On Sunday, June 3, 2018, George Neuner <gneun...@comcast.net> wrote: > On Sun, 03 Jun 2018 17:47:58 -0400, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> > wrote: > > >Benjamin Scherrey <scher...@proteus-tech.com> writes: > > > >> Another more specific factual question - have there been incidents > within > >> the active Postgresql community where behaviour by individuals who are > >> participants in the community have conducted themselves in a manner that > >> brought on the actual need for such a code of conduct to exist in the > first > >> place? > > > >I believe there were a couple of unfortunate incidents at conferences. > >Now, conferences are generally expected to have their own CoCs and enforce > >them themselves; this CoC is meant more to cover on-line interactions. > >You could argue that we shouldn't create such a CoC until something bad > >happens on-line; but I'd prefer to think that having a CoC might prevent > >that from ever happening at all, which is surely better. > > Unfortunately, conduct codes generally aren't worth the paper they are > written on. People who are inclined to behave badly towards others in > the 1st place will do so regardless of any code or any consequences of > violating the code.
I would say that such a generalization is itself of dubious value. The only thing a conduct code really accomplishes is to make some > subset of the signers feel good about themselves. Actions are more > important than words. It communicates that this community has a policing force, which itself is non-obvious and thus worth communicating, and provides that force guidelines for action. > >In any case, we went over all these sorts of arguments at excruciating > >length in 2016. It's quite clear to the core team that a majority of > >the community wants a CoC. I don't think any useful purpose will be > >served by re-litigating that point. > > > > regards, tom lane > > I remember that thread, but I don't remember any vote being taken. And > the participants in the thread were self-selected for interest in the > topic, so any consensus there is not necessarily reflective of the > community at large. That's pretty much par for the public dynamic of this community. And, as noted above, such a policy doesn't need the community at-large's approval: it's a document that constrains those that wrote it. > I am completely in favor of civil discourse and behavior, but I am not > in favor of unenforcible red tape. > The core team does have enforcement tools at its disposal. They are at least being open about the circumstances and extents under which they would leverage those tools. David J.
