> -----Original Message----- > From: Anthony Ferrara [mailto:ircmax...@gmail.com] > Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2016 6:16 PM > To: internals@lists.php.net > Subject: [PHP-DEV] Re: [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of Conduct > > As to the comments in this thread, I won't reply to every one, but here > are a > few points I'd like to make.
Anthony, Thanks - I think the new draft looks much better and addresses much of my feedback. I still think it puts too much emphasis on the mechanics and punitive actions, see below. > > It's been mentioned that we may want to adopt a CoC, but it shouldn't > "have teeth". I disagree here, as without an enforcement mechanism it > basically is no different from where we are at today. I think it's actually very different. Today we have no CoC. Stating a direction, a vision for the community - can go a very long way. To illustrate, I suspect most of us are law-abiding citizens not because we're afraid of being thrown to jail - but rather, because we value the rule of law and know that abiding the law is the Right Thing to do. If we simply adopt a CoC without adding teeth to it, we'd certainly not be the first project to do so. > Saying we should act > reasonable is fine, but we need a method for what we are to do when one of > us acts unreasonably. Additionally, as has been stated, requiring people > to > report publicly creates a barrier to entry. Many people will simply chose > to > leave quietly rather than report publicly. > Simply look at the way people who speak out about harassment are treated > in public to understand why. The point of the CoC is to create a safe > place > for everyone to contribute, not just those with thick skin. My main concern is/was that we're venturing into areas where we have absolutely no experience and completely inadequate training. We are not legislators nor lawyers; We've demonstrated more than once that we're not very good at establishing 'written law' for far simpler and non-ambiguous things, failing to predict all possible scenarios of the future. The fact we need to borrow definitions from Criminal Law should be an indicator that we're probably venturing in the wrong direction here. The system responsible for implementing the law, as we all know, is complex and with countless checks and balances - and as I think we all know, it is also subjective, completely open for interpretation and with a very strong human element - and consequently frequently fails. My concern is that we're trying to sketch a simplistic system which would fail us in unpredictable ways in the future, when the rubber meets the road. And with all that said, it seems to be much less of an issue with the updated RFC, given the reduced power of the CoC team and the changed 'spirit' of it. I do need to review the RFC more closely though. > As to why the Contributor Covenant as opposed to another CoC or our own > custom one, there are two reasons for this. First, it's a standard that's > been > adopted by a number of significant scale projects. Second, it saves us > from > having to bikeshed over every single word of a CoC. > If there's another standard CoC that we should entertain, I'm happy to > look > at it. But I do not believe that we should create our own. I think the Contributor Covenant is problematic when used as a law, as opposed to guidelines - because it's way too open ended. But again - with the substantial changes to the RFC, I think it's less of an issue. Thanks again for the efforts on this! Zeev -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
