While overall I tend to agree with Paul on the concept of a CoC, I don't think that precludes the ability to offer suggestions. It's to everyone's advantage to make sure that if we do adopt a CoC, we adopt the best one possible.
Obviously one of the biggest fears is unjust treatment of the accused. The thing that is most likely to lead to that would be pre-existing personal biases towards the accused (or in favor of the accuser) by a member of the committee. Why not require that at least one member come from outside the PHP community all together. I don't know how feasible that really is, but assuming it is, it's probably the best way to ensure that there is at least one person that is more likely to be as unbiased as possible. That member could be voted on like all the other members, or, due to the fact that voters are hopefully less familiar with such candidates, be appointed by the elected members of the committee. Obviously it's not perfect and still allows the possibility of abuse, but you reach the point where such abuses almost require a coordinated conspiracy. On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 4:15 PM Sara Golemon <poll...@php.net> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 12:21 PM, Anthony Ferrara <ircmax...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >>> 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. > > > > True, but as Larry said, either side is problematic. Too loose of a > > CoC with no enforcement and nothing really was changed from today > > considering we already have the post that Rasmus made 6-7 years ago. > > Sure, it's something to rally behind, but it doesn't really solve any > > problems. The problem is that there's no safe way for people to get > > help. The CoC is part of the solution to that, but not the only one. > > > Perhaps there's a path to compromise here though. A CoC plus a > Response Team *without* authority for any punitive action would be a > step forward. We don't have to solve every problem right up front, we > can start with: > > 1) Provide a channel for safe reporting of incidents (and again, I > speak of the safety of both accuser and accused). > 2) Open safe dialogues between parties without airing drama and dirty > laundry on the list. > 3) Track statistics. We have no data on who's leaving quietly due to > conflict. This can help us gather some of that. (And yes, I'm vague > on how we can collate those stats, because I don't know yet - It's > still a draft) > > Will the lack of teeth have less of a deterrence effect? Probably, > but to paraphrase some sentiments, this isn't a war-zone. And > punitive powers do exist in the hands of people have earned the right > to have those powers. I for one, am willing to sacrifice the band-aid > of a temp-ban on the altar of compromise. > > Having a clear statement of expected conduct is a good thing, be it as > vague as "Be nice" or as specific as "Don't lower yourself to name > calling and all caps shouting." Having a response team who's job it > is to help mediate when things go wrong is a good thing. We can leave > the pistols at home. > > There's still 360 days left in the year for followup RFCs if this > doesn't work out, and years left in the project. > > -Sara > > -- > PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > -- -- Chase chasepee...@gmail.com
