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
