Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Ethan Furman]

On 09/21/2018 07:51 AM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:

Le 21/09/2018 à 14:45, Paul Moore a écrit :



It's not likely to be a practical option on a mailing list, but in
primary school (which the whole conversation felt like) a likely
response would have been to put *everyone* involved in a time-out for
a period of cooling off, to think about how their behaviour was
unacceptable. Think for example of a group of kids taunting each other
until one of them snaps and hits someone.


With a forum system, the thread would just have been locked.


It is certainly not as convenient, but with the current system we can 
set a spam filter on subject lines and stop threads that way.  It is 
still a pretty rough tool (whole thread, not sub-thread) and a bit 
awkward to use, but doable.


Of course, we still have the problem of speed -- some threads blow up in 
a matter of hours.


--
~Ethan~
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Terry Reedy]

On 9/21/2018 6:55 AM, Christian Heimes wrote:


I don't understand why you are drawing the reverse conclusion here. Can
you give me one concrete example, in which a French, German, or any
other non-US American taboo was violated and not counteracted with swift
reaction?


Are you talking about someone posting a non-American 'taboo' word in the 
native language or an English translation thereof?

___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Carol Willing]

> On Sep 21, 2018, at 10:51 AM, Antoine Pitrou  wrote:
> 
> 
> Le 21/09/2018 à 14:45, Paul Moore a écrit :
>> 
>> It's not likely to be a practical option on a mailing list, but in
>> primary school (which the whole conversation felt like) a likely
>> response would have been to put *everyone* involved in a time-out for
>> a period of cooling off, to think about how their behaviour was
>> unacceptable. Think for example of a group of kids taunting each other
>> until one of them snaps and hits someone.
> 
> With a forum system, the thread would just have been locked.
> 
> However, you may not physically lock a mailing-list thread, but you can
> post a moderator's announcement asking everyone to stop posting to that
> thread, and warning that failing to comply would get the offender e.g. a
> 7-day ban (regardless of the contents of their post).
> 

This seems like a very reasonable stop gap until we have better moderation 
tools. 

> Regards
> 
> Antoine.
> ___
> python-committers mailing list
> python-committers@python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
> Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 21/09/2018 à 14:45, Paul Moore a écrit :
> 
> It's not likely to be a practical option on a mailing list, but in
> primary school (which the whole conversation felt like) a likely
> response would have been to put *everyone* involved in a time-out for
> a period of cooling off, to think about how their behaviour was
> unacceptable. Think for example of a group of kids taunting each other
> until one of them snaps and hits someone.

With a forum system, the thread would just have been locked.

However, you may not physically lock a mailing-list thread, but you can
post a moderator's announcement asking everyone to stop posting to that
thread, and warning that failing to comply would get the offender e.g. a
7-day ban (regardless of the contents of their post).

Regards

Antoine.
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fwd: [Python-ideas] JS’ governance model is worth inspecting

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 21/09/2018 à 16:35, Guido van Rossum a écrit :
> Perhaps worth including in PEP 8002, the overview of other governance
> models? (Though the process described here seems to be JS's equivalent
> of our PEP process -- it doesn't say anything about how TC39 gets formed
> or how non-technical decisions are handled.)

Right, I think further research (and/or a contact with the right persons
to answer our questions) may be necessary before including it in the survey.

I don't have much time myself, unfortunately (I didn't even get a chance
to entirely read the other contributions to the PEP :-/).

Regards

Antoine.


> 
> -- Forwarded message -
> From: *James Lu* mailto:jam...@gmail.com>>
> Date: Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 4:25 AM
> Subject: [Python-ideas] JS’ governance model is worth inspecting
> To: mailto:python-id...@python.org>>
> 
> 
> JS’ decisions are made by a body known as TC39, a fairly/very small
> group of JS implementers.
> 
> First, JS has an easy and widely supported way to modify the language
> for yourself: Babel. Babel transpires your JS to older JS, which is then
> run.
> 
> You can publish your language modification on the JS package manager, npm.
> 
> When a feature is being considered for inclusion in mainline JS, the
> proposal must first gain a champion (represented by )that is a member
> of TC-39. The guidelines say that the proposal’s features should already
> have found use in the community. Then it moves through three stages, and
> the champion must think the proposal is ready for the next stage before
> it can move on. I’m hazy on what the criterion for each of the three
> stages is. The fourth stage is approved.
> 
> I believe the global TC39 committee meets regularly in person, and at
> those meetings, proposals can advance stages- these meetings are
> frequent enough for the process to be fast and slow enough that people
> can have the time to try out a feature before it becomes main line JS.
> Meeting notes are made public.
> 
> The language and its future features are discussed on ESDiscuss.org,
> which is surprisingly filled with quality and respectful discussion,
> largely from experts in the JavaScript language.
> 
> I’m fairly hazy on the details, this is just the summary off the top of
> my head.
> 
> —
> I’m not saying this should be Python’s governance model, just to keep
> JS’ in mind.
> 
> 
> ___
> Python-ideas mailing list
> python-id...@python.org 
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
> 
> 
> -- 
> --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido )
> 
> 
> ___
> python-committers mailing list
> python-committers@python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
> Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
> 
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

[python-committers] Fwd: [Python-ideas] JS’ governance model is worth inspecting

[Guido van Rossum]

Perhaps worth including in PEP 8002, the overview of other governance
models? (Though the process described here seems to be JS's equivalent of
our PEP process -- it doesn't say anything about how TC39 gets formed or
how non-technical decisions are handled.)

-- Forwarded message -
From: James Lu 
Date: Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 4:25 AM
Subject: [Python-ideas] JS’ governance model is worth inspecting
To: 


JS’ decisions are made by a body known as TC39, a fairly/very small group
of JS implementers.

First, JS has an easy and widely supported way to modify the language for
yourself: Babel. Babel transpires your JS to older JS, which is then run.

You can publish your language modification on the JS package manager, npm.

When a feature is being considered for inclusion in mainline JS, the
proposal must first gain a champion (represented by )that is a member of
TC-39. The guidelines say that the proposal’s features should already have
found use in the community. Then it moves through three stages, and the
champion must think the proposal is ready for the next stage before it can
move on. I’m hazy on what the criterion for each of the three stages is.
The fourth stage is approved.

I believe the global TC39 committee meets regularly in person, and at those
meetings, proposals can advance stages- these meetings are frequent enough
for the process to be fast and slow enough that people can have the time to
try out a feature before it becomes main line JS. Meeting notes are made
public.

The language and its future features are discussed on ESDiscuss.org, which
is surprisingly filled with quality and respectful discussion, largely from
experts in the JavaScript language.

I’m fairly hazy on the details, this is just the summary off the top of my
head.

—
I’m not saying this should be Python’s governance model, just to keep JS’
in mind.


___
Python-ideas mailing list
python-id...@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/


-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Donald Stufft]

> On Sep 21, 2018, at 8:59 AM, Paul Moore  wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 13:30, Donald Stufft  wrote:
>> So part of being and open and welcoming community, is knowing and 
>> understanding that words, images, etc like that can make people feel like 
>> we’re either a group that will directly engage in those attacks that have 
>> been associated with them in the past, or at least won’t come to their aid 
>> if someone does initiate those kinds of attack.
> 
> I'm going to take this one comment and respond to it out of context.
> But generally, I agree with everything you said.
> 
> My biggest concern is that we're starting to build a community where
> people feel exposed to attack for "CoC violation" accusations over
> simple misunderstandings, or careless wordings. Or, for that matter,
> using terminology that they weren't aware was unacceptable. Not "being
> called out (by the offended party), apologising and moving on", but
> going straight to policy complaints by people (maybe even people not
> directly upset) assuming offense could be claimed. That's clearly
> nothing like the sort of problems people with real reason for
> sensitivity have to live under, but nevertheless it's not a
> comfortable place for people to learn how to interact.
> 
> Balance, forgiveness, and a mature level of empathy are what's
> *really* needed ("among the things that are needed...":-)). Not
> policies. Policies should be weapons of last resort.
> 
> Paul

So I don’t think that being called out by the aggrieved party is the right 
response generally for these sorts of things. I mean, ultimately it depends on 
the specific instance, but often times having the person who is feeling 
attacked call out the other person, what’s going to happen is that person is 
going to feel compelled to respond back in kind and “defend” themselves. Having 
a neutral third party there to mediate and calm the situation down is immensely 
helpful.

I mean, if you personally did something that made me feel uncomfortable, I’d 
probably personally handle it, because we have a  rapport already, but if 
someone else did there’s a chance I wouldn’t (either because there might be 
history there where a specific instance finally spilled over, or because I’m 
angry/hurt/whatever and I don’t trust myself to respond).

This also falls into the feeling exposed to attack bit. Generally what the CoC 
does should be private, though it’s tough to balance that out with being 
transparent too. For instance, we don’t really want to turn CoC enforcement 
into it’s own sort of shame. If you were to report me, ideally the way it would 
play out is some member of the moderation team / CoC team / whatever would 
privately contact me, and tell me to knock it off or whatever. Generally other 
people shouldn’t know (unless one of the two sides of the issues chooses to 
divulge it) that it happened (although it’s good to publish anonymized reports 
too). There should not be some sort of record that the dastardly Paul said 
something bad once and had to get reprimanded.

Where it gets harder is when more drastic measures are to be taken. If someone 
gets banned for a day in a sort of timeout, should that be public? Probably not 
since we want them to come back and ideally be positive contributors from that 
point out, and feeling like they’ve been put up on display is probably not 
conducive towards that, and being gone for a day is not likely to be something 
where other people notice the absence and start to question it. What about a 
week? A month? Permanent?

Personally I think that publicizing that a particular person had some action 
taken against them is probably the wrong path to take in all severity levels, 
and that the CoC team should probably publish some sort of anonymized reports. 
These reports basically serve to show people who are worried about feeling 
safe/welcome in the community, that if they have a problem they’re likely to be 
heard and helped, without putting particular people “on blast”.

Unfortunately our tooling and process isn’t really “here” yet, for instance in 
the specific case we’re talking about, if that person was jsut silently banned 
than it can feel a bit kafkaesque and since the record of his statement is 
permanent and can’t be hidden or something, people looking in from the outside 
don’t know that it wasn’t acceptable since they don’t see any action to have 
taken place. The ideal situation is probably that the original post ends up 
edited, marked,  or hidden in some fashion (but doesn’t just disappear) to say 
that it was inappropriate in some way (think what GitHub does here with hidden 
posts) but that doesn’t otherwise create some sort of notification. 

I however, think policies are great! Particularly in a diverse community where 
the cultural norms may vary widely amongst all of the participants. It helps 
document what the community expects from people, tells you what the process to 
take is for remediation of a bad 

Re: [python-committers] 3.7.1 and 3.6.7 Releases Coming Soon

[Ned Deily]

On Sep 21, 2018, at 05:37, Christian Heimes  wrote:
> On 19/09/2018 23.12, Ned Deily wrote:
>> Update: not surprisingly, there have been a number of issues that have 
>> popped up during and since the sprint that we would like to ensure are 
>> addressed in 3.7.1 and 3.6.7.  In order to do so, I've been holding off on 
>> starting the releases. I think we are now getting close to having the 
>> important ones resolved so I'm going to plan on cutting off code for 
>> 3.7.1rc1 and 3.6.7rc1 by the end of 2018-09-20 (23:59 AoE).  That's roughly 
>> 38 hours from now.
> I'm really sorry, but would it be possible to delay the RCs until Sunday
> or Monday AoE?
> 
> Some of the XML security fixes, OpenSSL 1.1.1 fixes (TLS 1.3
> post-handshake authentication), and SSL module regression haven't landed
> yet. I'm confident that I can land most to all fixes during the weekend.
> 
> Related PRs are:
> 
> * https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9468
> * https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9460
> * https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9217
> * https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9265
> 
> I'm also still collaborating with Sebastian Pipping (libexpat
> maintainer) on the DoS mitigations (CVE-2013-0340). My initial patch had
> some flaws. I might be able to get expat release 2.3.0 in time, too.
> 
> https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/pull/220

I agree that it would be good to get the security-related and OpenSSL-related 
fixes in sooner than later and there has been a lot going on recently.  Since 
you have asked so nicely, I have rescheduled the cutoffs for 3.7.1rc1 and 
3.6.7rc1 to be by the end of 2018-09-24 (23:59 AoE) and the final releases now 
on 2018-10-04.

Everyone else: here are a few more days to get important things in to these 
releases.

--
  Ned Deily
  n...@python.org -- []

___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Paul Moore]

On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 13:30, Donald Stufft  wrote:
> So part of being and open and welcoming community, is knowing and 
> understanding that words, images, etc like that can make people feel like 
> we’re either a group that will directly engage in those attacks that have 
> been associated with them in the past, or at least won’t come to their aid if 
> someone does initiate those kinds of attack.

I'm going to take this one comment and respond to it out of context.
But generally, I agree with everything you said.

My biggest concern is that we're starting to build a community where
people feel exposed to attack for "CoC violation" accusations over
simple misunderstandings, or careless wordings. Or, for that matter,
using terminology that they weren't aware was unacceptable. Not "being
called out (by the offended party), apologising and moving on", but
going straight to policy complaints by people (maybe even people not
directly upset) assuming offense could be claimed. That's clearly
nothing like the sort of problems people with real reason for
sensitivity have to live under, but nevertheless it's not a
comfortable place for people to learn how to interact.

Balance, forgiveness, and a mature level of empathy are what's
*really* needed ("among the things that are needed...":-)). Not
policies. Policies should be weapons of last resort.

Paul
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Alexander Belopolsky]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 7:07 AM Antoine Pitrou  wrote:

>
> I don't know of specifically French linguistic taboos, so I'm unable to
> answer this.  French culture generally doesn't ban words wholesale, even
> when used in quotes.  The very idea that you can't *quote* something
> despicable is foreign here.
>

Russian has a handful of taboo word and a long tradition of censoring them,
but most of such words have no English equivalent, so you won't see them in
this forum.

BTW, the "n-word" exists in Russian and is not a taboo, so like Antoine I
have to trust the moderators on the graveness of the offense of spelling it
out.  Still, this whole discussion reminds me an old Russian joke: "A
lesson in a kindergarten: ... and now, children, let's recite the words
that you should never use."
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Paul Moore]

On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 13:26, Carol Willing  wrote:
> Context is important. I wonder though if the author's intent was constructive 
> comment...

I'm sure it wasn't. But in context, it was a statement made in a
thread that had long previously become nothing more than
non-constructive invective. Calling one person out (even though his
comments were significantly more extreme than others') strikes me as
looking for a culprit, rather than addressing the situation.

It's not likely to be a practical option on a mailing list, but in
primary school (which the whole conversation felt like) a likely
response would have been to put *everyone* involved in a time-out for
a period of cooling off, to think about how their behaviour was
unacceptable. Think for example of a group of kids taunting each other
until one of them snaps and hits someone.

Paul
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Donald Stufft]

> On Sep 21, 2018, at 8:01 AM, Paul Moore  wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 12:38, Carol Willing  wrote:
> 
>> Much of the discussion here has focused on the use of a few words.
>> 
>> IMHO, discussing violence, assault, and implying that its okay to accept and 
>> trivialize this violence do not belong in posts about the Python language.
>> 
>> From the original post:
>> 
>> Being triggered by a word this simple is not exactly a
>> sign of mental stability. I know a girl who's been raped more than she can
>> count - but the word doesn't trigger her like this(only makes her want to
>> beat up rapists). If people can do that, then surely a playground insult
>> wont reduce you to tears, right ?
> 
> I agree - *but* there's a whole lot more I wish I could say, about
> context, and looking at how the conversation reached that point.
> 
> But I won't, because frankly I'm scared to do so. I don't trust myself
> to explain my feelings without doing so in a way that people find
> offensive, and suffering a backlash that I didn't intend to trigger,
> and which won't help the discussion.
> 
> I'm not sure that "I'm too scared to participate in this discussion"
> is where we want to be, though…

I think that this is being framed somewhat poorly. The idea that the problem is 
that someone might be “offended” is I think the wrong take away. People can 
choose all manner of things to be offended by and just because someone might 
take offense to a statement, doesn’t mean that the statement is inherently 
something that cannot be uttered here. For instance, someone might take offense 
if you say that you think it’s easier to write clean code in Python than 
Brainfuck (or perhaps that pip is the best or worst package installer ;) ), but 
that doesn’t mean that you can’t express that opinion.

What I think the real problem is, things that attack people, particularly for 
some inherent thing they are or something that has happened to them outside of 
their control or the like. 

Sometimes that can come across as “well someone might take offense to the use 
of this word”, and it’s important I think to remember why that word has that 
particular connotation. If you spent a lifetime having someone shout “Python!” 
and then a bucket of cold water dumped on you, you would likely start to get a 
bit afraid anytime you heard someone say “Python”, when you’d look for that 
next bucket.

That’s a really silly example, but there are groups of people who *to this day* 
are attacked in one form of another simply for who they are, and there are a 
lot of things associated with those attacks, be it words, or images, or what 
have you, and the mere use of those words, images, or whatever can make those 
groups of people feel like the space they’re in is one that is likely to attack 
them too. That’s not just about the specific word used in the original post, 
but also things like making joke of assault and similar as well. It’s 
particularly troublesome in a society that doesn’t entirely believe that those 
things are wrong.

So part of being and open and welcoming community, is knowing and understanding 
that words, images, etc like that can make people feel like we’re either a 
group that will directly engage in those attacks that have been associated with 
them in the past, or at least won’t come to their aid if someone does initiate 
those kinds of attack.

This is a bit different than say the use of Master/slave. Those words might 
make some people feel uncomfortable for sure, but they don’t have the same 
connotations. Because they make people feel uncomfortable, it’s generally a 
good idea to avoid using them (particularly when there are better, more 
descriptive terms available) but that you’re not going to be cast out into the 
wilderness if you happened to use them.

Overall, I think people are generally reasonable, and if you say something 
“bad”, but you weren’t aware or didn’t mean it that way, people generally 
accept an apology and then will move on [1]. They might be a bit less unsure of 
you after that, but if you don’t continue to repeat it, then most people will 
forget about it and look at it as an isolated incidence. Obviously if you keep 
doing it, and apologizing each time, at some point people are going to just 
assume the apology isn’t in earnest.


[1] I know this, because I’ve done it. I grew up in let’s say, a very rural 
setting, and I had expressions that were disparaging to groups of people, that 
I didn’t really intend to be, it was just something I had always said because 
it was a common idiom where I grew up. I got called out on it, apologized, and 
everyone went on their way.



___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Carol Willing]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Fear of speaking or fear of reading - both are not ideal. The balance of
respectful discourse likely falls somewhere between the two.

Context is important. I wonder though if the author's intent was
constructive comment...

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018, 8:01 AM Paul Moore  wrote:

> On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 12:38, Carol Willing  wrote:
>
> > Much of the discussion here has focused on the use of a few words.
> >
> > IMHO, discussing violence, assault, and implying that its okay to accept
> and trivialize this violence do not belong in posts about the Python
> language.
> >
> > From the original post:
> >
> > Being triggered by a word this simple is not exactly a
> > sign of mental stability. I know a girl who's been raped more than she
> can
> > count - but the word doesn't trigger her like this(only makes her want to
> > beat up rapists). If people can do that, then surely a playground insult
> > wont reduce you to tears, right ?
>
> I agree - *but* there's a whole lot more I wish I could say, about
> context, and looking at how the conversation reached that point.
>
> But I won't, because frankly I'm scared to do so. I don't trust myself
> to explain my feelings without doing so in a way that people find
> offensive, and suffering a backlash that I didn't intend to trigger,
> and which won't help the discussion.
>
> I'm not sure that "I'm too scared to participate in this discussion"
> is where we want to be, though...
> Paul
>
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Paul Moore]

On Fri, 21 Sep 2018 at 12:38, Carol Willing  wrote:

> Much of the discussion here has focused on the use of a few words.
>
> IMHO, discussing violence, assault, and implying that its okay to accept and 
> trivialize this violence do not belong in posts about the Python language.
>
> From the original post:
>
> Being triggered by a word this simple is not exactly a
> sign of mental stability. I know a girl who's been raped more than she can
> count - but the word doesn't trigger her like this(only makes her want to
> beat up rapists). If people can do that, then surely a playground insult
> wont reduce you to tears, right ?

I agree - *but* there's a whole lot more I wish I could say, about
context, and looking at how the conversation reached that point.

But I won't, because frankly I'm scared to do so. I don't trust myself
to explain my feelings without doing so in a way that people find
offensive, and suffering a backlash that I didn't intend to trigger,
and which won't help the discussion.

I'm not sure that "I'm too scared to participate in this discussion"
is where we want to be, though...
Paul
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Paul Moore]

On Thu, 20 Sep 2018 at 21:37, Antoine Pitrou  wrote:
>
>
> Apparently it's this one:
> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2018-September/053482.html
>
> By the way, regardless of this single case, I would like people to think
> of the broader issue we're having.  It's more than a single contentious
> decision.

Before I say anything else, I want to point out that (a) I'm not
objecting to the ban, or the process that took place to impose it, and
(b) I'm extremely appreciative of the work our moderators put into
trying to police things in an increasingly difficult environment. So
please take anything I say in that context - as perspective from
someone who is concerned about the direction that certain of our
groups are taking, but understands that it's not an easy problem to
solve.

But in the interest of looking at the broader issue (which I agree
with Antoine is something we should be concerned about)...

I understand that the taboo in question is a strong one in American
culture, and as such violating that is inconsiderate and insensitive.
Doing so deliberately is both unacceptable, and a cheap form of debate
(if giving offense is the only way you have to make your point, maybe
your point's not good enough?) But it is still very much one culture's
position, and American sensibilities often seem to be very clear and
present in a lot of the debates we see that "get out of hand" in one
way or another. I'm British (and my age may also be relevant - I grew
up in the 1960s and 70s), and from my perspective, it feels like a lot
of people are over-sensitive, and very quick to perceive offense - to
the extent that entirely natural (to many British people) and accepted
tones, like sarcasm and irony, are almost impossible to express
without having to completely obscure meaning by adding clarifications
and explanations.

I'll also comment on the point made here, can anyone point to a
non-American taboo that has been violated and hasn't been dealt with
the same way? Not really, but in my case that's because I don't think
the British *have* strong taboos like that (and Antoine indicates that
the same is true of the French). The only thing I can think of is
religious taboos, such as Muslim concerns about taking the name of the
Prophet in vain, but I don't think I've ever seen that sort of
violation (and I would expect that to be dealt with just as swiftly).
Personally, as a Catholic, arguing religious taboos on a list about a
language based on Monty Python feels ironic anyway - but for the
record, please don't ban references to the Spanish Inquisition or the
Holy Grail on my account :-)

Openness needs to be a two way street, in my view. Certainly people
from cultures that have a more "robust" (shall we say) natural form of
expression need to be aware that other cultures and people may not be
able to deal with that - but conversely, people from cultures with a
strong sense of certain words and expressions being unacceptable need
to be open to the fact that others don't have that sense, and expect
thicker skins in debate. That's not how I see the Python community
going at the moment - rather we're moving towards a "lowest common
denominator" approach, where *everyone* needs to skirt around all
possible forms of offense, and the person claiming to be offended is
in effect always in the right. That, to me, is taking the easy option,
and I think that the Python community should aspire to do something
better than that, even if it's hard.

The internet in general is a hugely beneficial technology, allowing us
to interact with people in radically different cultures and situations
than we were ever able to in the past. That's a massive step forward
for humanity as a whole in understanding each other - and we shouldn't
undermine it by putting up barriers to communication in the form of
preventing people from making (and learning from) dumb social
mistakes.

As things stand, everyone is living in fear of giving offense. As an
example, some time ago, I was participating in a discussion where some
participant made a comment that I thought was a bit out of line with
the list's policy,. It didn't bother me, personally, at all (as I say,
I'm British :-)) but rather than let it lie, I felt that I should
mention this, rather than leave it to someone else. However, what
ended up happening was that I got a lot of criticism for "taking
offense unnecessarily". (I don't have a link, and I don't want to
provide one - it's an example, not something I feel the need to
analyze further). So rather than *helping*, I ended up being the bad
guy simply from trying to channel other people's views and getting it
wrong. And I ended up with a strong sense that everyone viewed me as
the sort of over-sensitive complainer that I try very, very hard not
to be.

When I write mails for the lists, it's an exhausting process. The
technical content is easy, but policing my own tone against an
increasingly complex and restrictive set of standards that 

Re: [python-committers] CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Carol Willing]

> On Sep 21, 2018, at 7:07 AM, Antoine Pitrou  wrote:
> 
> 
> Le 21/09/2018 à 12:55, Christian Heimes a écrit :
>> On 21/09/2018 12.46, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>> 
>>> Le 21/09/2018 à 02:06, Nathaniel Smith a écrit :
 Now sure, that taboo is an American thing, and I wouldn't support
 automatically banning someone who used it in genuine ignorance, was
 repentant when they realized what they'd done, etc.
>>> 
>>> So why are American taboos specifically forbidden, and not other taboos?
>>> Is there anything special about Americans that deserves this?  Does it
>>> mean that Python is a community for Americans foremost, and others are
>>> just second-class participants?  The more this is going on, the more it
>>> is the impression I get, and things have become distinctly *worse* recently.
>> 
>> I don't understand why you are drawing the reverse conclusion here. Can
>> you give me one concrete example, in which a French, German, or any
>> other non-US American taboo was violated and not counteracted with swift
>> reaction?
> 
> I don't know of specifically French linguistic taboos, so I'm unable to
> answer this.  French culture generally doesn't ban words wholesale, even
> when used in quotes.  The very idea that you can't *quote* something
> despicable is foreign here.
> 
> But, were it to exist, I have a hard time imagining it would face
> immediate permanent banning on python-XXX.  And I would be against such
> immediate permanent banning, because that's inappropriately strong and
> definitive.
> 

Much of the discussion here has focused on the use of a few words.

IMHO, discussing violence, assault, and implying that its okay to accept and 
trivialize this violence do not belong in posts about the Python language.

From the original post:

Being triggered by a word this simple is not exactly a
sign of mental stability. I know a girl who's been raped more than she can
count - but the word doesn't trigger her like this(only makes her want to
beat up rapists). If people can do that, then surely a playground insult
wont reduce you to tears, right ?






> Regards
> 
> Antoine.
> ___
> python-committers mailing list
> python-committers@python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
> Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 21/09/2018 à 13:06, Christian Heimes a écrit :
> 
> In my opinion it's both wrong and unfair to compare the ban with
> Anatoly's ban. For one we didn't have a process and general consent for
> bans.

AFAIK we still don't.  I don't know where such a procedure is written
out, and I don't remember my opinion being asked or considered on the
matter.  I certainly don't remember consenting to immediate permanent
bans as a response to use of culture-specific taboos (rather than actual
insults or racist discourse).

As it is, the current "process" is vague and privately decided.  That's
not an acceptable standard on a mature project.

>
 It took us a while to agree on the procedure. Also Anatoly wasn't
> flat out hostile and insulting. He was mentally draining and exhausting
> on a more subtle level.

Yeah... no, not so subtle.  You're painting things in a rosy colour
here.  He had been a problem for months or years.  It was obvious
something had to be done.  But apparently the "key people" were
reluctant to take a decision, even though there was frequent outrage at
Anatoly's contributions.  Now we're facing the inverse problem: the "key
people" feel like they have to take overhanded decisions extremely
quickly, as if it was going to make the atmosphere more peaceful (which,
by construction, it won't).

> Participation on these mailing lists is a
> privilege, not a right. We grant the privilege to everybody, but also
> reserve the right to remove the privilege.

"Privilege" is a weird way to describe volunteer labour.

Regards

Antoine.
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 21/09/2018 à 12:55, Christian Heimes a écrit :
> On 21/09/2018 12.46, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>
>> Le 21/09/2018 à 02:06, Nathaniel Smith a écrit :
>>> Now sure, that taboo is an American thing, and I wouldn't support
>>> automatically banning someone who used it in genuine ignorance, was
>>> repentant when they realized what they'd done, etc.
>>
>> So why are American taboos specifically forbidden, and not other taboos?
>>  Is there anything special about Americans that deserves this?  Does it
>> mean that Python is a community for Americans foremost, and others are
>> just second-class participants?  The more this is going on, the more it
>> is the impression I get, and things have become distinctly *worse* recently.
> 
> I don't understand why you are drawing the reverse conclusion here. Can
> you give me one concrete example, in which a French, German, or any
> other non-US American taboo was violated and not counteracted with swift
> reaction?

I don't know of specifically French linguistic taboos, so I'm unable to
answer this.  French culture generally doesn't ban words wholesale, even
when used in quotes.  The very idea that you can't *quote* something
despicable is foreign here.

But, were it to exist, I have a hard time imagining it would face
immediate permanent banning on python-XXX.  And I would be against such
immediate permanent banning, because that's inappropriately strong and
definitive.

Regards

Antoine.
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Christian Heimes]

On 20/09/2018 22.25, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm choosing to forward this to python-committers because I don't think
> python-ideas is a reasonable place to discuss CoC decisions.
> 
> I think the action taken by Brett (apparently decided with Titus and a
> mysterious "conduct working group") is not the right one:
> 
> - a definitive ban is an extremely strong decision that should only be
> taken if nothing else works.  May I remind that Anatoly was able to post
> prolifically and unconstructively for several years, being warned
> several times, before being finally banned?  Comparatively, this one ban
> seems expeditive.

In my opinion it's both wrong and unfair to compare the ban with
Anatoly's ban. For one we didn't have a process and general consent for
bans. It took us a while to agree on the procedure. Also Anatoly wasn't
flat out hostile and insulting. He was mentally draining and exhausting
on a more subtle level.

I'm all in favor to ban people from python-dev or python-ideas for
deliberate misuse and insults. Participation on these mailing lists is a
privilege, not a right. We grant the privilege to everybody, but also
reserve the right to remove the privilege.

Brett, Titus, I support your decision.

Christian
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Donald Stufft]

> On Sep 21, 2018, at 6:55 AM, Christian Heimes  wrote:
> 
> I don't understand why you are drawing the reverse conclusion here. Can
> you give me one concrete example, in which a French, German, or any
> other non-US American taboo was violated and not counteracted with swift
> reaction?

Right, I would assume that if someone knowingly posted a similar post, but 
using say a French taboo, the same would have happened. The key thing is that 
the author obviously *knew* it was a taboo, it wasn’t an accident. If someone 
accidentally posted something like that, then I presume the outcome would be 
something more like a warning and telling them not to do it again— for any 
culture’s taboo.___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Christian Heimes]

On 21/09/2018 12.46, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> 
> Le 21/09/2018 à 02:06, Nathaniel Smith a écrit :
>> Now sure, that taboo is an American thing, and I wouldn't support
>> automatically banning someone who used it in genuine ignorance, was
>> repentant when they realized what they'd done, etc.
> 
> So why are American taboos specifically forbidden, and not other taboos?
>  Is there anything special about Americans that deserves this?  Does it
> mean that Python is a community for Americans foremost, and others are
> just second-class participants?  The more this is going on, the more it
> is the impression I get, and things have become distinctly *worse* recently.

I don't understand why you are drawing the reverse conclusion here. Can
you give me one concrete example, in which a French, German, or any
other non-US American taboo was violated and not counteracted with swift
reaction?
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] Fw: CoC violation (was: Retire or reword the "Beautiful is better than ugly" Zen clause)

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 21/09/2018 à 02:06, Nathaniel Smith a écrit :
> Now sure, that taboo is an American thing, and I wouldn't support
> automatically banning someone who used it in genuine ignorance, was
> repentant when they realized what they'd done, etc.

So why are American taboos specifically forbidden, and not other taboos?
 Is there anything special about Americans that deserves this?  Does it
mean that Python is a community for Americans foremost, and others are
just second-class participants?  The more this is going on, the more it
is the impression I get, and things have become distinctly *worse* recently.

Regards

Antoine.
___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Re: [python-committers] 3.7.1 and 3.6.7 Releases Coming Soon

[Christian Heimes]

On 19/09/2018 23.12, Ned Deily wrote:
> Update: not surprisingly, there have been a number of issues that have popped 
> up during and since the sprint that we would like to ensure are addressed in 
> 3.7.1 and 3.6.7.  In order to do so, I've been holding off on starting the 
> releases. I think we are now getting close to having the important ones 
> resolved so I'm going to plan on cutting off code for 3.7.1rc1 and 3.6.7rc1 
> by the end of 2018-09-20 (23:59 AoE).  That's roughly 38 hours from now.
> 
> Thanks for all of your help in improving Python for everyone!

Hi Ned,

I'm really sorry, but would it be possible to delay the RCs until Sunday
or Monday AoE?

Some of the XML security fixes, OpenSSL 1.1.1 fixes (TLS 1.3
post-handshake authentication), and SSL module regression haven't landed
yet. I'm confident that I can land most to all fixes during the weekend.

Related PRs are:

* https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9468
* https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9460
* https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9217
* https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/9265

I'm also still collaborating with Sebastian Pipping (libexpat
maintainer) on the DoS mitigations (CVE-2013-0340). My initial patch had
some flaws. I might be able to get expat release 2.3.0 in time, too.

https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/pull/220

Christian

___
python-committers mailing list
python-committers@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-committers
Code of Conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/