Re: Add Code of Conduct

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

Thanks for your careful observations.

First, the CoC was actually coined by Mike, and I saw it as a proposal to
bring LilyPond into the next decade. A CoC is a pretty normal concept these
days. If having a CoC is required to be taken seriously by developers at
large, we should consider it. I concede that CoCs haven't yet reached this
level of ubiquity, though.

For full disclosure, David has ticked me off in the past, and reacquainting
myself with the community means that I have to reacquaint myself with
David's way of communicating. One of the recent emails (about the
development process), contained a passage that felt like a blow in my
stomach and upset me to the point of considering to leave again. (When I
say this, I am not asking for adulation). If that happens to me, imagine
what happens when a new contributor is on the receiving end of that. So I
am happy to see that David is trying new ways to address this problem.

I have no personal stake in being a CoC committee member, and was actually
volunteered into it by Janek. I am happy to not be part of such a committee
(Elaine, would you be interested?), because my time is limited, and is
probably best spent in mentoring coders and explaining the code base. For
the record, I think Werner is an excellent candidate.



On Fri, Feb 7, 2020 at 2:28 AM Flaming Hakama by Elaine <
address@hidden> wrote:

> Regarding the CoC.
>
> If there is no enforcement, then it is not clear what is the point.
>
> In the abstract, such a document could help to set expectations of
> behavior, including clarifying types of behavior that is considered
> unacceptable.  Such that everyone/anyone in the community would be able to
> have something to point to to say, "see this type of behavior is considered
> unacceptable".
>
> However, even with a clear CoC, any accusations of violation could be
> disputed.  Reasonable people can disagree on many things, especially human
> feelings, actions, and intentions.  Without an offiical enforcement
> mechanism, we only really have peer pressure.  Which is exactly what we
> have now.  And I don't think any of us need a CoC to identify uncivil
> behavior.
>
>
> The main issues with the original enforcement proposal is that it delegates
> authority to the people most likely to have a conflict of interest:  the
> core contributors.
>
> If we want such a committee to be effective, it should be populated by
> people who have fewer conflict of interest.  Ideally, it would include
> people who primarily have good standing among the community with track
> records of being helpful and diplomatic--coding chops should not be the
> main criteria.  Likewise, I think we should consider recruiting at least
> one person from outside the community who has experience with such things
> (mediators, facilitiators, open source mentors, diversity trainers).  This
> should be clear by considering the one suggested use case (sexual
> harassment), since we would want a committee that is able to understand and
> handle such complaints, and to which community members will feel
> comfortable bringing forward such complaints.  That is not an easy thing to
> construct entirely in-house.
>
> Any such proposal should also make it clear how this committee gets
> elected, have some mechanisms for limiting terms, and how to handle
> appeals.
>
> In my opinion, in the abstract a CoC with enforcement is useful, but only
> once the community is large enough, and if the enforcement mechanism is
> transparent, democratic, and constructed to actually handle well the task
> it is charged with.
>
> I don't think either the lilypond community nor this specific proposal
> comes anywhere close to this.
>
>
>
> There are two things that have been said in this discussion so far that I
> would like to point out as being un-collaborative and in violation of any
> CoC worth its salt:
>
> 1) "Adopt this CoC or I will leave the community"  Such threats amount to a
> my-way-or-the-highway attitude, which is an attempt to enforce veto power
> in what is supposed to be a collaborative / concensus / democratic
> approach.  Also difficult to disentangle the degree to which this is
> intentionally or unintentionally an unprofessional attempt to elicit
> praise, with the expected reactions of "oh no, don't leave, you're too
> valuable".  To me, this is toxic behavior and I would welcome their
> self-removal from the community if this is their idea of how to conduct
> themselves in an exemplary manner.
>
> 2) Being disingenuous regarding the point of the CoC.  While it may be a
> bit overboard for DK to assume that removing him is the sole point of the
> proposal, it is equally disingenuous for the proposers of the CoC to
> suggest that any such consequences would be unintended, since that is the
> *only* actionalble part of the proposal, and DK is the most obvious target
> for such concerns.  What has become clear to me is that there is a
> disharmony between the original BDFL and the incumbent BDFL.  This specific
> proposal for a CoC seems to me to be an attempt to provide the *appearance*
> of some kind of consensus-based or otherwise democratic process, in an
> effort to reinstate the original BDFL and dethrone the incumbent BDFL, when
> in fact there is nothing consensus-based or democratic about the proposal
> at all.  So, it has a taste of insencerity and disguised motives, which is
> exactly the opposite of what a CoC should be engendering.
>
> For both sides of this kerfuffle, I'd offer the following reality check:
>
> * The current process relies too heavily on one contributor, and any
> improvements to the process will inherently invovle untangling the many
> hats being worn by the current BDFL, such that others can wear them--and
> probably also reconstituting the hat wardrobe.
>
> * Those wanting more input and responsibility should be frank about their
> aims, and not disguise them behind a lofty CoC proposal.  They should
> recognize that such a proposal is, in part, difficult to distinguish from a
> personal attack, since it does essentially target one individual, even if
> that is not the intention and eventual scope of the proposal when applied
> to a future 'pond that does operate among a larger number of contributors.
>
> * Those who currently have oversized roles should be willing to help
> transform the workflow and workload such that collaboration is expanded,
> such that they can focus on their areas of genius.  Also, recognize that,
> while the desire to disentangle the workflows of the incumbent BDFL, it is
> not intended as a personal attack, despite the fact that it is being
> carried out in a way that does not make this clear.
>
>
>
> Elaine Alt
> 415 . 341 .4954                                           "*Confusion is
> highly underrated*"
> address@hidden
> Producer ~ Composer ~ Instrumentalist ~ Educator
>
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>


-- 
Han-Wen Nienhuys - address@hidden - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen