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Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:04:25 -0400
From: Rich Bowen <rbowen@rcbowen.com>
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Subject: Re: Better specifying the scope of our Code of Conduct
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On 06/30/2015 12:37 PM, Stefan Reich wrote:
> I'm almost tired of criticizing so much, but... I think a "code of conduct"
> is evil legalese and should be abandoned.
>
> Like Jesus said: "Love is the only law you need."


Unfortunately, that hasn't worked out for us so far.

A CoC serves several real needs. Publicly stating that we have such an 
expectation makes the ASF more welcoming to joiners. It also makes 
explicit some of the expectations for people who bull through life 
without thinking about their interactions.

Google for 'why we need a code of conduct' and then click on a link at 
random and you'll get a more articulate statement of why this is 
absolutely critical to an organization like ours that spans cultures, 
timezones, projects, and many other borders.

It is simply not the case that people just naturally know the right way 
to behave. And it is the case that we need to have given careful thought 
to what we're going to do about it when people are jerks.

Even Jesus violently threw people out of the temple when they broke the 
code of conduct.

--Rich

>
> Cheers
> Stefan
>
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz <bdelacretaz@apache.org
>> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Someone mentioned to me that they find the first paragraph of
>> http://www.apache.org/foundation/policies/conduct.html overly broad,
>> and I tend to agree.
>>
>> That paragraph says "this code of conduct governs how we behave in any
>> forum and whenever we will be judged by our actions" which implies
>> that it also applies outside of "ASF territory" - I don't think that's
>> appropriate. The next paragraph mentions "spaces managed by the Apache
>> Software Foundation" which I find much more appropriate, maybe
>> expanded with "and whenever we represent the ASF".
>>
>> The reasoning is that we can only speak about our own territory.
>>
>> As a simple example, putting your hand on someone's shoulder while
>> talking to them is totally welcome in some cultures while considered
>> "unwelcome sexual attention" (to reuse the words of that document) in
>> others. We might ask people to refrain from doing that in our
>> multi-cultural environment where we need to go down to some common
>> denominator of acceptable behavior, but we can't blame them for doing
>> that where it's culturally acceptable and even expected. The same goes
>> with profanity, where the acceptable level varies immensely between
>> cultures.
>>
>> So I think it's good to restrict our code of conduct to our own territory.
>>
>> I suggest reworking the first few paragraphs as follows, to clarify that:
>>
>> *** reworked code of conduct intro section ***
>> This code of conduct applies to all spaces managed by the Apache
>> Software Foundation, including IRC, all public and private mailing
>> lists, issue trackers, wikis, blogs, Twitter, and any other
>> communication channel used by our communities. A code of conduct which
>> is specific to in-person events (ie., conferences) is codified in the
>> published ASF anti-harassment policy.
>>
>> We expect this code of conduct to be honored by everyone who
>> participates in the Apache community formally or informally, or claims
>> any affiliation with the Foundation, in any Foundation-related
>> activities and especially when representing the ASF, in any role.
>>
>> This code is not exhaustive or complete....(unchanged from here on)
>> *** reworked code of conduct intro section ***
>>
>> What do people think?
>> -Bertrand
>>
>


-- 
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon