Janek Warchoł <janek.lilyp...@gmail.com> writes: > Hi, > > śr., 5 lut 2020, 00:34 użytkownik <d...@gnu.org> napisał: > >> What problem are we trying to solve here? >> > > In short, it's been found (I think Mike will be able to give you specific > examples) that having code of conduct encourages contributions from > newcomers.
I rather think that a friendly atmosphere encourages contributions from newcomers. Whether an upfront requirement to commit to a set of rules with an enforcement team is perceived as a guarantee of a friendly atmosphere is debatable. So this issue would seem more pressing if there is evidence of people acting in a way on the LilyPond lists denying people the opportunity to contribute in a generally friendly atmosphere. If that is not the case, the proposed solution involves censure and eventual removement by a team of 3 enforcement officers. Now of the proposed team, two have already expressed personal issues with the way I am conversing with the list, so given the generally very welcoming atmosphere in the LilyPond lists, the principal impact to be expected on LilyPond development appears to have an official body entitled to censure my behavior and eventually, out of a sense of duty, remove me. I have had this kind of backroom diplomacy remove me from one choir after almost a year of intense work (I am an asset as a good sight reader) before the first concert I could have participated in, and I quit another choir I had worked hard for for five years after getting censured by a choir committee after I had publicly answered a question about whether a singing engagement at a choir member's birthday celebration or else (things I participated in as a rule but would not be foolish enough to ask for myself) should also involve a more tangible present from the general choir funds. I quit that choir since my personal and communication skills do not allow me to take corrective action without actually communicating to the offended party, and thus being censured via an official anonymous complaint channel gave me no option of compensating for my well-known deficiencies, and getting referred to via channels intended for denunciation was not my idea of being part of a community. Since judging from my personal past, the foreseeable impact on my personal ability to keep participating as a community member given such a mechanism will be high, the question is how much of a benefit is to be expected for others from having a formalized committee where everyone, on pain of getting expulsed themselves, is only doing their duty. Now it is not that hard, given obvious public backing, to get me off a list. Andy Wingo has banned me from participating on the Guile developer list, and I have pretty much obeyed that ban on the spot (with at most a few replies a year creeping through when I followed conversations and inadvertantly replied) even though it was not enacted with technical measures. The general stance of the GNU project on its internal lists is to rely more on education and admonishment than official committees, censure, and exclusion. It can be read at <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html>. This document is not focused on enforcement: instead it is a rationale for people with problematic communication about why and how they could try to improve. That is assuming, of course, that people are not recklessly engaging in unwelcoming behavior: for open-and-shut cases, it tends to be within the authority of a basic list administrator to take action. This has happened on LilyPond lists I think, but very rarely so. The list administrator doing duty here is not as much affiliated with LilyPond as being a volunteer of GNU. I think. It's embarrassing that I don't even know for sure, but that's the way things turn out that just work. So in light of my personal experiences with this kind of backroom channel (and it's worth noting that even the cited Linux developer list removed the corrective measures part from the CoC they are using), I would very much like to see some more imminent reason of why LilyPond would stand to benefit from adopting a code and accepting a corrective committee that has basically proposed itself rather than being the result of a list-wide election and where just one member has been a permanent fixture on the lists for a longer amount of time at this moment. -- David Kastrup
