not to be true, since we are humans and we're
_all_ jerks sometimes), it's my position that this change is still valid
and important. Why should we wait for something horrible to happen in order
to put _the ability_ to offer protections in place? And, let's remember,
the change is simply making explicit what is already policy. It's important
to make it explicit because someone may not have known that they could
report abuse that occurred elsewhere. Perhaps they've been avoiding Django
gatherings because of abuse they've experienced; this might provide a way
back for them.
There. I have attempted to address the complaints you most consistently
bring up and accuse us of not addressing directly. I expect you to quickly
find problems with everything I've said. That's fine, but I'll say now that
I may not respond. This discussion has taken a lot of time to follow and
has been mentally and emotionally exhausting. I have a busy week and this
may not fit into it anymore. What I don't expect is for you to submit a
pull request offering the affirmative, positive reworking of the CoC that
you have proposed, so you have an opportunity to surprise me there.
Regardless, your criticism has provided me with the opportunity to more
thoroughly think through and explain my rationale behind this change. For
that I thank you.
Kevin
On Tuesday, September 9, 2014 3:29:25 PM UTC-4, Benjamin Scherrey wrote:
>
> Aymeric,
>
> You don't believe that one should also consider how it is used? I have
> already documented that the single ever documented threatened use of the
> existing code of conduct was not to protect anyone from harassment but, in
> fact, was used to stifle someone's thoughtful and reasoned argument and end
> debate on a point. Exactly the kind of thing that I commonly see in the
> rest of the world where such speech and conduct codes are applied. They
> inevitably lead to this and I find that coercive and destructive. Evil in
> the name of good is twice as evil.
>
> I will also note that I have made several direct assertions about the
> positive aspects and negative aspects of certain policies. The sudden
> influx of people speaking in support for a speech and conduct code that
> enumerates forbidden activities have all chosen not to respond to any of
> these assertions with reasoned arguments or provide any assertions of their
> own backed up by evidence. None. Zero. I think that speaks very much
> towards the quality of their arguments and the resulting policies if their
> preferences are chosen. Sadly, I also anticipated this when I replied to
> Kevin's latest post asking for those who supported the speech code to
> respond to my concerns directly because the usual tactic by people wishing
> to impose such things is to argue around the subject rather than address
> the real documented problems with it. Alex gets partial credit for at least
> giving some specific support (the Ada group's recommendation) for why he
> wants it but no one has bothered to address the clear and present
> documented dangers of such a thing as I have argued.
>
> Again, getting back to the subject of the two PRs, 84 is fine but 86
> is way out of line because you've then imposed a speech and conduct code on
> the entire universe without any context of having anything to do with
> Django. Nothing good can come of this.
>
> -- Ben
>
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 2:12 AM, Aymeric Augustin <
> [email protected] <javascript:>> wrote:
>
>> On 9 sept. 2014, at 19:54, Benjamin Scherrey <[email protected]
>> <javascript:>> wrote:
>>
>> > So far we have exactly one documented example and TPTB took it
>> seriously right away. To me, this hardly justifies any need for an explicit
>> "anti-harassment" policy.
>>
>> I believe the success of the code of conduct is measured by how rarely it
>> is needed.
>>
>> If it never needs to be brought up, then it has achieved its goal.
>>
>> So thanks for confirming that it works well :-)
>>
>> --
>> Aymeric.
>>
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>
>
>
> --
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