> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthony Ferrara [mailto:ircmax...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 12:55 AM
> To: David Zuelke <d...@heroku.com>
> Cc: Stanislav Malyshev <smalys...@gmail.com>; Pierre Joye
> <pierre....@gmail.com>; Brandon Savage <bran...@brandonsavage.net>;
> Larry Garfield <la...@garfieldtech.com>; PHP internals
> <internals@lists.php.net>
> Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Draft] Adopt Code of Conduct
>
> 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.
That's a way of answering too! Now that I know that's your position, I can
tell you what I think about it. Going back to the questions as you phrased
them:
>> Some people have
>> questioned what this is a solution to, but most haven't.
Actually, that brings me to one of my main gripes with the RFC - the extremely
widespread confusion surrounding it. In this case, the fact people aren't
questioning what this is a solution to, does not in any way mean they
understand what it's trying to solve. In fact, everything I've seen in the
last few days, and everyone I've spoken to, leads me to believe the exact
opposite. For the most part, people think it's supposed to solve the 'toxic
internals' problem. While you've since gone on record that's not the case -
it's buried in a long reply to me; I think it should be a prominent part of
the RFC at the very least - and proponents of the RFC should be going out of
their way to ensure that it's clear to everyone this is not what this RFC is
aiming to do (as noble a cause as it may be). This widespread confusion is one
of the key sources for opposition to this RFC, since people believe its goal
would be creating a behavior or thought police.
>> Some have questioned if we have a problem, but most haven't.
As I said before I wouldn't assume that just because people asking - they don't
want to see this answered.
> IMHO answering these meta level questions, and having this meta level
> discussion is a distraction from the entire point of the proposal.
Even if that's your position - when RFC authors see questions coming up
repeatedly from various people, I believe they must respond to them even if the
response is that these questions are beside the point, with an explanation as
to why they're beside the point in their opinion.
I don't believe these questions are meta at all. Ultimately, I think whether
or not this RFC is worth the risk it poses has to do with the magnitude of the
problem it's trying to solve. A widespread problem, frequently occurring, may
justify harsher means than a theoretical issue that may or may not happen in
the future.
>
> > 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".
I don't recall seeing more than a handful of people who said 'Something
happened', but even if I grossly miscounted - we have to go back to the point I
made above. Due to the widespread confusion about what this is trying to fix,
the fact that people are insisting that 'Something happened', does not at all
mean they necessarily refer to things that this RFC is supposed to address.
For instance, when a certain person says "We clearly have a problem", how can I
know whether he refers to the 'toxic internals' problem, or a true
violence/sexual harassment allegation? Based on the fact I've seen more than a
dozen people talking about how a CoC is about solving the 'toxic internals'
problem, my educated guess is that most people that said that "there's a
problem" meant the 'toxic internals' problem, and not safety issues.
That leads to another important issue. We're a very global project. Different
cultures around the world have very different ideas regarding what's considered
acceptable or even legal. What may seem completely unreasonable to a
'reasonable American', may seem completely fine to the average 'reasonable
German'. What may seem completely reasonable to the 'reasonable Israeli', may
look unacceptable to the 'reasonable Japanese'. Sometimes, it's not just
culture - but the law itself may view things very differently from one country
to another (see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#Varied_legal_guidelines_and_definitions
for an example), not to mention that most bulletpoints of what constitutes
unaccepted behavior aren't at all defined in state laws.
> That changes the "prove it" term from being a constructive "I find it
> difficult
> to believe" to a destructive "I refuse to believe".
I can tell you with absolute honesty that it's not the case for me. Yes, I
find it hard to believe, but I certainly won't refuse to believe it. It's just
that the level of statements and evidence presented thus far is not convincing
enough for me, when compared to the ~19 years of experience I have with the PHP
community, the amount of controversial discussions I've been involved with, and
the zero threats of violence both I and other friends of mine received.
I want to be clear as to what I find hard to believe and what I don't:
1. I don't find it hard to believe people received negative, perhaps even
offensive emails.
2. I do find it hard to believe people received true threats of violence. The
definition for threats of violence in my book is something along the lines of
'placing another person in fear of being killed or injured'. Perhaps they're
threats of verbal violence - like threatening to fight on internals, reject one
from a conference or stop being your friend. But to me, that would not
constitute a threat of violence.
> 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?
I said I wouldn't have even considered using this 'f' word for a variety of
reasons, and I think we'd all be better off without it on this thread.
At the same time, I do think that there's strong potential for a slippery slope
with that RFC. I would actually say that I'd find it hard to believe we
wouldn't start sliding down the slope sooner or later.
> 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).
I think that the RFC itself fails a pretty basic 'Reasonable Person Test' - as
a lot of reasonable people completely misunderstand the goal its intended goal.
If you read the RFC, with its very wide, vague and entirely open-ended
definition of what constitutes unacceptable behavior - the interpretation that
it's about forcibly improving the atmosphere on internals by means of reporting
and potential punishments - is an entirely plausible one. If that's the
situation at the get go, imagine how things are going to be interpreted 1, 3 or
5 years down the line? 10 years down the line?
> 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.
Unfortunately, my experience with non-tech RFCs doesn't allow me to do that,
and I think the only correct way of looking at it is by evaluating the worse
parts of the spectrum - at least as much as we evaluate the positive parts. My
experience with RFCs being executed *radically* different from the intent of
their author is a very vivid and a very negative one (I prefer not to provide
examples to avoid reviving old quarrels, but can if needed). Ultimately, the
intent is lost, and the only thing that matters is what's written in the text.
Don't get me wrong. I think people who make threats of violence (or that are
actually physically violent) don't belong here. I think people who sexually
harass are scumbags who don't belong here either. I sympathize with the
motivation to send a message that we care about these things and view them
negatively. But ultimately, what we'd be left with is the text of the RFC,
ratified in one way or another, and if we can judge from the way other RFCs
were treated, it will be treated as if God herself went down to earth and
provided it to us.
And what do we have written in the RFC? An open-ended definition of
unacceptable behavior, with examples that are in themselves open-ended and open
for interpretation; A small team of amateurs with substantial investigative,
interpretative and judicial powers; And a ready-to-execute process for banning
people. Couple that with widespread misperception that the RFC is about
solving the 'toxic internals', a misperception that easily passes the
'Reasonable Person Test'.
What could possibly go wrong?
Zeev
