David, On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 5:05 PM, David Zuelke <d...@heroku.com> wrote: > On 11.01.2016, at 12:31, Anthony Ferrara <ircmax...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Actually, asking for proof and denying are the same thing. If they >> weren't, then why would you be asking for proof unless you believed it >> didn't happen? > > They are not the same thing. If you make a claim, then the onus of proof is > on you, and you cannot simply turn that reasonable request against them by > then implying they're denying. Otherwise, why have proof for anything at all?
Because the claim is tangential to the discussion. We're not talking about passing an RFC which enumerates which incidents have happened. The fact that incidents have happened doesn't change this RFC at all. Some people denied that anything has happened in the first place, and as a response to that, many (including myself) have stood up and said "sorry, but things have happened". The burden of proof isn't on anyone, because the entire line of discussion is off-topic. And even if it was on-topic, the question wasn't (sic) "can you share a concrete example so we can learn from it". The question was (sic) "I haven't seen it happen" which is paramount to "prove it". > To me, this begs the question: would you handle incidents covered by the CoC > in a similar way, with that same attitude? An accuser claims something, and > asking for proof will be interpreted as denial? > > By extension, will a third party asking for proof for an incident be subject > to kafkatrapping - "the fact that you're doubting X happened means you're > also guilty of X"? That one has happened to me before on twitter. Didn't > stick because of the ridiculousness, but maybe the conjured mob was simply > not large enough to spark sufficient outrage. Which is precisely why asking for evidence and public discussion is problematic. That's precisely what I was trying to avoid with having a resolution team that had limited powers. To avoid the "public court" as much as possible *precisely* because of the mob mentality *in both directions*. > I'm pretty uncomfortable that you as the person "in charge" of this RFC hold > such biased views. If you can't see that asking for proof and denial are > different things then that IMO disqualifies you for that role. Ok. I'm disqualified then. > The same applies to your claims of threats of violence. It's fine if you > don't want to provide details, but then you can't bring those cases up. It's > legitimate for others here to ask you for evidence if you do bring it up. I > understand that we're all different personalities and you're maybe more wired > in that direction (mentioning something in passing), but you need to > understand that once a claim is out there, it's up to you to back it up. If > you then refuse to, it raises doubts, and rightfully so. I never said I don't want to provide details. I said I won't talk about it publicly. I think that is a reasonable thing. Especially since we're talking about creating a private channel for this sort of discussion. To say I need to make it public or it doesn't count is problematic. Especially since we're talking about a CoC here where people may not feel comfortable talking publicly about incidents. And several people have already stood up and said precisely that. So to discount all of those incidents because people don't feel comfortable (for whatever reason) talking publicly, isn't good. Zeev, > What clearly hasn't happened is any proponent of this RFC actually answering > these questions. Because I (and others) believe that none of these questions are actually related to the RFC. They are tangential and are distractions from the prime point. The prime point is to actually figure out is where we should move the proposal towards. Very few of the replies, and none of the ones in the past 100 replies discuss this prime point. IMHO answering these meta level questions, and having this meta level discussion is a distraction from the entire point of the proposal. > Is my email being ignored because I used the word 'judicial' to describe the > current RFC, and differentiate it from a regular CoC+mediation? > Is it non constructive or hyperbole in your opinion? No, I read your email. I haven't responded because I've been trying to throttle my replies to this post, and had immediately responded to another thread. Additionally, I don't believe that anything you brought up hasn't already been discussed at some point in this 300+ reply thread. But if nobody else covers the points I feel should be made, I will reply tomorrow to it. > Asking for proof is not at all the same as denying it exists. > Not knowing that something exists, and even finding it difficult to believe > it does - is not the same as knowing that it doesn't exist / denying it. When one person says something happens, asking for proof may be reasonable and backup precisely what you say. However, that's not the case here. At least a dozen people have said "something happened". That changes the "prove it" term from being a constructive "I find it difficult to believe" to a destructive "I refuse to believe". > FWIW for threats of violence, I think I'd be willing to live with the > measures detailed in the RFC, especially if we had some real world examples > to make sure we're all on the same page. But given that it goes much further > than that (including open ended things like personal attacks, insulting and > even harassment, given the broad interpretation that seems to be given to > this word by many on this list) - it's problematic, and is the source of the > 'censorship' fears. I'm sure some could consider this letter as a personal > attack of sorts. Some may consider a person saying 'That's not true' as a > personal attack of sorts, since it's the equivalent of calling one a liar. > And the list goes on. That's called a slippery slope argument. And while it's definitely something to discuss, it's not nearly as big of an issue as it has been presented. It's something we definitely should consider, but it's not the end-all-be-all of evils that it's claimed to be. I mean "this RFC is fascist censorious speech-policing"... Seriously? Some may consider "that's not true" as a personal attack. However, would that pass the "reasonable person test"? I highly doubt it, unless the context surrounding it makes it obvious that it was an attack (for example, what if someone replies to literally every message from an individual for weeks on end saying "that's not true". That would raise it to the level of an attack/harassment). You shouldn't be looking at the proposal from the lens of the worse possible interpretation. Namely because we're electing each other to interpret it. If we were electing random people, then totally. If we don't trust the members we elect by a 2/3 majority, we have FAR bigger problems. Instead, we should be judging this based upon the views of "How would the average internals contributor think". Or even, "How would 2/3 of the project think". Let's look at the edge cases and discuss them, but they shouldn't be the focus. And even if you want them to be the focus, let them be the focus when we have a solid definition of what we want to do. > I, for one, haven't seen this mentioned explicitly on list, but more > importantly - there's clearly a lot of confusion both on the list and on > Twitter regarding what this RFC aims to achieve. A lot of people on Twitter > pinged me (and you) saying how the way internals is discourages them to get > involved (can provide references if needed), and it's very clear they believe > the CoC will change that. Can you send a public message that it won't, or > explain to all of us how it will? There are two prime reasons people may avoid internals (at least related to this discussion). 1. Don't want to deal with the aggressive tone of the list 2. Don't want to expose themselves to targeted aggression/negativity The first is not in scope of this RFC. We may or we may not want to take steps in the future to "fix" that, but that's not in scope here. The second on the other hand is completely in scope for the RFC. However, there is a third benefit to this RFC which would improve involvement: It tells the outside world that we care about conduct and being constructive. Yes, it's not a perfect bullet, but it's definitely something to consider. Anthony -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
