I don't really care that their role, though that move takes gravitas.
I will never endorse a measure that encourages (and the CC does encourage) a witchhunt on the members of the community. It encourages by creating a metric of "maximum comfort" (or "least harmful") and that anything else is somehow a violation. She did it herself with these words[2]: "Is this what the other maintainers want to be reflected in the project? Will any transgender developers feel comfortable contributing?" With those words she created a metric of "maximum comfort". So now the question moves from not just having not offended someone, but to be maximally comforting to every possible person. Not that there's anything wrong with *wanting* to be maximally comfortable for everyone. It's a great goal. But now every interaction is to be judged by this metric, and anything less than the maximal comfort is somehow potentially alienating to a population and can be construed to be a cause for removal.
In the CC itself it encourages a witchhunt with these words:
"Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful."
That last word, "harmful" significantly alters the statement. Don't let your eyes glaze over. Now anything that happens is potentially harmful. (Ironically C++, or its constructs is even "considered harmful". Just google "C++ considered harmful", lol). I probably would have let this whole issue slide but that last word _really_ changes the character of the covenant. I beleive that is *the* word that allows the witchhunting. It's not just direct harm but potential harm. From [2]: "As a queer person this sort of argument from a maintainer makes me feel unwelcome. The ignorance which @elia shows by claiming that transfolk are "not accepting reality" is actively harmful. I will not contribute to this project or any other project which @elia maintains." - strand
Not that strand was participating, but states that there will be no future contribution by strand. This is an appeal to percieved harm - that now strand will not ever contribute, the project is potentially harmed by missing out on a contributor. So now this issue can fall under the Covenant.
How can we avoid witchhunts?
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 1:24 PM
From: "NIkolai Marchenko" <enmarantis...@gmail.com>
To: jh...@gmx.com
Cc: "Christian Kandeler" <christian.kande...@qt.io>, "Qt development mailing list" <development@qt-project.org>
Subject: Re: [Development] QUIP 12: Code of Conduct
From: "NIkolai Marchenko" <enmarantis...@gmail.com>
To: jh...@gmx.com
Cc: "Christian Kandeler" <christian.kande...@qt.io>, "Qt development mailing list" <development@qt-project.org>
Subject: Re: [Development] QUIP 12: Code of Conduct
Just to clarify: she sought to remove _maintainer_ of the project :) At that point the guy was doing most of the work.
On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 7:48 PM Jason H <jh...@gmx.com> wrote:
My fundamental problem about the Contributor Covenant[1] was initially and solely the fallout from the Linux Kernel fiasco. But then I learned that it was drafted by Coraline Ada Ehmke, who sought to have a contributor removed [2] from a project preemptively. The contributor did nothing wrong with respect to the project or the project's community. She constructed a claim of "transphobia" based on a tweet the contributor wrote in no way relating to the project at hand, and slandered the project for not expunging them. My mind is made up: the Contributor Covenant is a tool of oppression.
The specific sentence in the Covenant is:
"This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community."
However, despite being the author of the Covenant (2014), she found it appropriate to attack someone who was clearly not operating in a project space or representing the project community (2015). We now have two examples - the linux Kernel and Opal project, that after CC was enacted that calls for removal of members based on past unrelated tweets went out. One of the problems its politics and political climates change over time. Expressing what is not political at one point in time may become political in subsequent years. People's minds also change over time.
I urge you to read link[3] below and see if we want that kind of attention. It summarizes what happens when the CC has been adopted by other projects.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_Covenant
[2] https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
[3] https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/974038-why-the-linux-coc-is-bad/
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 3:50 AM
> From: "Christian Kandeler" <christian.kande...@qt.io>
> To: "development@qt-project.org" <development@qt-project.org>
> Subject: Re: [Development] QUIP 12: Code of Conduct
>
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2018 19:39:45 +0200
> André Pönitz <apoen...@t-online.de> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 09:51:00AM +0200, Volker Krause via Development wrote:
> > > We do have a Code of Conduct at KDE for about 10 years now, and this hasn't
> > > led to abuse of power, suppression of free speech, racism against white people
> > > or whatever other nonsense people seem to attribute to CoCs nowadays.
> >
> > The KDE CoC is *friendly*. It contains words like "considerate", "pragmatic",
> > "support". It doesn't push someone's personal political agenda.
>
> I agree. It reads as if it was written with the intention of creating a constructive environment, lacks the inquisition-y vibe and is free of jargon and weirdly over-specific lists.
>
>
> Christian
> _______________________________________________
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> Development@qt-project.org
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>
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