Greetings.
On 19 Jun 2017, at 16:18, John Berry wrote:
Nothing about a document saying "hey, don't be an ass" implies that
the
reader themselves, or the community, are asses. Only that the
community
values not being an ass, and those who might wish to join that
community
and not be an ass are welcome, and that those who have had to deal
with too
many asses will hopefully find fewer here.
If the document literally said just 'hey, don't be an ass', or 'don't be
a git', or 'c'mon, behave', then that would be fine. Perhaps it could
have a footnote saying 'Surely you can tell when you're being a git --
if you for some reason have difficulty with this, then see [link]'. A
text like that presumes that the reader is grown-up, but indicates, for
the avoidance of doubt, that adult civility is indeed expected in the
meeting.
The problem with the longer text, such as the Strange Loop one[1], is
that it's manifestly _very_ hard to come up with a text that doesn't
radiate censoriousness; and however much this isn't the literal
implication of the text, it does implant the notion that the reader or
the community has behaviour problems. That text does not radiate 'you
are welcome' -- it tells me, 'we have so many gits roaming the corridors
of our conference that we have to police them'. In its phrasing, a text
like this appears to presume that the reader is an undersocialised thug,
who needs to be given an extensive but non-exhaustive list of things to
remember not to do. One has to carefully suppress one's initial
reaction to it, and smile sweetly.
Also, any text like that almost inevitably acquires a legalistic air,
and just screams out for disputation, and the reddit thread...
For the unconvinced, I really appreciated Graydon Hoare's perspective
on
why he implemented the Rust CoC.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/6ewjt5/question_
about_rusts_odd_code_of_conduct/didrult/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/6ewjt5/question_
about_rusts_odd_code_of_conduct/dif1xvb/
...seems to corroborate this.
To clarify, this remark is about communication and presentation. The
underlying wish to encourage civility is entirely laudable, and the
experience of being on the wrong end of careless or careful incivility
would be entirely unpleasant and deplorable, and a conference should aim
to discourage such incivility by any available effective mechanisms.
If, after all, the only effective mechanism is a rule-book such as is
being discussed, then can I commend the FreeBSD code [2] which I think
communicates the underlying goals very well, even though it's primarily
intended to cover behaviour online, rather than face-to-face. To my ear
it benefits from a very slightly old-fashioned air, including the rather
old-fashioned implication that 'we're sure this stuff doesn't really
need to be said, but since you ask...'
Best wishes,
Norman
[1] https://www.thestrangeloop.com/policies.html
[2] https://www.freebsd.org/internal/code-of-conduct.html
--
Norman Gray : https://nxg.me.uk
SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK
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