On 01/09/2016 10:03 PM, Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
Hi!
I was not hesitant (or, let's maybe call it "intentionally
procrastinating") to post on this topic because I felt unsafe on this
list or in the general realm of the PHP community; I simply was in no
mood to deal with a mob of self-proclaimed-or-not "Social Justice
Warriors" and their digital pitchforks on twitter or elsewhere - and
they're already trying:
https://twitter.com/drupliconissad/status/685489458934841344
And this is exactly why I don't want us to give opening to such kind of
people to come here and try to abuse our CoC for their means - basically
for "hounding out" people they for some reason disagree with. They
exist, and they are eager and willing to destroy (not physically but
professionally and reputation-wise) everybody who disagrees with them,
and I am not exaggerating. And I don't want them here. So anything that
hints that they are welcome to do their thing here makes me feel uneasy
(having CoC does not, but declaring that we police the behavior outside
the community feels like going into that direction). Here I think
"hounding out" is not our favorite pastime, and I think it should remain
this way.
That is unless, of course, this account is a troll created to destroy
the CoC cause. In which case I envy the power of commitment and the
talent behind it and I wish that talent were applied to a more worthy
goal. But in any case this one is not alone - I've read many comments if
not as explicit, but with same thought and intent, on various forums.
Some of them, surprisingly, even signed by real names.
Disclaimer: I often describe myself as a "fundamentalist moderate", in
that I'm inclined to see the (partial) validity in most arguments, even
if I don't entirely agree with them. This does not always serve me
well, but meh. :-) However, it also means that extreme positions
frustrate me to no end, because I cannot bring myself to agree with the
extreme position even if it has valid points to make.
That's what is so frustrating to me in this discussion so far. Numerous
people have pointed out potential for abuse if a CoC has any "teeth" at
all. These concerns are valid. David Zuelke linked to several examples
earlier in this thread, and others have as well. I could cite some from
Drupal, too, where I believe it was over-applied. The risk of
encouraging "victim culture" is very very real, and mentioning those
risks is entirely and completely valid and welcome.
Unfortunately, the response to those risk statements seems to be,
mostly, "thus we should do nothing." That is, ignoring the problems
that do exist. Internals has a very acute reputation for being a
dog-eat-dog cesspool of structureless brutality. Having been on the
list since 2007, I will say it's definitely not as bad as it was when I
first joined but it's still not always a nice place to be. Like most
here, I stick it out because I care about PHP and have over the past 19
years of working with online communities developed a fairly thick skin.
But having a calloused hide should not be a prerequisite for
contributing to Open Source. By the same token, though, neither should
walking on eggshells be a prerequisite either.
Even without that, though, it's clear we *do* have more serious issues
than just "rudeness". When a major contributor is getting death-threats
over an RFC, *there is a problem*. That they're happening off-list
doesn't change the fact that *that is a problem*.
To be clear, the "there's a risk of abuse so do nothing" crowd is
saying, implicitly, that the known and existing problem of people
getting death threats and there being nothing we can do about it is a
better situation than having the tools to try and do something about it,
with the risk of those tools being abused. It's not just "it's too
dangerous", but "it's so dangerous that we'd rather have the current
problem." That is, that current problems are tolerable.
It ignores that the status quo is also subject to abuse; it's just a
different kind of abuse (taking advantage of the lack of accountability
and lack of due process we have now), and perhaps easier to abuse by a
different type of person.
The legitimate argument that there is potential for risk with a formal
CoC that should be mitigated (with which I 100% agree) is getting lost
in the hyperbole. There is a vast difference between "this could be
abused in these ways" and "zOMG fascist!!1!" If anything, the repeated
use of the latter (which is complete hyperbole and belies a total lack
of political or historical awareness) actively undermines the former,
and makes trying to address and account for the abuse risk harder, not
easier. It is the mirror image of "he offended me so burn him at the
stake!", a hyperbole that is over-used to the point that it undermines
those who are trying to deal with actual abuse and harassment.
Extremists are bad, m'kay? On both sides.
The other "contra" position is to make a CoC toothless. The argument
here being "if it can't actually be enforced, then it can't be abused."
Which is, well, partially true, but if anything, not having a real
process around it makes it *more* likely to be abused by the
professionally-sensitive, not less, because the enforcement falls back
on the "court of public opinion". The professionally-sensitive tend to
be really really good at manipulating that to their own ends, without
any due process. In fact, I would trust a reasonable group of mediators
as "judges" with due process far more than I would a mob court. I would
feel safer, as an accused, with a known process and people I respected
managing the process than with it playing out as a 100 message long
thread plus who knows what happening on Twitter and and/ Reddit.
If the CoC is toothless, the teeth will simply come out elsewhere in
ways we don't like. If it has teeth, we can determine how sharp those
teeth should be in order to achieve the goal of a less antagonistic,
more collaborative community.
I'll take that a step further: Having a CoC with no teeth has a higher
risk of abuse than it having teeth, because those who would abuse it can
use that lack of teeth to their advantage.
The other objection has been the scope of activity that is covered, and
how far out from the centerpoint of this list it should extend. This is
also a very legitimate concern. Certainly, I know I hold certain social
and political views that many on this list would disagree with, perhaps
be offended by. And I most definitely would not want my activity in
some other unrelated politically-incorrect realm to be used as grounds
for kicking me out of PHP. I would not want a repeat of Brendan Eich
here, to cite a recent example.
At the same time, though, if someone is being maliciously hostile what
great cover! A private email is not a PHP-Group managed resource, so no
rules! Twitter, ha, no rules! Reddit? LOL like they enforce
anything. If someone wanted to send a death threat to another developer
about PHP business, I would hope that, as a developer, they are at least
smart enough then to do so using a chat program that is "out of scope"
so that they're untouchable. (If they tried to send someone a death
threat on list, we should ban them for stupidity. :-) )
That's why the scope needs to cover "involves PHP business, regardless
of medium" rather than "just on certain pieces of server
infrastructure". It's trivial to circumvent otherwise. Now, how do we
define "involves PHP business" in a way that, for example, forbids
someone from harassing a gay person about PHP business but doesn't
penalize someone for participating in an anti-gay-marriage protest in
their home town? That's the question we should be discussing: How that
balance works to minimize that risk, and avoid it being abused to Eich
someone. (Yes, I just used Eich's name as a verb.)
Yes, that means empowering certain people to make subjective decisions.
That is not, in and of itself, evil. Could it be abused? Yes it can.
But that is a problem *we already have*. Simply pushing it to "the
community" or "the list" doesn't make it not subjective, nor does it
really make it democratic. It means that it's subjectively determined
by whichever people happen to be bored at work today and are reading the
list and decide to throw their 2 cents at the bikeshed. I would much
prefer a known, trusted group's subjectivity over that sort of random
subjectivity, as a potential accused.
Possible mitigation for that subjectivity: A clear expectation that
members of the CRT get some training in mediation, conflict resolution,
and dealing with CoCs. Such training does exist, and would probably be
good for them to get. Thoughts?
In short (because I know this email is crazy long): I agree with the
concept behind many of the concerns raised about a CoC. They're
legitimate and the risk of abuse is real. Unfortunately, the "therefore
do nothing!" or "make it so weak as to be useless" position does not do
anything to mitigate those risks. If anything, it encourages further
extreme responses and hyperbolic statements, which makes resolving those
issues *less* likely, not more. And the extreme hyperbolic behavior
accomplishes little but making an already tense conversation more toxic
and less able to resolve these concerns. Unless poisoning the
discussion so that it can go nowhere is the goal (a strategy I expect
would backfire badly), that approach does little but injure the
speaker's reputation and respect.
Let's all focus on maximizing the benefit and minimizing the risk.
Pretending that the status quo is oh-so-wonderful accomplishes neither goal.
--Larry Garfield
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