Dear Nathann,
On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 06:37:58PM -0800, Nathann Cohen wrote:
> Thus I am asking again, and politely despite my finding very
> disrespectful to have a legitimate question ignored: who was on the
> short list to write what is now our code of conduct, when was it
> initiated and in which conditions ? (yes, there are three parts to the
> question)
> If, as it is very likely, the question is ignored again, I will simply
> have to point to this thread whenever I need in the future to give my
> opinion on what democracy has become here.
I agree, it's a legitimate question. Don't interpret too much the
delay though: for example, in my case, it's simply that, with 16 hours
of teaching per week those last weeks, even keeping up with the
discussion is tricky :-)
I was involved early on in the original private discussion. It grew
out of a few people chatting together (you know the kind of ranting we
could have had around a tea if we had been in the same spot). That was
roughly one month ago. We were worried about discussions on the
mailing lists occasionally hurting feelings, and how this was turning
some people away, and on occasions ruining the productivity. We
started to wonder what we could do about it, besides having private
discussions with the persons involved to cool things down as we had
tried. We then got in touch with a few others to see if it was just
us, or whether this was a more general feeling. We then became
convinced that there really was some issue that deserved a discussion
on sage-devel.
But for such an open discussion to be productive, we believed it was
best to have a concrete basis to build on. So we started by looking
around to see how this kind of situations was handled in other
communities. It appeared that the most common approach was to design a
"Code of Conduct". So we prepared a draft thereof, as an open-minded
starting point for discussions.
Of course I can't easily prove it; but I can assure you that this was
all done in good faith and with good intentions. We could possibly
have done a better job: calling for a vote later, making the call for
amending the text more explicit, guessing that people would interpret
"code" as "law", which was certainly not the intention.
Well, that's all easy to say in retrospect, but really it's hard to
organize such discussions.
And unpleasant to be called various names when trying, maybe clumsily
but honestly, to make our community a better place.
Lastly: I believe nobody in those who originated the discussion cares
about the specific wording. I also assume most don't really care
whether it's a "code of conduct" or a "guidelines" or something
similar. I for example voluntarily did not vote, as none of the two
options reflected my current point of view which I stated earlier.
Cheers,
Nicolas
PS: I used "we" above. I indeed have supported the process from start
to end. On the other hand, I would not want to take undue credit: the
bulk of the work (looking around, writing a draft, ...) was actually
achieved by others, and one person in particular that can be proud of
it. This was a tricky and time consuming chore which I do see as a
caring gift to the community.
I obviously won't give myself the names of the other participants
of the private discussion. It's their decision to step out, or not.
--
Nicolas M. Thiéry "Isil" <nthi...@users.sf.net>
http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/
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