Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Graham Percival]

On Sat, Feb 08, 2020 at 11:41:11PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> Graham Percival  writes:
> > Within 2-3 weeks, I had squandered all of the good feelings and energy
> > sparked from that meeting.  I view that as my worst blunder from all
> > my years of involvement with LilyPond.
> 
> Hey, I had chalked this up to my slate.

Oh my goodness, I sincerely hope not!  I've always had very high
regard for your programming ability and diligence, and I can't
recall taking offense at any "harsh truths" that you threw my way.
(I was sometimes disappointed that they *were* true, but I never
blamed the messenger!)

No, there were a lot of other things happening in my life at the
end of 2012:

- I had finished writing my PhD dissertation, and I always viewed
  "completing a degree" as a chance to take stock of my life.
  I started the grand documentation project in 2007, 1 year before
  finishing my Masters', with the explicit goal of training my
  replacements so that I could quit in good conscience.  That new
  project was an attempt at another big project as I left lilypond
  again.

- I knew that my first postdoc job was at a university which had
  the "charming" idea of laying claim to all the intellectual
  property that I created, so I would be legally unable to
  contribute to lilypond.  (At least, not able to contribute code.
  Given that my main contribution at the time was emails and
  organization, I could have completed a bit, but it might have
  been awkward.)

- I knew that my publication record was not stellar, and no amount
  of time spent on lilypond would lead to a publication (of the
  type that mattered in my branch of academia, i.e. a "tier 1"
  IEEE or ACM journal).

- it had been almost ten years since I'd actually composed any
  music, so I was increasingly wondering why I was spending 10-15
  hours a week on LilyPond.

> In retrospect, I saw LilyPond in need to grow roots and you saw
> it in need to grow wings.

Yeah, that was another big mistake on my part.  In almost every
other instance of "hopeful wings" from 2009 to 2012, I'd argued in
favour of stability and keeping things moving (albeit slowly),
instead of taking risks.

> You've clearly been the much better organiser and motivator: the people
> who still keep the "shop running" are doing so in processes originally
> set up by you and given meaning by you.

Yes -- that's the "stability" part that I'm good at.

> And I am basically drawing blanks when thinking about how to
> make people pick up the slack when someone ultimately leaves.

My dream was always to have a "volunteer funnel".  For
non-programmers, find people willing to reliably do small tasks,
such as LSR, bug reports, translations, and documentation edits.
Then, after a few months of that, encourage them to move on to
more complicated tasks.

The tricky thing is:
- you need to expect at least 50% of people to flake out.  It's
  not because they're bad people, it's not because the lilypond
  community are bad people... that's just the nature of volunteer
  organizations.  I see it offline, too.  People understimate
  the difficulty of tasks, overestimate their time & energy, and
  underestimate the possibilty of other demands on their time
  (jobs, families, hobbies, etc).
- so the person organizing the volunteers (or ideally, the
  volunteers in a specific area such as bugs) needs to constantly
  be recruiting.  Well, not necessarily *constantly*, but if you
  ever think "ok, we've got all 7 days of bug reporters handled so
  I can relax", that's a danger sign.  If they're working well,
  then encourage 1 or 2 to move to a different task, and recruit
  new volunteers to fill the gaps.
- equally important, the "volunteer wrangler" needs to be
  emotionally prepared to see a lot of effort walk out the door
  when volunteers realize that they can't continue.

> I still think we should have been able to make this work better between
> us but have no idea how.

No, there was no fault on your side.  And to be fair to myself, it
wasn't really a "fault" on my side -- it was definitely time for
me to move on.  I should have handled it more gracefully (so yes,
I blame myself for that).  But there was nobody to blame for my
leaving the project; if anything, I should have left a year or two
earlier.  It was simply not a good fit with my life at the time.

Cheers,
- Graham

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Janek Warchoł]

Graham,

sob., 8 lut 2020 o 21:23 Graham Percival 
napisał(a):

> I don't have any reasons that haven't been mentioned already,
> other than one meta-reason: proposals like this are very divisive.
> Trying to have this discussion in the middle of a "final sprint
> towards 2.20" was unfortunate.
>

True. A big mistake on my part.

David,

sob., 8 lut 2020 o 23:41 David Kastrup  napisał(a):

> Graham Percival  writes:
> > I speak from experience on that last point: after the 2012
> > developer meeting at David's ranch (I think that was the year),
> > I was all fired up and started a round of divisive discussions
> > (I think it was the "grand lilypond input syntax standardization").
>
> GLISS was not a new project: it had been ongoing from before my
> involvement.  A bit of a problem was that it had been going on for a
> while without sensible feedback from those who had a good grasp of the
> existing parser/lexer implementation of the input language of LilyPond,
> and that input language had a lot of ad-hoc elements.
>
> > Within 2-3 weeks, I had squandered all of the good feelings and energy
> > sparked from that meeting.  I view that as my worst blunder from all
> > my years of involvement with LilyPond.
>
> Hey, I had chalked this up to my slate.  In retrospect, I saw LilyPond
> in need to grow roots and you saw it in need to grow wings.  And we were
> both excited about its new momentum.  You saw new potential but I am a
> lousy follower: I am unable to follow through with anything that I don't
> see as the best course.  Heck, I am not even good at following through
> with stuff I do see as the best course.
>
> You've clearly been the much better organiser and motivator: the people
> who still keep the "shop running" are doing so in processes originally
> set up by you and given meaning by you.  And I am basically drawing
> blanks when thinking about how to make people pick up the slack when
> someone ultimately leaves.
>
> I still think we should have been able to make this work better between
> us but have no idea how.  And that's bad because LilyPond needs to
> become better at making its community members count, and core
> programmers can only do so much of the heavy lifting even when they are
> all in agreement.
>

Thank you for these words, I find them inspiring!

Janek

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival  writes:

> On Sat, Feb 08, 2020 at 07:21:30PM +, Trevor wrote:
>> Phil Holmes wrote 08/02/2020 17:24:56
>> Subject: Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]
>> 
>> > - Original Message - From: "Karlin High" > > > However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe
>> > first. To me, their opposition registered as the strongest.
>> > I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.
>> > 
>> As do I. I'm quite sure we on this list are all perfectly capable of civil
>> and caring behaviour without having it spelled out in nanny-ish terms.
>
> I've stayed silent since I'm not a contributor any more, but if
> there's an "I'm sparticus" moment happening, then I will go on
> record as saying that I think the proposed CoC is a mistake.
>
> I don't have any reasons that haven't been mentioned already,
> other than one meta-reason: proposals like this are very divisive.
> Trying to have this discussion in the middle of a "final sprint
> towards 2.20" was unfortunate.
>
> I speak from experience on that last point: after the 2012
> developer meeting at David's ranch (I think that was the year),
> I was all fired up and started a round of divisive discussions
> (I think it was the "grand lilypond input syntax standardization").

GLISS was not a new project: it had been ongoing from before my
involvement.  A bit of a problem was that it had been going on for a
while without sensible feedback from those who had a good grasp of the
existing parser/lexer implementation of the input language of LilyPond,
and that input language had a lot of ad-hoc elements.

> Within 2-3 weeks, I had squandered all of the good feelings and energy
> sparked from that meeting.  I view that as my worst blunder from all
> my years of involvement with LilyPond.

Hey, I had chalked this up to my slate.  In retrospect, I saw LilyPond
in need to grow roots and you saw it in need to grow wings.  And we were
both excited about its new momentum.  You saw new potential but I am a
lousy follower: I am unable to follow through with anything that I don't
see as the best course.  Heck, I am not even good at following through
with stuff I do see as the best course.

You've clearly been the much better organiser and motivator: the people
who still keep the "shop running" are doing so in processes originally
set up by you and given meaning by you.  And I am basically drawing
blanks when thinking about how to make people pick up the slack when
someone ultimately leaves.

I still think we should have been able to make this work better between
us but have no idea how.  And that's bad because LilyPond needs to
become better at making its community members count, and core
programmers can only do so much of the heavy lifting even when they are
all in agreement.

-- 
David Kastrup
My replies have a tendency to cause friction.  To help mitigating
damage, feel free to forward problematic posts to me adding a subject
like "timeout 1d" (for a suggested timeout of 1 day) or "offensive".

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Graham Percival]

On Sat, Feb 08, 2020 at 07:21:30PM +, Trevor wrote:
> Phil Holmes wrote 08/02/2020 17:24:56
> Subject: Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]
> 
> > - Original Message - From: "Karlin High"  > > However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe first. To me, 
> > > their opposition registered as the strongest.
> > I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.
> > 
> As do I. I'm quite sure we on this list are all perfectly capable of civil
> and caring behaviour without having it spelled out in nanny-ish terms.

I've stayed silent since I'm not a contributor any more, but if
there's an "I'm sparticus" moment happening, then I will go on
record as saying that I think the proposed CoC is a mistake.

I don't have any reasons that haven't been mentioned already,
other than one meta-reason: proposals like this are very divisive.
Trying to have this discussion in the middle of a "final sprint
towards 2.20" was unfortunate.

I speak from experience on that last point: after the 2012
developer meeting at David's ranch (I think that was the year),
I was all fired up and started a round of divisive discussions
(I think it was the "grand lilypond input syntax standardization").
Within 2-3 weeks, I had squandered all of the good feelings and
energy sparked from that meeting.  I view that as my worst blunder
from all my years of involvement with LilyPond.

Cheers,
- Graham

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[David Kastrup]

Trevor  writes:

> Phil Holmes wrote 08/02/2020 17:24:56
> Subject: Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]
>
>>- Original Message - From: "Karlin High" >>However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe
>> first. To me, their opposition registered as the strongest.
>>I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.
>>
> As do I. I'm quite sure we on this list are all perfectly capable of
> civil and caring behaviour without having it spelled out in nanny-ish
> terms.

In my case it is more that spelling it out in nanny-ish and other terms
has been attempted plenty.  At some point of time one has to forego the
wishful thinking and move to mitigation strategies.

-- 
David Kastrup
My replies have a tendency to cause friction.  To help mitigating
damage, feel free to forward problematic posts to me adding a subject
like "timeout 1d" (for a suggested timeout of 1 day) or "offensive".

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[David Kastrup]

Karlin High  writes:

> On 2/8/2020 11:24 AM, Phil Holmes wrote:
>> I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.
>
> Clearly noted; thanks for responding. I have nothing further to say on
> this topic just now; it's pretty much all been covered in prior
> messages.
>
> I'm sorry if I got your name wrong. I know "Phil Holmes" and "James
> Lowe" are names associated with great service to the project in
> managing patches and builds, but I have trouble remembering who's who
> for them.

The mnemonic I go by is that the mail address pkx starts with p which
means that it is James.  Seriously: I suspect that as silly as it
sounds, that may be one of the larger hurdles for developing two
different mental images for people one only identifies by their names
and Email addresses.

-- 
David Kastrup
My replies have a tendency to cause friction.  To help mitigating
damage, feel free to forward problematic posts to me adding a subject
like "timeout 1d" (for a suggested timeout of 1 day) or "offensive".

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[David Kastrup]

pkx1...@posteo.net writes:

> Anyway to answer Karlin's request, I am probably the last person in
> the 'dev' team to worry about. Yes I seem to do a lot of 'work' but it
> *is* just 'janitorial' duties (which is a rather good way to explain
> it) and, assuming we do manage to get the automation suggestions in
> place then there will be no need of what I do, which will be much
> better for the project (I hope).

The manual comparison of visuals is still not going to do itself.  But
yes, it would be better if the procedures took care of more stuff that
computers can do similarly well to people, given the kind of exact
instructions computers need.

> Anyway, the point is that nothing I do here is as very significant
> compared to those developers that actually write 'code' (I am not
> looking for sympathy here, I am merely stating what I believe),

I hope you will not mind if I believe otherwise.  The whole "janitorial"
procedures have been designed to put grease to the wheels that, in the
form of developers responsible for the "actual" progress, can lean quite
to the squeeky side.  I perfectly well remember the tensions that arose
when we were working with a single master and all developers ground to a
halt for days on end because somebody committed something that had some
trivial oversight somewhere.  Or because weeks later someone complained
that his use case looked much worse than before.

Now it's easy to say "that's work that anyone can do" (though not
entirely correct, particularly given the rather inconspicuous manner in
which you substitute scripts that are falling apart with manual labour,
something one all too easily forgets), doing so reliably for years and
years on end makes it a fixture of stability.  That the sometimes heated
developer discussions are an antithesis of.

Or, more poetically, your work turns a scrapyard of tools into a home
one returns to.

> so my opinions about a CoC are, in the grand scheme of things, not
> going to affect the code base of LP (i.e. you won't be losing a useful
> developer so to speak), but I was more and more objecting to the
> seemingly selected deafness/blind-eye turning of some of the people
> commenting on this CoC thread as if it was all 'sweetness and
> light'. So without any real skin to loose in this game I spoke up.
>
> If we end up waiting for the automation stuff to be working and THEN
> implement the CoC (or this GNU Happy Place Pamhplet)

It's not really a set of rules, just a bunch of advice that has some
chance of working.  Basically it was Stallman's way of saying "we don't
need a Code of Conduct with its enforcement mechanisms if people try
giving others the benefit of doubt some more and take some care to avoid
escalation, and here are a few tips for that".  They won't help against
willful and/or unabating provocations: where they turn disruptive, one
will still have to think about what to do then.  It has happened, but we
got through.

> then it won't affect the project at all as my current duties will be
> voided (and again, that is fine). But if this CoC was, as it was
> seeming as of yesterday, a foregone conclusion (unlike the Automation)
> then I thought I better warn the dev team so they could at least plan
> for my absence.
>
> Maybe this will help focus minds on the automation?
>
> If so, then something positive would have come out of this CoC thread
> after all.

Frankly, the state of the automatation is pitiful, but we were also
partly laboring from a dearth of API documentation IIRC as well as a
lack of people versed in the respective programming
languages/systems/frameworks.

Lame excuses, I know.  At any rate, things on my plate tend to make me
panic, and you give more a steady vibe of clearing plates rather than
stacking things up.  Which may not necessarily always act to your
advantage, but quite to that of the project.

-- 
David Kastrup
My replies have a tendency to cause friction.  To help mitigating
damage, feel free to forward problematic posts to me adding a subject
like "timeout 1d" (for a suggested timeout of 1 day) or "offensive".

Re[2]: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Trevor]

Phil Holmes wrote 08/02/2020 17:24:56
Subject: Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]


- Original Message - From: "Karlin High" 
However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe first. To me, their 
opposition registered as the strongest.

I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.

As do I. I'm quite sure we on this list are all perfectly capable of 
civil and caring behaviour without having it spelled out in nanny-ish 
terms.


Trevor

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Karlin,

> In my opinion, positive things have indeed come out of these threads. They 
> may not be what any one person had in mind, but that's to be expected 
> whenever a community discusses something.

That’s exactly what I was going to say.  =)

Best,
Kieren.


Kieren MacMillan, composer (he/him/his)
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: i...@kierenmacmillan.info

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Karlin High]

On 2/8/2020 12:46 PM, pkx1...@posteo.net wrote:

then something positive would have come out of this CoC thread after all.


Thanks for your response; clearly noted.

Phil Holmes makes builds.

James Lowe manages issue and patch reviews.

Hopefully I can remember this.

In my opinion, positive things have indeed come out of these threads. 
They may not be what any one person had in mind, but that's to be 
expected whenever a community discusses something.

--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[pkx166h]

On 08/02/2020 17:50, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

GNU Kind Communication Guidelines


To-may-to, To-mah-to Werner.

Anyway to answer Karlin's request, I am probably the last person in the 
'dev' team to worry about. Yes I seem to do a lot of 'work' but it *is* 
just 'janitorial' duties (which is a rather good way to explain it) and, 
assuming we do manage to get the automation suggestions in place then 
there will be no need of what I do, which will be much better for the 
project (I hope).


Note however that there has never been anything stopping anyone else 
from fully testing patches (I occasionally offer this up when a dev 
complains that things are too slow for them in terms of patch review, or 
if they have a patch sat in the new queue waiting on 'someone' to test). 
Because of lost patches we had a second person (similar to me, a non-dev 
I think, called Colin) that kept track of these (again with useful 
helper scripts from Mark Hohl?).


(If I am mis-remembering names here I apologize)

Colin decided he could no longer commit to his 'LP duties anymore' and 
no one offered to step in, so I did - otherwise nothing would have got 
done it seemed and those existing devs at that time may have become more 
demoralised. So now here we are with me doing both roles and doing them 
manually (more or less) because we ran out of people to step in to do 
these things and the helper scripts stopped working when we moved from 
Google Code.


Anyway, the point is that nothing I do here is as very significant 
compared to those developers that actually write 'code' (I am not 
looking for sympathy here, I am merely stating what I believe), so my 
opinions about a CoC are, in the grand scheme of things, not going to 
affect the code base of LP (i.e. you won't be losing a useful developer 
so to speak), but I was more and more objecting to the seemingly 
selected deafness/blind-eye turning of some of the people commenting on 
this CoC thread as if it was all 'sweetness and light'. So without any 
real skin to loose in this game I spoke up.


If we end up waiting for the automation stuff to be working and THEN 
implement the CoC (or this GNU Happy Place Pamhplet) then it won't 
affect the project at all as my current duties will be voided (and 
again, that is fine). But if this CoC was, as it was seeming as of 
yesterday, a foregone conclusion (unlike the Automation) then I thought 
I better warn the dev team so they could at least plan for my absence.


Maybe this will help focus minds on the automation?

If so, then something positive would have come out of this CoC thread 
after all.


regards

James

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Urs Liska]

Am 8. Februar 2020 19:23:34 MEZ schrieb Karlin High :
>On 2/8/2020 11:24 AM, Phil Holmes wrote:
>> I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.
>
>Clearly noted; thanks for responding. I have nothing further to say on 
>this topic just now; it's pretty much all been covered in prior
>messages.
>
>I'm sorry if I got your name wrong. I know "Phil Holmes" and "James 
>Lowe" are names associated with great service to the project in
>managing 
>patches and builds, but I have trouble remembering who's who for them.

No, you remembered right, James voiced his opposition in even stronger, 
borderline inappropriate ä, words.

Urs

-- 
Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Gerät mit K-9 Mail gesendet.

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Karlin High]

On 2/8/2020 11:24 AM, Phil Holmes wrote:

I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.


Clearly noted; thanks for responding. I have nothing further to say on 
this topic just now; it's pretty much all been covered in prior messages.


I'm sorry if I got your name wrong. I know "Phil Holmes" and "James 
Lowe" are names associated with great service to the project in managing 
patches and builds, but I have trouble remembering who's who for them.

--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Phil Holmes]

- Original Message - 
From: "Werner LEMBERG" 

To: 
Cc: ; ; ; 
; 

Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2020 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]





However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe
first. To me, their opposition registered as the strongest.


I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.


Hmm.  What about simply using the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines,
maybe adding 'LilyPond' at some strategic places?


   Werner



I've not read them, so can't immediately comment.

FWIW I had substantial experience of managing commercial developments (1,500 
developers, over $200M annual budget).


Every now and then HR would tell us we needed things like this, and force us 
all onto training courses.  It just wasted time.  The best solution is 
always understanding and taking things easy.


--
Phil Holmes 

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Carl Sorensen]

On 2/8/20, 10:55 AM, "lilypond-devel on behalf of David Kastrup" 
 
wrote:

Werner LEMBERG  writes:

>>> However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe
>>> first. To me, their opposition registered as the strongest.
>> 
>> I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.
>
> Hmm.  What about simply using the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines,
> maybe adding 'LilyPond' at some strategic places?

"This page is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License."

Which is sort-of stupid given the character of a loose accumulation of
advice, but one could still put something around them stating how we
desire them to be applied to LilyPond's various media.

I think the Werner was asking a question of Phil, namely, would he be opposed 
to using the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines.

Thanks,

Carl
 

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[David Kastrup]

Werner LEMBERG  writes:

>>> However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe
>>> first. To me, their opposition registered as the strongest.
>> 
>> I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.
>
> Hmm.  What about simply using the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines,
> maybe adding 'LilyPond' at some strategic places?

"This page is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License."

Which is sort-of stupid given the character of a loose accumulation of
advice, but one could still put something around them stating how we
desire them to be applied to LilyPond's various media.

-- 
David Kastrup
My replies have a tendency to cause friction.  To help mitigating
damage, feel free to forward problematic posts to me adding a subject
like "timeout 1d" (for a suggested timeout of 1 day) or "offensive".

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe
>> first. To me, their opposition registered as the strongest.
> 
> I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.

Hmm.  What about simply using the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines,
maybe adding 'LilyPond' at some strategic places?


Werner

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Phil Holmes]

- Original Message - 
From: "Karlin High" 


However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe first. To 
me, their opposition registered as the strongest.



I remain strongly opposed to a CoC.

--
Phil Holmes

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Karlin High]

On 2/8/2020 9:17 AM, David Kastrup wrote:

I've proposed looking at the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines as
something that one can point to and aim to heed.
.  It has
certainly worthwhile advice.


Thanks for the link. I saw it earlier, wanted to read it later, and 
finally have. I agree with you that it's good advice.



I don't see that an approach focused on
providing a promise of punishment and removal will really work for the
predominant problem we are actually dealing with.


I agree, and think my intended proposal does not focus on providing 
punishment and removal.



I don't think it
makes sense to promise something that one does not aim to keep, or that
one knows by experience that one will not be able to keep in spite of
trying.  A blind person cannot sensibly promise they'll stop overturning
chairs.

I have no problem with getting told "this is not ok".  By anyone.  And
the less delay there is, the sooner I can try getting the overturned
chairs up again.  Routing things through a committee is not making this
easier.  Having a code that allows people to deduce that it is my
behavior that is out of line and tell me so, pointing out just where
that is the case, might help.  But the promise of penalties is something
that will achieve nothing but frustrating both the offended parties as
well as myself until either leaves.


Thanks for sharing. None of that seems like a basic conflict with the 
ideas I have.


In light of the 2 questions earlier, I'm registering this as responses of:

* Not opposed to all Codes of Conduct as a matter of principle, but 
deeply concerned about provisions for their enforcement.


* No proposal now, give the issue a rest

Corrections are desired if I am wrong in that.
--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[David Kastrup]

Karlin High  writes:

> I think the Code of Conduct discussion is reaching (or has reached)
> the point of exhaustion and is unlikely to be productive if continued 
> further in current directions. It seems there is pretty strong
> opposition to adopting the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct as 
> originally proposed.
>
> I'm thankful for the occasion to self-reflect on Lilypond's discussion
> environment. I've been thinking about this a lot. A point was made 
> earlier that the expectation of having Codes of Conduct in open-source
> communities is not going to go away. In that case, I think it would be 
> best to "fill the vacuum" and adopt something everyone finds
> acceptable. That, as opposed to having a sufficiently-influential
> outside party demand adoption of a Code the community doesn't want, as
> happened to the SQLite project.
>
> In the spirit of the recent "RFC" posts that explore different future
> directions, I think I could soon propose something for a Code of 
> Conduct. (It draws on some centuries-old traditions of community
> conflict resolution.)
>
> However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe first. To
> me, their opposition registered as the strongest.
>
> Question: Would this opposition apply to all Codes of Conduct as a
> matter of principle? Or just to the particular one that was proposed, 
> and you'd consider supporting a more-acceptable alternative?
>
> And, would you like to see an alternative proposal...

I've proposed looking at the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines as
something that one can point to and aim to heed.
.  It has
certainly worthwhile advice.  I don't see that an approach focused on
providing a promise of punishment and removal will really work for the
predominant problem we are actually dealing with.  I don't think it
makes sense to promise something that one does not aim to keep, or that
one knows by experience that one will not be able to keep in spite of
trying.  A blind person cannot sensibly promise they'll stop overturning
chairs.

I have no problem with getting told "this is not ok".  By anyone.  And
the less delay there is, the sooner I can try getting the overturned
chairs up again.  Routing things through a committee is not making this
easier.  Having a code that allows people to deduce that it is my
behavior that is out of line and tell me so, pointing out just where
that is the case, might help.  But the promise of penalties is something
that will achieve nothing but frustrating both the offended parties as
well as myself until either leaves.

-- 
David Kastrup
My replies have a tendency to cause friction.  To help mitigating
damage, feel free to forward problematic posts to me adding a subject
like "timeout 1d" (for a suggested timeout of 1 day) or "offensive".

Re: Add Code of Conduct [Another RFC or not now?]

[Karlin High]

I think the Code of Conduct discussion is reaching (or has reached) the 
point of exhaustion and is unlikely to be productive if continued 
further in current directions. It seems there is pretty strong 
opposition to adopting the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct as 
originally proposed.


I'm thankful for the occasion to self-reflect on Lilypond's discussion 
environment. I've been thinking about this a lot. A point was made 
earlier that the expectation of having Codes of Conduct in open-source 
communities is not going to go away. In that case, I think it would be 
best to "fill the vacuum" and adopt something everyone finds acceptable. 
That, as opposed to having a sufficiently-influential outside party 
demand adoption of a Code the community doesn't want, as happened to the 
SQLite project.


In the spirit of the recent "RFC" posts that explore different future 
directions, I think I could soon propose something for a Code of 
Conduct. (It draws on some centuries-old traditions of community 
conflict resolution.)


However, I'd like to hear from David Kastrup and James Lowe first. To 
me, their opposition registered as the strongest.


Question: Would this opposition apply to all Codes of Conduct as a 
matter of principle? Or just to the particular one that was proposed, 
and you'd consider supporting a more-acceptable alternative?


And, would you like to see an alternative proposal...

* Soon
* Later
* Please never

I'm not going to propose anything now if it's felt the entire issue 
needs a rest for the moment.


--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA