Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Bruce Momjian]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 07:12:22AM +0200, Chris Travers wrote:
> If we have a committer who loudly and proudly goes to neo-nazi rallies or
> pickup artist / pro-rape meetups, then actually yes, I have a problem with
> that. That impacts my ability to work in the community, impacts everyone's
> ability to recruit people to work on Postgres, potentially makes people
> reluctant to engage with the community, etc.
> 
> There's a problem here though. Generally in Europe, one would not be able to
> fire a person or even discriminate against him for such activity.  So if you
> kick someone out of the PostgreSQL community for doing such things in, say,
> Germany but their employer cannot fire them for the same, then you have a real
> problem if improving PostgreSQL is the basis of their employment.    EU
> antidiscrimination law includes political views and other opinions so
> internationally that line is actually very hard to push in an international
> project.  So I think you'd have a problem where such enforcement might 
> actually
> lead to legal action by the employer, or the individual kicked out, or both.

Yes, I had the same reaction.  Activity not involving other Postgres
members seems like it would not be covered by the CoC, except for
"behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project into disrepute", which
seems like a stretch.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ As you are, so once was I.  As I am, so you will be. +
+  Ancient Roman grave inscription +

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Robert Haas]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 4:17 PM, Tom Lane  wrote:
> There's been quite a lot of input, from quite a lot of people, dating
> back at least as far as a well-attended session at PGCon 2016.  I find
> it quite upsetting to hear accusations that core is imposing this out
> of nowhere.  From my perspective, we're responding to a real need
> voiced by other people, not so much by us.

Yeah, but there's a difference between input and agreement.  I don't
think there's been a mailing list thread anywhere at any time where a
clear majority of the people on that thread supported the idea of a
code of conduct.  I don't think that question has even been put.  I
don't think there's ever been a developer meeting where by a show of
hands the idea of a CoC, much less the specific text, got a clear
majority.  I don't think that any attempt has been made to do that,
either.  Core is (thankfully) not usually given to imposing new rules
on the community; we normally operate by consensus.  Why this specific
instance is an exception, as it certainly seems to be, is unclear to
me.

To be clear, I'm not saying that no harassment occurs in our
community.  I suspect women get harassed at our conferences.  I know
of only one specific incident that made me uncomfortable, and that was
quite a few years ago and the woman in question laughed it off when I
asked her if there was a problem, but I have heard rumors of other
things on occasion, and I just wouldn't be too surprised if we're not
all as nice in private as we pretend to be in public.  And on the
other hand, I think that mailing list discussions step over the line
to harassment from time to time even though that's in full public
view.  Regrettably, you and I have both been guilty of that from time
to time, as have many others.  I know that I, personally, have been
trying to be a lot more careful about the way I phrase criticism in
recent years; I hope that has been noticeable, but I only see it from
my own perspective, so I don't know.  Nonwithstanding, I would like to
see us, as a group, do better.  We should tolerate less bad behavior
in ourselves and in others, and however good or bad we are today as
people, we should try to be better people.

Whether or not the code of conduct plan that the core committee has
decided to implement is likely to move us in that direction remains
unclear to me.  I can't say I'm very impressed by the way the process
has been carried out up to this point; hopefully it will work out for
the best all the same.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Chris Travers]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 5:11 AM Craig Ringer  wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 at 23:11, James Keener  wrote:
>
>> And if you believe strongly that a given statement you may have made is
>>> not objectionable...you should be willing to defend it in an adjudication
>>> investigation.
>>
>>
>> So because someone doesn't like what I say in a venue 100% separate from
>> postgres,  I have to subject myself, and waste my time, defending actions
>> in this (and potentially other groups who would also adopt overly broad
>> CoC) group.
>>
>
> (Usual disclaimer, I speak for myself not my employer here):
>
> My understanding is that that's really only a concern for "Big Stuff".
>
> If we have a committer who loudly and proudly goes to neo-nazi rallies or
> pickup artist / pro-rape meetups, then actually yes, I have a problem with
> that. That impacts my ability to work in the community, impacts everyone's
> ability to recruit people to work on Postgres, potentially makes people
> reluctant to engage with the community, etc.
>

There's a problem here though. Generally in Europe, one would not be able
to fire a person or even discriminate against him for such activity.  So if
you kick someone out of the PostgreSQL community for doing such things in,
say, Germany but their employer cannot fire them for the same, then you
have a real problem if improving PostgreSQL is the basis of their
employment.EU antidiscrimination law includes political views and other
opinions so internationally that line is actually very hard to push in an
international project.  So I think you'd have a problem where such
enforcement might actually lead to legal action by the employer, or the
individual kicked out, or both.

If one of my reports were to come out in favor of the holocaust or Stalin's
purges, etc. I would not be allowed to use that as grounds to fire that
employee, even in Germany.  Now, if they communicated such aggressively at
work, I might.

This also highlights the problem of trying to enforce norms across global
projects.  My view simply is that we cannot.  There are probably some rare
cases even more extreme than this where enforcement globally might not be a
problem.

The goal of a code of conduct is to protect the community and this is
actually a hard problem which gets substantially harder as more cultures
and legal jurisdictions are included.  However there is also a topic of
global fairness.  Would we tolerate treating someone in, say, the US who
attended Neo-Nazi rallies worse than someone who attended right-wing
rallies in Europe?

So I think one has to go with least common denominator in these areas and
this is also why this really isn't that much of a problem.  The CoC really
cannot be enforced in the way which a lot of people fear without serious
consequences for the community and so I trust it won't.


>
> Thankfully we don't.
>

Agreed on that.

>
> I'm not sure how to codify it more clearly, though, and to a large degree
> I think it's a case of presuming good intent and good will amongst all
> parties.
>

At the end, human judgment has to rule.


>
> It's clear that if the CoC leans too far, there'll certainly be no
> shortage of proud defenders of liberty and free speech coming out of the
> woodwork, right? (But remember, freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from
> consequences, even in nations that codify the concept of freedom of speech
> at all. You shouldn't face Government sanction for it, but your peers can
> still ostracise you, you can still get fired, etc.)
>

One of the standard European values is freedom of political opinion and the
idea that there must be no economic consequences of merely having unpopular
political opinions.  However there may be time/manner/place restrictions on
expressing those.

For example, Mozilla Corporation could ask Brendan Eich to leave because
they are an American corporation and this is solely about the American
leadership.  Therefore they don't have to deal with European laws.  I don't
think the same applies to us and certainly if they were to fire a developer
in Germany for more more abrasive political communications via facebook
etc. they would have a lawsuit on their hands.

The freedom to a) hold political ideas without consequence, and b)
communicate them civilly without consequence is something that I find many
people the US (and I assume Australia) find strange,


>
> One of the biggest drivers of plea-bargains for innocent people in the US
>> justice system is the expense of having to defend yourself. I find that to
>> be a travesty; why are we duplicating that at a smaller level?
>>
>
> Because the fact that it is at a smaller level makes it way less of a
> concern. No expensive lawyers. More likely we waste a lot of hot air. Like
> this mail, probably.
>
> There are intangible but very real (IMO) costs to being a community that
> welcomes an unhealthy and hostile communication style, harassment and
> personal attacks in the guise of technical argument, 

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Craig Ringer]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 at 23:11, James Keener  wrote:

> And if you believe strongly that a given statement you may have made is
>> not objectionable...you should be willing to defend it in an adjudication
>> investigation.
>
>
> So because someone doesn't like what I say in a venue 100% separate from
> postgres,  I have to subject myself, and waste my time, defending actions
> in this (and potentially other groups who would also adopt overly broad
> CoC) group.
>

(Usual disclaimer, I speak for myself not my employer here):

My understanding is that that's really only a concern for "Big Stuff".

If we have a committer who loudly and proudly goes to neo-nazi rallies or
pickup artist / pro-rape meetups, then actually yes, I have a problem with
that. That impacts my ability to work in the community, impacts everyone's
ability to recruit people to work on Postgres, potentially makes people
reluctant to engage with the community, etc.

Thankfully we don't.

I'm not sure how to codify it more clearly, though, and to a large degree I
think it's a case of presuming good intent and good will amongst all
parties.

It's clear that if the CoC leans too far, there'll certainly be no shortage
of proud defenders of liberty and free speech coming out of the woodwork,
right? (But remember, freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from
consequences, even in nations that codify the concept of freedom of speech
at all. You shouldn't face Government sanction for it, but your peers can
still ostracise you, you can still get fired, etc.)

One of the biggest drivers of plea-bargains for innocent people in the US
> justice system is the expense of having to defend yourself. I find that to
> be a travesty; why are we duplicating that at a smaller level?
>

Because the fact that it is at a smaller level makes it way less of a
concern. No expensive lawyers. More likely we waste a lot of hot air. Like
this mail, probably.

There are intangible but very real (IMO) costs to being a community that
welcomes an unhealthy and hostile communication style, harassment and
personal attacks in the guise of technical argument, bullying defended as
making sure you have the right stuff to survive in a "meritocracy", etc.
Thankfully we are generally not such a community. But try asking a few
women you know in the Postgres community - if you can find any! - how their
experience at conferences has been. Then ask if maybe there are still a few
things we could work on changing.

I've found it quite confronting dealing with some of the more heated
exchanges on hackers from some of our most prominent team members. I've
sent the occasional gentle note to ask someone to chill and pause before
replying, too. And I've deserved to receive one a couple of times, though I
never have, as I'm far from free from blame here.

People love to point to LKML as the way it "must" be done to succeed in
software. Yet slowly that community has also come to recognise that verbal
abuse under the cloak of technical discussion is harmful to quality
discussion and drives out good people, harming the community long term.
Sure, not everything has to be super-diplomatic, but there's no excuse for
verbal bullying and wilful use of verbal aggression either. As widely
publicised, even Linus has recently recognised aspects of this, despite
being the poster child of proponents of abusive leadership for decades.

We don't have a culture like that. So in practice, I don't imagine the CoC
will see much use. The real problematic stuff that happens in this
community happens in conference halls and occasionally by private mail,
usually in the face of a power imbalance that makes the recipient/victim
reluctant to speak out. I hope a formal CoC will give them some hope
they'll be heard if they do take the personal risk to speak up. I've seen
so much victim blaming in tech that I'm not convinced most people
experiencing problems will be willing to speak out anyway, but hopefully
they'll be more so with a private and receptive group to talk to.

Let me be clear here, I'm no fan of trial by rabid mob. That's part of why
something like the CoC and a backing body is important. Otherwise people
are often forced to silently endure, or go loudly public. The latter tends
to result in a big messy explosion that hurts the community, those saying
they're victim(s) and the alleged perpetrator(s), no matter what the facts
and outcomes. It also encourages people to jump on one comment and run way
too far with it, instead of looking at patterns and giving people chances
to fix their behaviour.

I don't want us to have this:
https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/
. Which is actually why I favour a CoC, one with a resolution process and
encouragement toward some common sense. Every player in that story was an
idiot, and while none deserved the abuse and harrassment that came their
way, it's a shame it wan't handled by a complaint to a conference CoC group
instead.

I'd 

Re: Code of Conduct

[Andrew Dunstan]

On 09/19/2018 04:27 PM, Kevin Grittner wrote:

On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 5:28 AM Dave Page  wrote:

The PostgreSQL Core team are pleased to announce that following a long 
consultation process, the project’s Code of Conduct (CoC) has now been 
finalised and published at https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/.

Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to ensure 
that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone to join and 
participate in.

A Code of Conduct Committee has been formed to handle any complaints. This 
consists of the following volunteers:

- Stacey Haysler (Chair)
- Lætitia Avrot
- Vik Fearing
- Jonathan Katz
- Ilya Kosmodemiansky

We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to Stacey Haysler for her 
patience and expertise in helping develop the Code of Conduct, forming the 
committee and guiding the work to completion.

My thanks to all who participated.



Indeed, many thanks.

[...]

In the meantime, I was very happy to see the so many new faces at
PostgresOpen SV 2018; maybe it's just a happy coincidence, but if this
effort had anything to do with drawing in more people, it was well
worth the effort!




Yeah. The crowd also seemed noticeably more diverse than I have usually 
seen at Postgres conferences. That's a small beginning, but it's a 
welcome development.


cheers

andrew


--
Andrew Dunstanhttps://www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

Re: Code of Conduct

[Kevin Grittner]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 5:28 AM Dave Page  wrote:
>
> The PostgreSQL Core team are pleased to announce that following a long 
> consultation process, the project’s Code of Conduct (CoC) has now been 
> finalised and published at https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/.
>
> Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to ensure 
> that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone to join and 
> participate in.
>
> A Code of Conduct Committee has been formed to handle any complaints. This 
> consists of the following volunteers:
>
> - Stacey Haysler (Chair)
> - Lætitia Avrot
> - Vik Fearing
> - Jonathan Katz
> - Ilya Kosmodemiansky
>
> We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to Stacey Haysler for her 
> patience and expertise in helping develop the Code of Conduct, forming the 
> committee and guiding the work to completion.

My thanks to all who participated.

FWIW, my view is that a CoC shares one very important characteristic
with coding style guides: it's not as important what the details are
as that you have one and everyone pays attention to it.  I was in an
early PGCon meeting on the topic, and offered some opinions early in
the process, so many of you may remember that my view was to keep it
short and simple -- a wide net with broad mesh, and trust that with
competent application nothing would slip through.

My biggest concern about the current document is that it is hard to
make it from start to end, reading every word.  To check my
(admittedly subjective) impression, I put it through the free
"Readability Test Tool" at
https://www.webpagefx.com/tools/read-able/check.php (pasting the
document itself into the "TEST BY DIRECT INPUT" tab so that page
menus, footers, etc. were not included in the score), and got this:

"""
Test Results:
Your text has an average grade level of about 16. It should be easily
understood by 21 to 22 year olds.
"""

Now, on the whole that doesn't sound too bad, since the audience
should be mature and educated enough to deal with that, but it does
suggest that it might be a bit of a burden on some for whom English is
not their first language (unless we have translations?).

Further detail:

"""
Readability Indices

Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease 32.2
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level 15.2
Gunning Fog Score 18.3
SMOG Index 13.9
Coleman Liau Index 14.8
Automated Readability Index 16

Text Statistics

No. of sentences 65
No. of words 1681
No. of complex words 379
Percent of complex words 22.55%
Average words per sentence 25.86
Average syllables per word 1.75
"""

Note that the page mentions that the Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease score
is based on a 0-100 scale. A high score means the text is easier to
read. Low scores suggest the text is complicated to understand.  A
value between 60 and 80 should be easy for a 12 to 15 year old to
understand.  Our score was 32.2.

Perhaps in next year's review we could try to ease this a little.

In the meantime, I was very happy to see the so many new faces at
PostgresOpen SV 2018; maybe it's just a happy coincidence, but if this
effort had anything to do with drawing in more people, it was well
worth the effort!

Kevin Grittner

--
Kevin Grittner
VMware vCenter Server
https://www.vmware.com/

Re: Code of Conduct

[Stephen Frost]

Greetings,

* Francisco Olarte (fola...@peoplecall.com) wrote:
> I will happily pardon brevity ( although I would not call a ten line
> sig plus a huge bottom quote "breve", and AFAIK it means the same in
> english as in spanish ) and/or typos, but the "I am not responsible"
> feels nearly insulting. Did someone force you to use "this device" (
> which you seem to perceive as inadequate for a nice answer ) to reply,
> or did you choose to do it ? ( real, not rethoric question, but do not
> answer if you feel  its inadequate )

Let's please try to keep the off-topic discussion on these lists to a
minimum.

> As an aside, is this kind of afirmations and/or my response to it a
> violation of the current CoC ?

There's a way to find out the answer to that question, but it's
certainly not to send an email to this list asking about it.  Please
review the policy, and follow the process outlined there if you feel the
need to.

Thanks!

Stephen


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Description: PGP signature

Re: Code of Conduct

[Fred Pratt]

Sorry, I emailed using my company account and thus the long sig.   In an effort 
to avoid further insulting Mr Olarte, I will delete it this time.See, 
Self-policing works !

Fred

Re: Code of Conduct

[Francisco Olarte]

On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 5:27 PM, Fred Pratt
 wrote:
> Keep pg open and free.   This smells of PC police.   This community can 
> police itself
No comment on this, just kept for context.

> Sent from my mobile device. Please pardon my brevity and typos.   I am not 
> responsible for changes made by this device’s autocorrect feature.

I will happily pardon brevity ( although I would not call a ten line
sig plus a huge bottom quote "breve", and AFAIK it means the same in
english as in spanish ) and/or typos, but the "I am not responsible"
feels nearly insulting. Did someone force you to use "this device" (
which you seem to perceive as inadequate for a nice answer ) to reply,
or did you choose to do it ? ( real, not rethoric question, but do not
answer if you feel  its inadequate )


As an aside, is this kind of afirmations and/or my response to it a
violation of the current CoC ?

Francisco Olarte.

Re: Code of Conduct

[Fred Pratt]

Keep pg open and free.   This smells of PC police.   This community can police 
itself

Sent from my mobile device. Please pardon my brevity and typos.   I am not 
responsible for changes made by this device’s autocorrect feature.

Fred Pratt
AmerisourceBergen
Manager – IT Infrastructure
Micro Technologies

8701 CenterPort Blvd
Amarillo, TX  79108

Work: 806.372.2369 (Ext. 8364)
Fax: 855.849.0680
Mobile: 806.679.1742

microtechnologies.com

On Sep 19, 2018, at 9:32 AM, ERR ORR 
mailto:rd0...@gmail.com>> wrote:

I was never consulted.
I was only Told that there was a CoC "to be". Not when, not how.
A CoC will inevitably lead to the project taken over by leftists, political and 
technical decisions will be made by others.
Most important from my PoV, the projects quality will decrease until its made 
unviable.
As others have said, this was rammed down our throats.
Before you ppl become unemployed, read "SJWs always lie". You'll know what 
awaits you.
As for myself, I'll be on the lookout for another DB. One that's not 
infiltrated by leftist nuts.

And Dave, you can tell the core team a big "FUCK YOU" for this.

James Keener mailto:j...@jimkeener.com>> schrieb am Di., 
18. Sep. 2018, 13:48:
> following a long consultation process

It's not a consultation if any dissenting voice is simply ignored. Don't 
sugar-coat or politicize it like this -- it was rammed down everyone's throats. 
That is core's right, but don't act as everyone's opinions and concerns were 
taken into consideration. There are a good number of folks who are concerned 
that this CoC is overreaching and is ripe for abuse. Those concerns were always 
simply, plainly, and purposely ignored.

> Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to ensure 
> that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone to join and 
> participate in.

I sincerely hope so, and that it doesn't become a tool to enforce social 
ideology like in other groups I've been part of. Especially since this is the 
main place to come to get help for PostgreSQL and not a social club.

Jim

On September 18, 2018 6:27:56 AM EDT, Dave Page 
mailto:dp...@postgresql.org>> wrote:
The PostgreSQL Core team are pleased to announce that following a long 
consultation process, the project’s Code of Conduct (CoC) has now been 
finalised and published at https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/.

Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to ensure 
that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone to join and 
participate in.

A Code of Conduct Committee has been formed to handle any complaints. This 
consists of the following volunteers:

- Stacey Haysler (Chair)
- Lætitia Avrot
- Vik Fearing
- Jonathan Katz
- Ilya Kosmodemiansky

We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to Stacey Haysler for her 
patience and expertise in helping develop the Code of Conduct, forming the 
committee and guiding the work to completion.

--
Dave Page
PostgreSQL Core Team
http://www.postgresql.org/


--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: Code of Conduct

[ERR ORR]

I was never consulted.
I was only Told that there was a CoC "to be". Not when, not how.
A CoC will inevitably lead to the project taken over by leftists, political
and technical decisions will be made by others.
Most important from my PoV, the projects quality will decrease until its
made unviable.
As others have said, this was rammed down our throats.
Before you ppl become unemployed, read "SJWs always lie". You'll know what
awaits you.
As for myself, I'll be on the lookout for another DB. One that's not
infiltrated by leftist nuts.

And Dave, you can tell the core team a big "FUCK YOU" for this.

James Keener  schrieb am Di., 18. Sep. 2018, 13:48:

> > following a long consultation process
>
> It's not a consultation if any dissenting voice is simply ignored. Don't
> sugar-coat or politicize it like this -- it was rammed down everyone's
> throats. That is core's right, but don't act as everyone's opinions and
> concerns were taken into consideration. There are a good number of folks
> who are concerned that this CoC is overreaching and is ripe for abuse.
> Those concerns were always simply, plainly, and purposely ignored.
>
> > Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to
> ensure that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone to
> join and participate in.
>
> I sincerely hope so, and that it doesn't become a tool to enforce social
> ideology like in other groups I've been part of. Especially since this is
> the main place to come to get help for PostgreSQL and not a social club.
>
> Jim
>
> On September 18, 2018 6:27:56 AM EDT, Dave Page 
> wrote:
>>
>> The PostgreSQL Core team are pleased to announce that following a long
>> consultation process, the project’s Code of Conduct (CoC) has now been
>> finalised and published at https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/
>> .
>>
>> Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to
>> ensure that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone to
>> join and participate in.
>>
>> A Code of Conduct Committee has been formed to handle any complaints.
>> This consists of the following volunteers:
>>
>> - Stacey Haysler (Chair)
>> - Lætitia Avrot
>> - Vik Fearing
>> - Jonathan Katz
>> - Ilya Kosmodemiansky
>>
>> We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to Stacey Haysler for
>> her patience and expertise in helping develop the Code of Conduct, forming
>> the committee and guiding the work to completion.
>>
>> --
>> Dave Page
>> PostgreSQL Core Team
>> http://www.postgresql.org/
>> 
>>
>
> --
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[ERR ORR]

I see a CoC as an infiltration of the PostgreSQL community which has worked
OK since at least 10 years.
The project owners have let their care slacken.
I request that the project owners EXPEL/EXCOMMUNICATE ALL those who are
advancing what can only be seen as an instrument for harassing members of a
to-date peaceful and cordial community.

THROW THESE LEFTIST BULLIES OUT‼️

Dimitri Maziuk  schrieb am Mo., 17. Sep. 2018, 19:21:

> On 09/17/2018 10:39 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 5:28 PM Joshua D. Drake 
> > wrote:
> ...
> >> My feedback is that those two sentences provide an overarching authority
> >> that .Org does not have the right to enforce
> ...
> > Fascinating that this would, on its face, not apply to a harassment
> > campaign carried out over twitter, but it would apply to a few comments
> > made over drinks at a bar.
>
> There is a flip side: if you have written standards, you can be held
> liable for not enforcing them. Potentially including enforcement of
> twitbook AUP on the list subscribers who also have a slackogger account.
>
> --
> Dimitri Maziuk
> Programmer/sysadmin
> BioMagResBank, UW-Madison -- http://www.bmrb.wisc.edu
>
>

Re: Code of Conduct

[Stephen Frost]

Greetings,

* Chris Travers (chris.trav...@gmail.com) wrote:
> I said I would stand aside my objections after the last point I mentioned
> them but I did not feel that my particular objection and concern with
> regard to one specific sentence added got much of a hearing.  This being
> said, it is genuinely hard to sort through the noise and try to reach the
> signal.  I think the resurgence of the debate about whether we need a code
> of conduct made it very difficult to discuss specific objections to
> specific wording.  So to be honest the breakdown was mutual.

I would ask that you, and anyone else who has a suggestion for how to
improve or revise the CoC, submit your ideas to the committee by
email'ing c...@postgresql.org.

As was discussed previously, the current CoC isn't written in stone and
it will be changed and amended as needed.

Thanks!

Stephen


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Re: Code of Conduct

[Chris Travers]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 4:35 PM Tomas Vondra 
wrote:

> On 09/18/2018 01:47 PM, James Keener wrote:
> >  > following a long consultation process
> >
> > It's not a consultation if any dissenting voice is simply ignored.
> > Don't sugar-coat or politicize it like this -- it was rammed down
> > everyone's throats. That is core's right, but don't act as everyone's
> > opinions and concerns were taken into consideration.
>
> I respectfully disagree.
>
> I'm not sure which dissenting voices you think were ignored, but from
> what I've observed in the various CoC threads the core team took the
> time to respond to all comments. That does not necessarily mean the
> resulting CoC makes everyone happy, but unfortunately that's not quite
> possible. And it does not mean it was not an honest consultation.
>
> IMO the core team did a good job in listening to comments, tweaking the
> wording and/or explaining the reasoning. Kudos to them.
>

I said I would stand aside my objections after the last point I mentioned
them but I did not feel that my particular objection and concern with
regard to one specific sentence added got much of a hearing.  This being
said, it is genuinely hard to sort through the noise and try to reach the
signal.  I think the resurgence of the debate about whether we need a code
of conduct made it very difficult to discuss specific objections to
specific wording.  So to be honest the breakdown was mutual.

>
> > There are a good number of folks who are concerned that this CoC is
> > overreaching and is ripe for abuse. Those concerns were always
> > simply, plainly, and purposely ignored.
> No, they were not. There were multiple long discussions about exactly
> these dangers, You may dislike the outcome, but it was not ignored.
>

Also those of us who had specific, actionable concerns were often drowned
out by the noise.  That's deeply unfortunate.

I think those of us who had specific concerns about one specific sentence
that was added were drowned out by those who seemed to be opposed to the
idea of a code of conduct generally.

I would have appreciated at least a reason why the concerns I had about the
fact that the addition a) doesn't cover what it is needs to cover, and b)
will attract complaints that it shouldn't cover was not considered valid.
But I can understand that given the noise-to-signal ratio of the discussion
made such discussion next to impossible.

Again I find that regrettable.

>
> >  > Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to
> > ensure that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone
> > to join and participate in.
> >
> > I sincerely hope so, and that it doesn't become a tool to enforce social
> > ideology like in other groups I've been part of. Especially since this
> > is the main place to come to get help for PostgreSQL and not a social
> club.
> >
>
> Ultimately, it's a matter of trust that the CoC committee and core team
> apply the CoC in a careful and cautious way. Based on my personal
> experience with most of the people involved in both groups I'm not
> worried about this part.
>

I would actually go further than you here.  The CoC committee *cannot*
apply the CoC in the way that the opponents fear.  The fact is, Europe has
anti-discrimination laws regarding social and political ideology (something
the US might want to consider as it would help avoid problems on this list
;-) ).  And different continents have different norms on these sorts of
things.  Pushing a social ideology via the code of conduct would, I
suspect, result in everything from legal action to large emerging markets
going elsewhere.  So I don't think ti is a question of "trust us" but
rather that the community won't let that sort of abuse happen no matter who
is on the CoC committee.

>
>
> regards
>
> --
> Tomas Vondra  http://www.2ndQuadrant.com
> PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services
>
>

-- 
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Re: Code of Conduct

[James Keener]

>
>  You may dislike the outcome, but it was not ignored.


I can accept that I don't like the outcome, but I can point to maybe a
dozen people in the last
exchange worried about the CoC being used to further political goals, and
the only response
was "well, the CoC Committee will handle it reasonable" which is not a good
answer, because
that's exactly the situation that we are worried about not happening! These
concerns were never
actually addressed and always just brushed aside -- that's what I found
bothersome and worrisome.

We shouldn't have to expect the rules to be applied fairly in order to
counter actual abuses of the
rules. I've seen it in other groups and have been the target of such
actions. (I had the gall to claim
that hiring practices that require submitting side- or open-source- work
aren't only detrimental to
women because they statistically shoulder more of the housework and
childcare, but also to
husbands and fathers who take an active role in the household and
childcare. It wasn't intended to
diminish the effect this hiring practice has on women, but to suggest that
it's a broader problem than
the conversation at that point was making it out to be. I was subsequently
silenced and eventually
booted from the group for that incident and another, in a social channel,
where a discussion on guns
was taking place and someone said that the discussion is sexist and this is
why there are so few
female programmers, and I had the impertinence to say that I know more
women who hunt and shot
for sport then men (it's ~50-50 in this area). Forgive me for not having a
favourable view of CoCs.)

So, it's not that I don't trust the CoC Committee, but I just really don't
trust most people. The clearer
the rules the better. As it stands, the rules are extremely vague and
overreaching.

Jim

Re: Code of Conduct

[Tomas Vondra]

On 09/18/2018 01:47 PM, James Keener wrote:

 > following a long consultation process

It's not a consultation if any dissenting voice is simply ignored.
Don't sugar-coat or politicize it like this -- it was rammed down
everyone's throats. That is core's right, but don't act as everyone's
opinions and concerns were taken into consideration.


I respectfully disagree.

I'm not sure which dissenting voices you think were ignored, but from 
what I've observed in the various CoC threads the core team took the 
time to respond to all comments. That does not necessarily mean the 
resulting CoC makes everyone happy, but unfortunately that's not quite 
possible. And it does not mean it was not an honest consultation.


IMO the core team did a good job in listening to comments, tweaking the 
wording and/or explaining the reasoning. Kudos to them.



There are a good number of folks who are concerned that this CoC is
overreaching and is ripe for abuse. Those concerns were always
simply, plainly, and purposely ignored.
No, they were not. There were multiple long discussions about exactly 
these dangers, You may dislike the outcome, but it was not ignored.


 > Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to 
ensure that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone 
to join and participate in.


I sincerely hope so, and that it doesn't become a tool to enforce social 
ideology like in other groups I've been part of. Especially since this 
is the main place to come to get help for PostgreSQL and not a social club.




Ultimately, it's a matter of trust that the CoC committee and core team 
apply the CoC in a careful and cautious way. Based on my personal 
experience with most of the people involved in both groups I'm not 
worried about this part.



regards

--
Tomas Vondra  http://www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

Re: Code of Conduct

[James Keener]

> following a long consultation process

It's not a consultation if any dissenting voice is simply ignored. Don't 
sugar-coat or politicize it like this -- it was rammed down everyone's throats. 
That is core's right, but don't act as everyone's opinions and concerns were 
taken into consideration. There are a good number of folks who are concerned 
that this CoC is overreaching and is ripe for abuse. Those concerns were always 
simply, plainly, and purposely ignored.

> Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to ensure 
> that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone to join and 
> participate in.

I sincerely hope so, and that it doesn't become a tool to enforce social 
ideology like in other groups I've been part of.  Especially since this is the 
main place to come to get help for PostgreSQL and not a social club.

Jim

On September 18, 2018 6:27:56 AM EDT, Dave Page  wrote:
>The PostgreSQL Core team are pleased to announce that following a long
>consultation process, the project’s Code of Conduct (CoC) has now been
>finalised and published at
>https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/coc/.
>
>Please take time to read and understand the CoC, which is intended to
>ensure that PostgreSQL remains an open and enjoyable project for anyone
>to
>join and participate in.
>
>A Code of Conduct Committee has been formed to handle any complaints.
>This
>consists of the following volunteers:
>
>- Stacey Haysler (Chair)
>- Lætitia Avrot
>- Vik Fearing
>- Jonathan Katz
>- Ilya Kosmodemiansky
>
>We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to Stacey Haysler for
>her
>patience and expertise in helping develop the Code of Conduct, forming
>the
>committee and guiding the work to completion.
>
>-- 
>Dave Page
>PostgreSQL Core Team
>http://www.postgresql.org/
>

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dimitri Maziuk]

On 09/17/2018 10:39 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 5:28 PM Joshua D. Drake 
> wrote:
...
>> My feedback is that those two sentences provide an overarching authority
>> that .Org does not have the right to enforce 
...
> Fascinating that this would, on its face, not apply to a harassment
> campaign carried out over twitter, but it would apply to a few comments
> made over drinks at a bar.

There is a flip side: if you have written standards, you can be held
liable for not enforcing them. Potentially including enforcement of
twitbook AUP on the list subscribers who also have a slackogger account.

-- 
Dimitri Maziuk
Programmer/sysadmin
BioMagResBank, UW-Madison -- http://www.bmrb.wisc.edu



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Chris Travers]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 5:28 PM Joshua D. Drake 
wrote:

> On 09/17/2018 08:11 AM, Dmitri Maziuk wrote:
>
> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 12:52:34 +
> Martin Mueller  
>  wrote:
>
>
> ... The overreach is dubious on both practical and theoretical grounds. 
> "Stick to your knitting " or the KISS principle seem good advice in this 
> context.
>
> Moderated mailing lists ain't been broken all these years, therefore they 
> need fixing. Obviously.
>
>
> Folks,
>
> At this point it is important to accept that the CoC is happening. We
> aren't going to stop that. The goal now is to insure a CoC that is
> equitable for all community members and that has appropriate
> accountability. At hand it appears that major concern is the CoC trying to
> be authoritative outside of community channels. As well as wording that is
> a bit far reaching. Specifically I think people's main concern is these two
> sentences:
>
> "To that end, we have established this Code of Conduct for community
> interaction and participation in the project’s work and the community at
> large. This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community
> members, whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org
> infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes
> precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."
>

Exactly.  And actually the first sentence is not new.  The second one is a
real problem though.  I am going to try one last time at an additional
alternative.

" To that end, we have established this Code of Conduct for community
interaction and participation in the project’s work and the community at
large.   This code of conduct covers all interaction between community
members on the postgresql.org infrastructure.  Conduct outside the
postgresql.org infrastructure may call the Code of Conduct committee to act
as long as the interaction (or interaction pattern) is community-related,
other parties are unable to act, and the Code of Conduct committee
determines that it is in the best interest of the community to apply this
Code of Conduct."

This solves a number of important problems.

1.  It provides a backstop (as Tom Lane suggested was needed) against a
conference refusing to enforce their own code of conduct in a way the
community finds acceptable while the current wording does not provide any
backstop as long as there is a code of conduct for a conference.
2.  It provides a significant barrier to applying the code of conduct to,
say, political posts on, say, Twitter.
3.  It preserves the ability of the Code of Conduct Committee to act in the
case where someone takes a pattern of harassment off-list and
off-infrastructure.  And it avoids arguing whether Facebook's Community
Standards constitute "another Code of Conduct that takes precedence."

>
> If we can constructively provide feedback about those two sentences, great
> (or constructive feedback on other areas of the CoC). If we can't then this
> thread needs to stop. It has become unproductive.
>
> My feedback is that those two sentences provide an overarching authority
> that .Org does not have the right to enforce and that it is also largely
> redundant because we allow that the idea that if another CoC exists, then
> ours doesn't apply. Well every single major collaboration channel we would
> be concerned with (including something like Blogger) has its own CoC within
> its Terms of use. That effectively neuters the PostgreSQL CoC within places
> like Slack, Facebook, Twitter etc...
>

Fascinating that this would, on its face, not apply to a harassment
campaign carried out over twitter, but it would apply to a few comments
made over drinks at a bar.

>
> JD
>
> --
> Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
> ***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
> PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
> Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
> * Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *
>
>

-- 
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 09/17/2018 08:11 AM, Dmitri Maziuk wrote:

On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 12:52:34 +
Martin Mueller  wrote:


... The overreach is dubious on both practical and theoretical grounds. "Stick to 
your knitting " or the KISS principle seem good advice in this context.

Moderated mailing lists ain't been broken all these years, therefore they need 
fixing. Obviously.


Folks,

At this point it is important to accept that the CoC is happening. We 
aren't going to stop that. The goal now is to insure a CoC that is 
equitable for all community members and that has appropriate 
accountability. At hand it appears that major concern is the CoC trying 
to be authoritative outside of community channels. As well as wording 
that is a bit far reaching. Specifically I think people's main concern 
is these two sentences:


"To that end, we have established this Code of Conduct for community 
interaction and participation in the project’s work and the community at 
large. This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community 
members, whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org 
infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of Conduct that 
takes precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."


If we can constructively provide feedback about those two sentences, 
great (or constructive feedback on other areas of the CoC). If we can't 
then this thread needs to stop. It has become unproductive.


My feedback is that those two sentences provide an overarching authority 
that .Org does not have the right to enforce and that it is also largely 
redundant because we allow that the idea that if another CoC exists, 
then ours doesn't apply. Well every single major collaboration channel 
we would be concerned with (including something like Blogger) has its 
own CoC within its Terms of use. That effectively neuters the PostgreSQL 
CoC within places like Slack, Facebook, Twitter etc...


JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dmitri Maziuk]

On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 12:52:34 +
Martin Mueller  wrote:

> ... The overreach is dubious on both practical and theoretical grounds. 
> "Stick to your knitting " or the KISS principle seem good advice in this 
> context. 

Moderated mailing lists ain't been broken all these years, therefore they need 
fixing. Obviously.

-- 
Dmitri Maziuk 

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Martin Mueller]

As long as subscribers to the list or attendants at a conference do not violate 
explicit or implicit house rules, what business does Postgres have worrying 
about what they do or say elsewhere?  Some version of an 'all-of-life' clause 
may be appropriate to the Marines or  federal judges, but it strikes me as 
overreach for a technical listserv whose subject is a particular relational 
database. The overreach is dubious on both practical and theoretical grounds. 
"Stick to your knitting " or the KISS principle seem good advice in this 
context. 

On 9/16/18, 7:08 AM, "Stephen Cook"  wrote:

On 2018-09-16 00:00, Mark Kirkwood wrote:
> On 15/09/18 08:17, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Yeah, this.  The PG community is mostly nice people, AFAICT.  I'll be
>> astonished (and worried) if the CoC committee finds much to do.  We're
>> implementing this mostly to make newcomers to the project feel that
>> it's a safe space.
> 
> Agreed. However I think the all-of-life clause gives an open door to
> potential less than well intentioned new members joining up to extend a
> SJW agenda. So in fact the unintended consequence of this may be a
> *less* safe place for some existing members - unless all of their social
> media utterances are agreeable to the angry militant left.

This is my only concern, there are some very sensitive people out there
just looking for scandal / publicity. No reason to give them a larger
attack surface. Maybe that sounds paranoid but look around, there are
folks that want to spread the US culture war to every front, including
open source projects on the internet.

This sentence in the CoC should be worded to exclude things that are not
directed harassment when outside of the community spaces. For example,
some "incorrect opinion" on Twitter should have little bearing if it
wasn't meant as an "attack". Maybe for extreme cases there could be a
"hey you're making us look bad and scaring people away, chill with the
hate speech or leave" clause, but that should only apply if it is
someone whose name is publicly associated with Postgres and they are
saying really terrible things. I feel there is a big difference between
keeping it civil/safe in the lists and conferences, and making people
afraid to say anything controversial (in the USA) anywhere ever.

Maybe the way the committee is set up, it will handle this fairly. But
it's better to be explicit about it IMO, so as not to attract
professional complainers.


-- Stephen

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Mark Kirkwood]

On 15/09/18 08:17, Tom Lane wrote:

Yeah, this.  The PG community is mostly nice people, AFAICT.  I'll be
astonished (and worried) if the CoC committee finds much to do.  We're
implementing this mostly to make newcomers to the project feel that
it's a safe space.


Agreed. However I think the all-of-life clause gives an open door to 
potential less than well intentioned new members joining up to extend a 
SJW agenda. So in fact the unintended consequence of this may be a 
*less* safe place for some existing members - unless all of their social 
media utterances are agreeable to the angry militant left.



It's also worth reminding people that this is v1.0 of the CoC document.
We plan to revisit it in a year or so, and thereafter as needed, to
improve anything that's causing problems or not working well.


+1, At least this means we can address the above if it emerges as a problem

regards
Mark


regards, tom lane

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Adrian Klaver]

On 9/14/18 11:13 AM, Robert Haas wrote:

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:10 AM, Dave Page  wrote:

That wording has been in the published draft for 18 months, and noone
objected to it that I'm aware of. There will always be people who don't like
some of the wording, much as there are often people who disagree with the
way a patch to the code is written. Sooner or later though, the general
consensus prevails and we have to move on, otherwise nothing will ever get
completed.


It's not clear to me that there IS a general consensus here.  It looks
to me like the unelected core team got together and decided to impose
a vaguely-worded code of conduct on a vaguely-defined group of people
covering not only their work on PostgreSQL but also their entire life.
It is not difficult to imagine that someone's private life might
include "behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project into
disrepute."

However, I also don't think it matters very much.  The Code of Conduct
Committee is going to consist of small number of people -- at least
four, perhaps a few more.  But there are hundreds of people involved
on the PostgreSQL mailing lists, maybe thousands.  If the Code of
Conduct Committee, or the core team, believes that it can impose on a
very large group of people, all of whom are volunteers, some set of
rules with which they don't agree, it's probably going to find out
pretty quickly that it is mistaken.  If people from that large group
get banned for behavior which is perceived by other members of that
large group to be legitimate, then there will be a ferocious backlash.
Nobody wants to see people who are willing to contribute driven away
from the project, and anyone we drive away without a really good
reason will find some other project that welcomes their participation.
So the only thing that the Code of Conduct Committee is likely to be
able to do in practice is admonish people to be nicer (which is
probably a good thing) and punish really egregious conduct, especially
when committed by people who aren't involved enough that their absence
will be keenly felt.

In practice, therefore, democracy is going to win out.  That's both
good and bad.  It's good because nobody wants a CoC witch-hunt, and
it's bad because there's probably some behavior which legitimately
deserves censure and will escape it.



+1

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Olivier Gautherot]

Dear all,

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 5:18 PM Tom Lane  wrote:

> Robert Haas  writes:
> > It's not clear to me that there IS a general consensus here.  It looks
> > to me like the unelected core team got together and decided to impose
> > a vaguely-worded code of conduct on a vaguely-defined group of people
> > covering not only their work on PostgreSQL but also their entire life.
>
> There's been quite a lot of input, from quite a lot of people, dating
> back at least as far as a well-attended session at PGCon 2016.  I find
> it quite upsetting to hear accusations that core is imposing this out
> of nowhere.  From my perspective, we're responding to a real need
> voiced by other people, not so much by us.
>
> > However, I also don't think it matters very much.
>
> Yeah, this.  The PG community is mostly nice people, AFAICT.  I'll be
> astonished (and worried) if the CoC committee finds much to do.  We're
> implementing this mostly to make newcomers to the project feel that
> it's a safe space.
>
> It's also worth reminding people that this is v1.0 of the CoC document.
> We plan to revisit it in a year or so, and thereafter as needed, to
> improve anything that's causing problems or not working well.
>
> regards, tom lane
>

I must admit that I'm impressed by the huge amount of contributions to this
thread and, to be honest, it is the only one I have witnessed that would
have deserved a CoC. I had a quick look at the proposal and it sounds to me
like the team is trying to handle excesses - as long as no one complains, I
would bet that they won't even chime in.

One thing to keep in mind is this simple definition: "One person's freedom
ends where another's begins" and all the work should go in this direction.
We are all different, have different sensitivities, come from different
cultures where we interpret words in a different way - it's a given, no way
to escape. But we have in common the love of a great piece of software
provided by a very active and efficient community.

Why don't we focus on what unites us, instead of what creates divisions?

Have a peaceful week-end
Olivier

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Tom Lane]

Robert Haas  writes:
> It's not clear to me that there IS a general consensus here.  It looks
> to me like the unelected core team got together and decided to impose
> a vaguely-worded code of conduct on a vaguely-defined group of people
> covering not only their work on PostgreSQL but also their entire life.

There's been quite a lot of input, from quite a lot of people, dating
back at least as far as a well-attended session at PGCon 2016.  I find
it quite upsetting to hear accusations that core is imposing this out
of nowhere.  From my perspective, we're responding to a real need
voiced by other people, not so much by us.

> However, I also don't think it matters very much.

Yeah, this.  The PG community is mostly nice people, AFAICT.  I'll be
astonished (and worried) if the CoC committee finds much to do.  We're
implementing this mostly to make newcomers to the project feel that
it's a safe space.

It's also worth reminding people that this is v1.0 of the CoC document.
We plan to revisit it in a year or so, and thereafter as needed, to
improve anything that's causing problems or not working well.

regards, tom lane

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Robert Haas]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:10 AM, Dave Page  wrote:
> That wording has been in the published draft for 18 months, and noone
> objected to it that I'm aware of. There will always be people who don't like
> some of the wording, much as there are often people who disagree with the
> way a patch to the code is written. Sooner or later though, the general
> consensus prevails and we have to move on, otherwise nothing will ever get
> completed.

It's not clear to me that there IS a general consensus here.  It looks
to me like the unelected core team got together and decided to impose
a vaguely-worded code of conduct on a vaguely-defined group of people
covering not only their work on PostgreSQL but also their entire life.
It is not difficult to imagine that someone's private life might
include "behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project into
disrepute."

However, I also don't think it matters very much.  The Code of Conduct
Committee is going to consist of small number of people -- at least
four, perhaps a few more.  But there are hundreds of people involved
on the PostgreSQL mailing lists, maybe thousands.  If the Code of
Conduct Committee, or the core team, believes that it can impose on a
very large group of people, all of whom are volunteers, some set of
rules with which they don't agree, it's probably going to find out
pretty quickly that it is mistaken.  If people from that large group
get banned for behavior which is perceived by other members of that
large group to be legitimate, then there will be a ferocious backlash.
Nobody wants to see people who are willing to contribute driven away
from the project, and anyone we drive away without a really good
reason will find some other project that welcomes their participation.
So the only thing that the Code of Conduct Committee is likely to be
able to do in practice is admonish people to be nicer (which is
probably a good thing) and punish really egregious conduct, especially
when committed by people who aren't involved enough that their absence
will be keenly felt.

In practice, therefore, democracy is going to win out.  That's both
good and bad.  It's good because nobody wants a CoC witch-hunt, and
it's bad because there's probably some behavior which legitimately
deserves censure and will escape it.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 09/14/2018 07:41 AM, James Keener wrote:

> Community is people who joined it

We're not a "community."


I do not think you are going to get very many people on board with that 
argument. As anyone who knows me will attest I am one of the most 
contrarian members of this community but I still agree that it is a 
community.


JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Geoff Winkless]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2018, 15:55 James Keener,  wrote:

>
>
> Yes. They can. The people who make the majority of the contributions to
>> the software can decide what happens, because without them there is no
>> software. If you want to spend 20 years of your life
>>
>
> So everyone who moderates this group and that will be part of the CoC
> committee will have had to have dedicated their life of pg?
>

No. The core developers get to decide the policy and who is best to enforce
it. It seems fair that the people who have contributed so much get to
decide what goes on in their name.

>
> Sure, they own the servers, they make the rules. I get it. I'm not
> entirely opposed to it, even if I think it's silly to ram something down
> the rest of the groups throats.
>

I agree with you. I'm just fed up with rerunning the same argument every 3
months every time a new CoC update comes out.

PS: Also, what's with the personal replies? If you don't want to say what
> you want to the whole group, I don't really have an interest in talking to
> you personally.
>

Sorry what? I replied offlist to your offlist reply to my onlist post,
since I assumed you had decided (correctly) that this was hardly the sort
of discussion that we should be clogging up other people's mailboxes with.

Geoff

>

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Peter Geoghegan]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 7:19 AM, Joshua D. Drake  wrote:
> Sure and that is unfortunate but isn't it up to the individual to deal with
> it through appropriate channels for whatever platform they are on? All of
> these platforms are:
>
> 1. Voluntary to use
> 2. Have their own Terms of Use and complaint departments
> 3. If it is abuse there are laws
>
> I agree that within Postgresql.org we must have a professional code of
> conduct but the idea that an arbitrary committee appointed by an unelected
> board can decide the fate of a community member based on actions outside of
> the community is a bit authoritarian don't you think?

The choice of the committee members is hardly arbitrary. Having
committee members be appointed by core is more or less consistent with
how the community has always dealt with disciplinary issues. The
criteria used by core were discussed quite openly. While the risk that
the committee will yield their power in an "authoritarian" way seems
very small, it cannot be ruled out entirely. In fact, it hasn't been
ruled out by the draft CoC itself.

No CoC can possibly provide for every conceivable situation. Somebody
has to interpret the rules, and it has to be possible to impose
sanctions when the CoC is violated -- otherwise, what's the point?
There are several checks and balances in place, and I for one have
confidence in the process as outlined. It's imperfect, but quite a lot
better than either the status quo, or a platitude about inclusivity.

-- 
Peter Geoghegan

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 09/14/2018 06:59 AM, Robert Eckhardt wrote:



I really have to object to this addition:
"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org 
infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes
precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."


I second that objection. It is not in PGDG's remit to cure the world, for
whatever form of cure you ascribe to. This is especially true as 'community
member' has no strict definition.

I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen
it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.


Yes but are we to be the School Principal for the world?


these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
vitriol.


Sure and that is unfortunate but isn't it up to the individual to deal 
with it through appropriate channels for whatever platform they are on? 
All of these platforms are:


1. Voluntary to use
2. Have their own Terms of Use and complaint departments
3. If it is abuse there are laws

I agree that within Postgresql.org we must have a professional code of 
conduct but the idea that an arbitrary committee appointed by an 
unelected board can decide the fate of a community member based on 
actions outside of the community is a bit authoritarian don't you think?


JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:28 PM, Adrian Klaver 
wrote:

> On 9/14/18 7:19 AM, Dave Page wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>
>> No one is tracking anything as part of the CoC. That's nothing but a
>> straw man argument.
>>
>
> Not buying it or the below is null and void:
>
> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so
> long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as
> a conference's Code of Conduct)."
>
> Not sure how the above can be enforced without someone reporting on what
> is said outside the 'postgresql.org infrastructure'?
>
> At any rate, whether I like it or not the CoC is here to stay. I just feel
> a dissenting opinion is important to the conversation.


I can report someone who steal my wallet to the police. That doesn't mean I
track pick-pockets activity.

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Stephen Frost]

Greetings,

* Adrian Klaver (adrian.kla...@aklaver.com) wrote:
> On 9/14/18 1:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
> >On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 10:53 PM Tom Lane  >> wrote:
> >
> >I wrote:
> > > Stephen Frost mailto:sfr...@snowman.net>>
> >writes:
> > >> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update
> >on when
> > >> this will be moving forward?
> > >> Or did I miss something?
> >
> > > Nope, you didn't.  Folks have been on holiday which made it hard
> >to keep
> > > forward progress going, particularly with respect to selecting
> >the initial
> > > committee members.  Now that Magnus is back on shore, I hope we can
> > > wrap it up quickly --- say by the end of August.
> >
> >I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been
> >moving.
> >The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
> >the comments in this thread; see
> >
> >https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> >
> >(That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
> >history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
> >
> >I really have to object to this addition:
> >"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
> >whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org
> > infrastructure, so long as there is not another
> >Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a conference's Code of
> >Conduct)."

I was wondering about that myself and rather had an objection to
implying that this CoC doesn't apply when there's a CoC set up for some
event.  The CoC for an event is typically going to be thinking about
things from the event's timeline (which is on the order of days),
whereas something which happened at an event reflects on the community
and should also be addressed at that level.

> I second that objection. It is not in PGDG's remit to cure the world, for
> whatever form of cure you ascribe to. This is especially true as 'community
> member' has no strict definition.

The goal of this CoC isn't to cure the world, it's to define what's
acceptable behavior to continue to be a member of this community, to
participate in this community through the mailing lists, IRC, etc, and
to be seen as a representative of the community/project.

We certainly have both the right and the remit to define who we want to
have in our community and to represent this community and project to
other communities, projects, organizations, and to people in general.
This CoC is about making it clear what's acceptable and what isn't and
making it clear to everyone, including other communities, that we take
conduct seriously and have a mechanism for dealing with issues that's
fair and reasonable.

Thanks!

Stephen


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Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Ilya Kosmodemiansky]

> On 14. Sep 2018, at 16:31, Ilya Kosmodemiansky  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I could only heavily +1 this. I can get

I can’t get of course, sorry for typo


> from where comes the idea that community is only what happens just on 
> postgresql.org or just on some other channel community uses.



> . 
> 
> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Dave Page
>> Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
>> Twitter: @pgsnake
>> 
>> EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
>> The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 09/14/2018 07:36 AM, Dave Page wrote:



On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:21 PM, James Keener > wrote:



Now, you may say that (2) would be rejected by the
committee, but I would
counter that it's still a stain on me and something that
will forever appear
along side my name in search results and that the amount
of time and
stress it'd take me to defend myself would make my
voluntarily leaving
the community, which would be seen as an admission of
guilt, my only
option.


If you had read the policy, you would know that wouldn't
happen as reports and details of reports are to be kept
confidential.


That doesn't mean I won't be strung along and it doesn't mean that
the attacker can't release those details. Remember, I'm worried
about politically motivated attacks, and attacks meant to silence
opposing viewpoints, not legitimate instances of harassment.


Sure, but an attacker can do that now. Having the CoC doesn't change 
anything there, though it does give us a framework to deal with it.



People are shitheads. People are assholes. We're not
agreeing to join
some organization and sign an ethics clause when signing
up for the mailing
list.  The current moderators can already remove bad
actors from the list.
How they act outside of the list is non of this list's
concern.


The lists are just one of many different ways people in this
community interact.


So? We interact with people outside of specific groups all the
time. Baring specific
agreements to the contrary, why should any one group claim
responsibility of my
personal business?


If that business is publicly bringing the project into disrepute, or 
harassing other community members and they approach us about it, then 
it becomes our business.


If it's unrelated to PostgreSQL, then it's your personal business and 
not something the project would get involved in.


O.k. so this isn't clear (at least to me) within the CoC. I want to make 
sure I understand. You are saying that if a community member posts on 
Twitter that they believe gays are going to hell, reporting that to the 
CoC committee would result in a non-violation UNLESS they referenced 
postgresql within the post?


JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Evan Macbeth]

I hesitate to exacerbate what is a society-wide debate that is being worked
out across organizations across the spectrum, but if I may provide a
thought for consideration.

The framing and language of the Code of Conduct, as written and proposed,
includes a large number of checkpoints to protect those accused of
violations of the code of conduct: Confidentiality, the Good Faith clause
that actually puts risk on those who report behavior under the code, a
scaling of consequences that is weighted *heavily* towards providing second
and third chances to those who may be accused of violating the code.

In the examples that have been raised in this discussion, it would seem to
me to be unreasonable for an investigation to result in a finding that the
code had been violated to the extent that any kind of public consequence
would be warranted. Indeed, were the examples cited to be adjudicated under
this code, I am confident we as a community would discover the code to be
working as designed, rather than the opposite.

If the objection is to the possibility of being reported at all for your
own behavior that you believe is not in violation, that's a different
matter. But if that is the concern, than the objection is not to *this*
code of conduct but to ANY code of conduct, because any code of conduct is
inherently going to introduce risk of being reported for everyone. And if
you believe strongly that a given statement you may have made is not
objectionable...you should be willing to defend it in an adjudication
investigation. If you are not willing to defend it in an adjudication
investigation, then you are tacitly (at least) acknowledging the statement
was not in keeping withe standards represented by the code.

This code of conduct as written, in my opinion, merely holds every member
of our community responsible for owning our words and behavior, and the
consequences thereof. I believe that we are adult enough to be willing to
take responsibility for ourselves.

Just my $0.02.

Evan Macbeth


On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 8:50 AM, James Keener  wrote:

> I find a lot of neo-con/trumpian political stances moronic, short-sighted,
> and anti-intellectual and therefore consider them offensive, an affront on
> my way of life, and a stain on my country.
>
> 1) Can I report anyone holding such views and discussing them on a 3rd
> party forum?
>
> 2) Could I be reported for saying the above on a 3rd party forum?
>
> Obviously the pg mailing list isn't a place for such discussion, but is
> being a member of this community a deal with the devil to give up my right
> to free speech elsewhere?
>
> Jim
>
>
> On September 14, 2018 6:10:47 AM EDT, Chris Travers <
> chris.trav...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:45 AM Ilya Kosmodemiansky 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM, Chris Travers 
>>> wrote:
>>> > I really have to object to this addition:
>>> > "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
>>> > whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure,
>>> so long
>>> > as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as
>>> a
>>> > conference's Code of Conduct)."
>>> >
>>> > That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
>>> > controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if
>>> one is
>>> > going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
>>> > non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
>>> > politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for
>>> example,
>>> > what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage
>>> use of
>>> > this to silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.
>>>
>>> I think, this point has nothing to do with _correct_ discussions or
>>> public tweets.
>>>
>>> If one community member tweets publicly and in a way which abuses
>>> other community members, it is obvious CoC violation. It is hard to
>>> imagine healthy community if someone interacts with others  correctly
>>> on the list or at a conference because the CoC stops him doing things
>>> which he will do on private capacity to the same people when CoC
>>> doesnt apply.
>>>
>>> If someone reports CoC violation just because other community member's
>>> _correct_ public tweet or whatsoever  expressed different
>>> political/philosophical/religious views, this is a quite different
>>> story. I suppose CoC committee and/or Core team in this case should
>>> explain the reporter the purpose of CoC rather than automatically
>>> enforce it.
>>>
>>
>> So first, I think what the clause is trying to do is address cases where
>> harassment targeting a particular community member takes place outside the
>> infrastructure and frankly ensuring that the code of conduct applies in
>> these cases is important and something I agree with.
>>
>> However, let's look at problem cases:
>>
>> "I am enough of a Marxist to see gender as a 

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Stephen Frost]

Greetings,

* Joshua D. Drake (j...@commandprompt.com) wrote:
> I think this is a complicated issue. On the one hand, postgresql.org has no
> business telling people how to act outside of postgresql.org. Full stop.

This is exactly what this CoC points out- yes, PG.Org absolutely can and
should consider the behavior of individuals as a whole, regardless of
where, when it comes to deciding if it's appropriate for that individual
to continue to be a member of this community.  The CoC isn't about
everyone in the world, nor is it trying to address the actions of
individuals who are not members of this community, but it's definitely
about more than just actions seen on these mailing lists.

> On the other hand if you are (note: contributor, not community member which
> is different) contributor to PostgreSQL, your actions speak about
> PostgreSQL. So I am not sure what a good plan of action here would be.

The line being drawn here isn't terribly clear and I don't know that
it's really useful to try and draw a line.  There's a limit to what PGDG
is able to do from a technical perspective, but anything which is able
to be done within PGDG should be done to distance the community and
project, to the fullest extent possible, from inappropriate behavior.
That could be someone causing problems on IRC or on the mailing lists or
somewhere else, even if that individual isn't listed as a contributor or
involved in the project in other ways.  Naturally, there are different
levels and that's why there's a CoC committee to consider what's fair
and reasonable and at least part of that will probably take into
consideration an individual's role in the community.

> There was a time when Open Source was about code and community. It is clear
> that it is becoming about authority and politics.

This isn't actually anything new, to be clear, this is simply a
definition and documentation to provide clarity and a seperate committee
which Core is delegating out responsibility to.

Thanks,

Stephen


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Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Chris Travers]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 4:14 PM Dave Page  wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:08 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
> wrote:
>
>> On 09/14/2018 01:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>>
>>
>> I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been moving.
>>> The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
>>> the comments in this thread; see
>>>
>>> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>>>
>>> (That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
>>> history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
>>>
>>
>> I really have to object to this addition:
>> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
>> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so
>> long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as
>> a conference's Code of Conduct)."
>>
>> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
>> controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is
>> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
>> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
>> politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for
>> example, what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to
>> encourage use of this to silence political controversies unrelated to
>> PostgreSQL.
>>
>>
>> I think this is a complicated issue. On the one hand, postgresql.org has
>> no business telling people how to act outside of postgresql.org. Full
>> stop.
>>
>
> I'm going to regret jumping in here, but...
>
> I disagree. If a community member decides to join forums for other
> software and then strongly promotes PostgreSQL to the point that they
> become abusive or offensive to people making other software choices, then
> they are clearly bringing the project into disrepute and we should have
> every right to sanction them by preventing them participating in our
> project in whatever ways are deemed appropriate.
>

 Actually, the easier case here is not being abusive to MySQL users, as the
code of conduct really doesn't clearly cover that anyway.  The easier case
is where two people have a feud and one person carries on a harassment
campaign over various forms of social media.  The current problem is:

1.  The current code of conduct is not clear as to whether terms of
service/community standards of, say, Reddit, supersede or not, and
2.  The community has to act (even if it is includes behavior at a
conference which has its own code of conduct)

So I think the addition is both over inclusive and under inclusive.   It is
over inclusive because it invites a certain group of (mostly American)
people to pick fights (not saying this is all Americans).  And it is under
inclusive because there are cases where the code of conduct *should* be
employed when behavior includes behavior at events which might have their
own codes of conduct.

On the other side, consider someone carrying on a low-grade harassment
campaign against another community member at a series of conferences where
each conference may not amount to a real actionable concern but where the
pattern as a whole might.  There's the under inclusive bit.

So I don't like this clause because I think it invites problems and doesn't
solve issues.
-- 
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

>
> And if you believe strongly that a given statement you may have made is
> not objectionable...you should be willing to defend it in an adjudication
> investigation.


So because someone doesn't like what I say in a venue 100% separate from
postgres,  I have to subject myself, and waste my time, defending actions
in this (and potentially other groups who would also adopt overly broad
CoC) group.

One of the biggest drivers of plea-bargains for innocent people in the US
justice system is the expense of having to defend yourself. I find that to
be a travesty; why are we duplicating that at a smaller level?

Jim

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:57 PM, James Keener  wrote:

>
>
>> Yes, I believe so. Isn't that what "To that end, we have established
>> this Code of Conduct for community interaction and participation in the
>> project’s work and the community at large." basically says?
>>
>
> No? What's the "community at large"? To me that sounds like "all
> interactions" whether or not they're about postgres.
>

That wording has been in the published draft for 18 months, and noone
objected to it that I'm aware of. There will always be people who don't
like some of the wording, much as there are often people who disagree with
the way a patch to the code is written. Sooner or later though, the general
consensus prevails and we have to move on, otherwise nothing will ever get
completed.

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 09/14/2018 07:51 AM, Dave Page wrote:
If that business is publicly bringing the project into disrepute, or 
harassing other community members and they approach us about it, then 
it becomes our business.






If it's unrelated to PostgreSQL, then it's your personal business
and not something the project would get involved in.


O.k. so this isn't clear (at least to me) within the CoC. I want
to make sure I understand. You are saying that if a community
member posts on Twitter that they believe gays are going to hell,
reporting that to the CoC committee would result in a
non-violation UNLESS they referenced postgresql within the post?


Yes, I believe so. Isn't that what "To that end, we have established 
this Code of Conduct for community interaction and participation in 
the project’s work and the community at large." basically says?


Honestly, no. At least not to me especially when you consider the 
sentence right after that, "This Code is meant to cover all interaction 
between community members, whether or not it takes place within 
postgresql.org infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of 
Conduct that takes precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."


Based on your clarification, I am feeling better but the language 
doesn't read that way to me.


I wish this was easier but have we considered that all channels that we 
would be concerned with already have CoC's and therefore our CoC is 
fairly powerless? Sure they call them Terms of Use but that's what they 
are, Code of Conducts.


Thanks,

JD

--

Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:55 PM, James Keener  wrote:

>
>
> Yes. They can. The people who make the majority of the contributions to
>> the software can decide what happens, because without them there is no
>> software. If you want to spend 20 years of your life
>>
>
> So everyone who moderates this group and that will be part of the CoC
> committee will have had to have dedicated their life of pg?
>
> Sure, they own the servers, they make the rules. I get it. I'm not
> entirely opposed to it, even if I think it's silly to ram something down
> the rest of the groups throats.
>
> Jim
>
> PS: Also, what's with the personal replies? If you don't want to say what
> you want to the whole group, I don't really have an interest in talking to
> you personally.
>

I've had one off-list personal reply in this thread... from you :-p

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

>
> Yes, I believe so. Isn't that what "To that end, we have established this Code
> of Conduct for community interaction and participation in the project’s
> work and the community at large." basically says?
>

No? What's the "community at large"? To me that sounds like "all
interactions" whether or not they're about postgres.

Jim

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

Yes. They can. The people who make the majority of the contributions to the
> software can decide what happens, because without them there is no
> software. If you want to spend 20 years of your life
>

So everyone who moderates this group and that will be part of the CoC
committee will have had to have dedicated their life of pg?

Sure, they own the servers, they make the rules. I get it. I'm not entirely
opposed to it, even if I think it's silly to ram something down the rest of
the groups throats.

Jim

PS: Also, what's with the personal replies? If you don't want to say what
you want to the whole group, I don't really have an interest in talking to
you personally.

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

> To many of us, we absolutely are a community. Remember, there are people
> here who have been around for 20+ years, of which many have become close
> friends, having started working on PostgreSQL as a hobby. We have always
> seen the project as a community of like-minded technologists, and welcome
> others that wish to join, whether just to ask a single question or to hang
> around for the next 20 years. I do see your viewpoint, but I would counter
> that coming here for help (for example) is quite different from calling
> tech support at a vendor.
>

I fail to see how that makes everyone here part of a community anymore than
I'm part of the "community" of regulars at a bar I walk into for the first
time.

As I said, the rules can and should apply within the list, but applying
them outside the list is odd and wreaks of authoritarianism.

Jim

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:43 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
wrote:

> On 09/14/2018 07:36 AM, Dave Page wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:21 PM, James Keener  wrote:
>
>>
>> Now, you may say that (2) would be rejected by the committee, but I would
 counter that it's still a stain on me and something that will forever
 appear
 along side my name in search results and that the amount of time and
 stress it'd take me to defend myself would make my voluntarily leaving
 the community, which would be seen as an admission of guilt, my only
 option.

>>>
>>> If you had read the policy, you would know that wouldn't happen as
>>> reports and details of reports are to be kept confidential.
>>>
>>
>> That doesn't mean I won't be strung along and it doesn't mean that the
>> attacker can't release those details. Remember, I'm worried
>> about politically motivated attacks, and attacks meant to silence
>> opposing viewpoints, not legitimate instances of harassment.
>>
>
> Sure, but an attacker can do that now. Having the CoC doesn't change
> anything there, though it does give us a framework to deal with it.
>
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>

 People are shitheads. People are assholes. We're not agreeing to join
 some organization and sign an ethics clause when signing up for the
 mailing
 list.  The current moderators can already remove bad actors from the
 list.
 How they act outside of the list is non of this list's concern.

>>>
>>> The lists are just one of many different ways people in this community
>>> interact.
>>>
>>
>> So? We interact with people outside of specific groups all the time.
>> Baring specific
>> agreements to the contrary, why should any one group claim responsibility
>> of my
>> personal business?
>>
>
> If that business is publicly bringing the project into disrepute, or
> harassing other community members and they approach us about it, then it
> becomes our business.
>
> If it's unrelated to PostgreSQL, then it's your personal business and not
> something the project would get involved in.
>
>
> O.k. so this isn't clear (at least to me) within the CoC. I want to make
> sure I understand. You are saying that if a community member posts on
> Twitter that they believe gays are going to hell, reporting that to the CoC
> committee would result in a non-violation UNLESS they referenced postgresql
> within the post?
>

Yes, I believe so. Isn't that what "To that end, we have established this Code
of Conduct for community interaction and participation in the project’s
work and the community at large." basically says?

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:41 PM, James Keener  wrote:

> > Community is people who joined it
>
> We're not a "community." We're people using email to get help with or
> discuss technical aspects of PostgreSQL. The types of discussions that
> would normally be held within a "community" would be entirely off-topic
> here.  We should be professional to each other here; we don't need to be
> buddies. There is a clear difference between "professionalism" and
> "community". A document governing interactions on this list is within the
> right of the moderation, but leaking into the "real world" is an
> abomination and perversion of what this group is.
>

To many of us, we absolutely are a community. Remember, there are people
here who have been around for 20+ years, of which many have become close
friends, having started working on PostgreSQL as a hobby. We have always
seen the project as a community of like-minded technologists, and welcome
others that wish to join, whether just to ask a single question or to hang
around for the next 20 years. I do see your viewpoint, but I would counter
that coming here for help (for example) is quite different from calling
tech support at a vendor.


>
> My church group is 100% within their right to kick me out of teaching
> Sunday School if I were to have an affair. Teaching Sunday School is an act
> taking place as part of a community of people with a shared belief and
> culture. My job would 100% not be within their right to fire me for having
> an affair, as it's not a community, but a professional environment and my
> personal life is just that: personal. (Baring an ethics clauses signed when
> joining, I guess?)
>

> Jim
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM, Ilya Kosmodemiansky 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 14. Sep 2018, at 16:17, Dave Page  wrote:
>>
>>
>> The lists are just one of many different ways people in this community
>> interact.
>>
>>
>> I could only heavily +1 this. I can get from where comes the idea that
>> community is only what happens just on postgresql.org or just on some
>> other channel community uses. Community is people who joined it and CoC
>> supposed to apply even if people use analogue telephones. This is about
>> communication, not about communication channels.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dave Page
>> Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
>> Twitter: @pgsnake
>>
>> EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
>> The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
>>
>>
>


-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:37 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
wrote:

> On 09/14/2018 07:14 AM, Dave Page wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:08 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
> wrote:
>
>> On 09/14/2018 01:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>>
>>
>> I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been moving.
>>> The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
>>> the comments in this thread; see
>>>
>>> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>>>
>>> (That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
>>> history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
>>>
>>
>> I really have to object to this addition:
>> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
>> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so
>> long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as
>> a conference's Code of Conduct)."
>>
>> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
>> controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is
>> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
>> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
>> politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for
>> example, what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to
>> encourage use of this to silence political controversies unrelated to
>> PostgreSQL.
>>
>>
>> I think this is a complicated issue. On the one hand, postgresql.org has
>> no business telling people how to act outside of postgresql.org. Full
>> stop.
>>
>
> I'm going to regret jumping in here, but...
>
> I disagree. If a community member decides to join forums for other
> software and then strongly promotes PostgreSQL to the point that they
> become abusive or offensive to people making other software choices, then
> they are clearly bringing the project into disrepute and we should have
> every right to sanction them by preventing them participating in our
> project in whatever ways are deemed appropriate.
>
>
> We all know that PostgreSQL is the only database we should use and anybody
> using a different one just hasn't been enlightened yet. :P
>
> I think we need to define community member. I absolutely see your point of
> the individual is a contributor but community member is rather ethereal in
> this context don't you think?
>

There are some fuzzy edges I guess (e.g. Slack), but in my mind it's always
been anyone who participates in any of the projects communications channels.


-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

> Community is people who joined it

We're not a "community." We're people using email to get help with or
discuss technical aspects of PostgreSQL. The types of discussions that
would normally be held within a "community" would be entirely off-topic
here.  We should be professional to each other here; we don't need to be
buddies. There is a clear difference between "professionalism" and
"community". A document governing interactions on this list is within the
right of the moderation, but leaking into the "real world" is an
abomination and perversion of what this group is.

My church group is 100% within their right to kick me out of teaching
Sunday School if I were to have an affair. Teaching Sunday School is an act
taking place as part of a community of people with a shared belief and
culture. My job would 100% not be within their right to fire me for having
an affair, as it's not a community, but a professional environment and my
personal life is just that: personal. (Baring an ethics clauses signed when
joining, I guess?)

Jim


On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM, Ilya Kosmodemiansky 
wrote:

>
>
> On 14. Sep 2018, at 16:17, Dave Page  wrote:
>
>
> The lists are just one of many different ways people in this community
> interact.
>
>
> I could only heavily +1 this. I can get from where comes the idea that
> community is only what happens just on postgresql.org or just on some
> other channel community uses. Community is people who joined it and CoC
> supposed to apply even if people use analogue telephones. This is about
> communication, not about communication channels.
>
>
>
> --
> Dave Page
> Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
> Twitter: @pgsnake
>
> EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
> The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
>
>

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 09/14/2018 07:14 AM, Dave Page wrote:



On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:08 PM, Joshua D. Drake > wrote:


On 09/14/2018 01:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:


I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all
been moving.
The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft
CoC based on
the comments in this thread; see

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct


(That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on
the page
history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)


I really have to object to this addition:
"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community
members, whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org
 infrastructure, so long as there is not
another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a
conference's Code of Conduct)."

That covers things like public twitter messages over live
political controversies which might not be personally directed.  
At least if one is going to go that route, one ought to *also*
include a safe harbor for non-personally-directed discussions of
philosophy, social issues, and politics. Otherwise, I think this
is asking for trouble.  See, for example, what happened with
Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage use of this to
silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.


I think this is a complicated issue. On the one hand,
postgresql.org  has no business telling
people how to act outside of postgresql.org
. Full stop.


I'm going to regret jumping in here, but...

I disagree. If a community member decides to join forums for other 
software and then strongly promotes PostgreSQL to the point that they 
become abusive or offensive to people making other software choices, 
then they are clearly bringing the project into disrepute and we 
should have every right to sanction them by preventing them 
participating in our project in whatever ways are deemed appropriate.


We all know that PostgreSQL is the only database we should use and 
anybody using a different one just hasn't been enlightened yet. :P


I think we need to define community member. I absolutely see your point 
of the individual is a contributor but community member is rather 
ethereal in this context don't you think?


JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:08 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
wrote:

> On 09/14/2018 01:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>
>
> I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been moving.
>> The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
>> the comments in this thread; see
>>
>> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>>
>> (That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
>> history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
>>
>
> I really have to object to this addition:
> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so
> long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as
> a conference's Code of Conduct)."
>
> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
> controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is
> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
> politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for
> example, what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to
> encourage use of this to silence political controversies unrelated to
> PostgreSQL.
>
>
> I think this is a complicated issue. On the one hand, postgresql.org has
> no business telling people how to act outside of postgresql.org. Full
> stop.
>

I'm going to regret jumping in here, but...

I disagree. If a community member decides to join forums for other software
and then strongly promotes PostgreSQL to the point that they become abusive
or offensive to people making other software choices, then they are clearly
bringing the project into disrepute and we should have every right to
sanction them by preventing them participating in our project in whatever
ways are deemed appropriate.

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:21 PM, James Keener  wrote:

>
> Now, you may say that (2) would be rejected by the committee, but I would
>>> counter that it's still a stain on me and something that will forever
>>> appear
>>> along side my name in search results and that the amount of time and
>>> stress it'd take me to defend myself would make my voluntarily leaving
>>> the community, which would be seen as an admission of guilt, my only
>>> option.
>>>
>>
>> If you had read the policy, you would know that wouldn't happen as
>> reports and details of reports are to be kept confidential.
>>
>
> That doesn't mean I won't be strung along and it doesn't mean that the
> attacker can't release those details. Remember, I'm worried
> about politically motivated attacks, and attacks meant to silence opposing
> viewpoints, not legitimate instances of harassment.
>

Sure, but an attacker can do that now. Having the CoC doesn't change
anything there, though it does give us a framework to deal with it.


>
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> People are shitheads. People are assholes. We're not agreeing to join
>>> some organization and sign an ethics clause when signing up for the
>>> mailing
>>> list.  The current moderators can already remove bad actors from the
>>> list.
>>> How they act outside of the list is non of this list's concern.
>>>
>>
>> The lists are just one of many different ways people in this community
>> interact.
>>
>
> So? We interact with people outside of specific groups all the time.
> Baring specific
> agreements to the contrary, why should any one group claim responsibility
> of my
> personal business?
>

If that business is publicly bringing the project into disrepute, or
harassing other community members and they approach us about it, then it
becomes our business.

If it's unrelated to PostgreSQL, then it's your personal business and not
something the project would get involved in.

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Ilya Kosmodemiansky]

> On 14. Sep 2018, at 16:17, Dave Page  wrote:
> 
> 
> The lists are just one of many different ways people in this community 
> interact.

I could only heavily +1 this. I can get from where comes the idea that 
community is only what happens just on postgresql.org or just on some other 
channel community uses. Community is people who joined it and CoC supposed to 
apply even if people use analogue telephones. This is about communication, not 
about communication channels. 


> 
> -- 
> Dave Page
> Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
> Twitter: @pgsnake
> 
> EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
> The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Adrian Klaver]

On 9/14/18 7:19 AM, Dave Page wrote:







No one is tracking anything as part of the CoC. That's nothing but a 
straw man argument.


Not buying it or the below is null and void:

"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members, 
whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so 
long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such 
as a conference's Code of Conduct)."


Not sure how the above can be enforced without someone reporting on what 
is said outside the 'postgresql.org infrastructure'?


At any rate, whether I like it or not the CoC is here to stay. I just 
feel a dissenting opinion is important to the conversation.




--
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company



--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

> Now, you may say that (2) would be rejected by the committee, but I would
>> counter that it's still a stain on me and something that will forever
>> appear
>> along side my name in search results and that the amount of time and
>> stress it'd take me to defend myself would make my voluntarily leaving
>> the community, which would be seen as an admission of guilt, my only
>> option.
>>
>
> If you had read the policy, you would know that wouldn't happen as reports
> and details of reports are to be kept confidential.
>

That doesn't mean I won't be strung along and it doesn't mean that the
attacker can't release those details. Remember, I'm worried
about politically motivated attacks, and attacks meant to silence opposing
viewpoints, not legitimate instances of harassment.


>
>
>>
>> People are shitheads. People are assholes. We're not agreeing to join
>> some organization and sign an ethics clause when signing up for the
>> mailing
>> list.  The current moderators can already remove bad actors from the list.
>> How they act outside of the list is non of this list's concern.
>>
>
> The lists are just one of many different ways people in this community
> interact.
>

So? We interact with people outside of specific groups all the time. Baring
specific
agreements to the contrary, why should any one group claim responsibility
of my
personal business?

Jim

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:13 PM, Adrian Klaver 
wrote:

> On 9/14/18 6:59 AM, Robert Eckhardt wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 9:41 AM, Adrian Klaver
>>  wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/14/18 1:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>>>
>>
>
 I really have to object to this addition:
 "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
 whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org <
 http://postgresql.org>
 infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of Conduct that
 takes
 precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."

>>>
>>>
>>> I second that objection. It is not in PGDG's remit to cure the world, for
>>> whatever form of cure you ascribe to. This is especially true as
>>> 'community
>>> member' has no strict definition.
>>>
>>
>> I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen
>> it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
>> moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
>> people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.
>>
>> these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
>> at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
>> we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
>> vitriol.
>>
>
> Ask yourself, if this was a government agency tracking your speech across
> platforms would you be as approving? Personally I find the whole thing
> creepy.


No one is tracking anything as part of the CoC. That's nothing but a straw
man argument.

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Dave Page]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 3:10 PM, James Keener  wrote:

> I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen
>
>> it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
>> moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
>> people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.
>>
>> these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
>> at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
>> we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
>> vitriol.
>>
>
> You haven't established that this is both 1) the PG mailing list's problem
> and that 2) this can't and won't be used to retaliate against those holding
> unpopular viewpoints but aren't specifically harassing anyone.
>
> Now, you may say that (2) would be rejected by the committee, but I would
> counter that it's still a stain on me and something that will forever
> appear
> along side my name in search results and that the amount of time and
> stress it'd take me to defend myself would make my voluntarily leaving
> the community, which would be seen as an admission of guilt, my only
> option.
>

If you had read the policy, you would know that wouldn't happen as reports
and details of reports are to be kept confidential.


>
> People are shitheads. People are assholes. We're not agreeing to join
> some organization and sign an ethics clause when signing up for the mailing
> list.  The current moderators can already remove bad actors from the list.
> How they act outside of the list is non of this list's concern.
>

The lists are just one of many different ways people in this community
interact.

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Geoff Winkless]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 at 15:10, James Keener  wrote:

> I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen
>
>> it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
>> moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
>> people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.
>>
>> these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
>> at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
>> we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
>> vitriol.
>>
>
> You haven't established that this is both 1) the PG mailing list's problem
> and that 2) this can't and won't be used to retaliate against those holding
> unpopular viewpoints but aren't specifically harassing anyone.
>

This argument (whether or not PostgreSQL should have a CoC) was hashed out
pretty heavily a year ago. In my opinion it wasn't really clear that any
one side or another won the argument but the people who matter came down on
the side of having one. It's pretty unlikely that re-running these
arguments is going to make those people change their minds.

Certainly posting obscenities to these open forums isn't going to do it,
however strongly you might feel about it.

Geoff

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Adrian Klaver]

On 9/14/18 6:59 AM, Robert Eckhardt wrote:

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 9:41 AM, Adrian Klaver
 wrote:

On 9/14/18 1:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:




I really have to object to this addition:
"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org 
infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes
precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."



I second that objection. It is not in PGDG's remit to cure the world, for
whatever form of cure you ascribe to. This is especially true as 'community
member' has no strict definition.


I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen
it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.

these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
vitriol.


Ask yourself, if this was a government agency tracking your speech 
across platforms would you be as approving? Personally I find the whole 
thing creepy.




My $0.02
-- Rob Eckhardt




Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com






--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen

> it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
> moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
> people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.
>
> these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
> at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
> we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
> vitriol.
>

You haven't established that this is both 1) the PG mailing list's problem
and that 2) this can't and won't be used to retaliate against those holding
unpopular viewpoints but aren't specifically harassing anyone.

Now, you may say that (2) would be rejected by the committee, but I would
counter that it's still a stain on me and something that will forever appear
along side my name in search results and that the amount of time and
stress it'd take me to defend myself would make my voluntarily leaving
the community, which would be seen as an admission of guilt, my only
option.

People are shitheads. People are assholes. We're not agreeing to join
some organization and sign an ethics clause when signing up for the mailing
list.  The current moderators can already remove bad actors from the list.
How they act outside of the list is non of this list's concern.

Conferences are free to hold their own CoC because you explicitly agree to
it when you purchase a ticket, and it's governing interactions at the
conference
(or should only be governing actions at the conference.)

Jim

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 09/14/2018 01:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:


I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been
moving.
The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC
based on
the comments in this thread; see

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

(That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)


I really have to object to this addition:
"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community 
members, whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org 
 infrastructure, so long as there is not 
another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a conference's 
Code of Conduct)."


That covers things like public twitter messages over live political 
controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if 
one is going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe 
harbor for non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social 
issues, and politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  
See, for example, what happened with Opalgate and how this could be 
seen to encourage use of this to silence political controversies 
unrelated to PostgreSQL.


I think this is a complicated issue. On the one hand, postgresql.org has 
no business telling people how to act outside of postgresql.org. Full stop.


On the other hand if you are (note: contributor, not community member 
which is different) contributor to PostgreSQL, your actions speak about 
PostgreSQL. So I am not sure what a good plan of action here would be.


One area where this is going to cause a lot of issues is within the 
social constructs of the micro-communities. Are we going to ban Chinese 
members because their government is anti Christian and anti Muslim? Are 
we going to ban members of countries that are not as progressive 
thinking about LGBT rights? Are we going to tell evangelical Christians 
or devout Muslims that they are unwelcome because they are against Gay 
marriage? Are we going to ban Atheists because they think Christians are 
fools?


I think the answer would be, "no" unless they post an opinion... Is that 
really what our community is becoming, thought police?


There was a time when Open Source was about code and community. It is 
clear that it is becoming about authority and politics.


I am the individual that initiated this whole process many moons ago 
with the intent that we have a simple, "be excellent to each other" code 
of conduct. What we have now (although much better than previous drafts) 
is still an over reach.


tl;dr; The willingness of people to think they are right is only 
exceeded by their willingness to oppress those they don't agree with.



JD
--

Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
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Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Robert Eckhardt]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 9:41 AM, Adrian Klaver
 wrote:
> On 9/14/18 1:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 10:53 PM Tom Lane > > wrote:
>>
>> I wrote:
>>  > Stephen Frost mailto:sfr...@snowman.net>>
>> writes:
>>  >> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update
>> on when
>>  >> this will be moving forward?
>>  >> Or did I miss something?
>>
>>  > Nope, you didn't.  Folks have been on holiday which made it hard
>> to keep
>>  > forward progress going, particularly with respect to selecting
>> the initial
>>  > committee members.  Now that Magnus is back on shore, I hope we can
>>  > wrap it up quickly --- say by the end of August.
>>
>> I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been
>> moving.
>> The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based
>> on
>> the comments in this thread; see
>>
>> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>>
>> (That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
>> history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
>>
>>
>> I really have to object to this addition:
>> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
>> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org 
>> infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes
>> precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."
>
>
> I second that objection. It is not in PGDG's remit to cure the world, for
> whatever form of cure you ascribe to. This is especially true as 'community
> member' has no strict definition.

I understand the concern, however, if you look at how attacks happen
it is frequently through other sites. Specifically under/poorly
moderated sites. For specific examples, people who have issues with
people on Quora will frequently go after them on Facebook and Twitter.

these aren't a solution looking for a problem. If we just want to look
at the clusterfuck that is happening in the reddis community right now
we can see conversations spilling onto twitter and into ad hominem
vitriol.

My $0.02
-- Rob Eckhardt

>
>
>>
>> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
>> controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is
>> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
>> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
>> politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for example,
>> what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage use of
>> this to silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.
>>
>>
>> I think we are about ready to announce the initial membership of the
>> CoC committee, as well, but that should be a separate post.
>>
>>  regards, tom lane
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Best Wishes,
>> Chris Travers
>>
>> Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
>> lock-in.
>> http://www.efficito.com/learn_more
>
>
>
> --
> Adrian Klaver
> adrian.kla...@aklaver.com
>

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Adrian Klaver]

On 9/14/18 1:31 AM, Chris Travers wrote:



On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 10:53 PM Tom Lane > wrote:


I wrote:
 > Stephen Frost mailto:sfr...@snowman.net>>
writes:
 >> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update
on when
 >> this will be moving forward?
 >> Or did I miss something?

 > Nope, you didn't.  Folks have been on holiday which made it hard
to keep
 > forward progress going, particularly with respect to selecting
the initial
 > committee members.  Now that Magnus is back on shore, I hope we can
 > wrap it up quickly --- say by the end of August.

I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been
moving.
The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
the comments in this thread; see

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

(That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)


I really have to object to this addition:
"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members, 
whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org 
 infrastructure, so long as there is not another 
Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a conference's Code of 
Conduct)."


I second that objection. It is not in PGDG's remit to cure the world, 
for whatever form of cure you ascribe to. This is especially true as 
'community member' has no strict definition.




That covers things like public twitter messages over live political 
controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one 
is going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for 
non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and 
politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for 
example, what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to 
encourage use of this to silence political controversies unrelated to 
PostgreSQL.



I think we are about ready to announce the initial membership of the
CoC committee, as well, but that should be a separate post.

                         regards, tom lane



--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor 
lock-in.

http://www.efficito.com/learn_more



--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Martin Mueller]

I have followed this list for a couple of years, have benefited several times 
from quick and helpful advice,  and wonder whether all this code of conduct 
stuff is a solution in search of a problem. Or, if there is a problem now and 
then, whether an elaborate code does a better job than reminding offenders that 
they’ve crossed a line marked by common decency or common courtesy. I think a 
list manager should have the right to expel repeat offenders. I doubt whether 
‘proceduralizing’ offences against common decency or common courtesy makes it 
easier to police what is always a tricky boundary.

It is possible to spend a lot of time and energy designing bureaucratic 
solution that in the end does little good.  My grandchildren were taught that 
“please and thank you sound so nice  manners are important, be polite” sung 
to the tune of Frère Jacques. They don’t always remember it,  but a longer poem 
wouldn’t help.


From: James Keener 
Date: Friday, September 14, 2018 at 7:52 AM
To: "pgsql-gene...@lists.postgresql.org" , 
Chris Travers , "i...@dataegret.com" 

Cc: Tom Lane , Stephen Frost , 
"pgsql-generallists.postgresql.org" , 
"pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org" , 
"pgsql-advoc...@lists.postgresql.org" 
Subject: Re: Code of Conduct plan

I find a lot of neo-con/trumpian political stances moronic, short-sighted, and 
anti-intellectual and therefore consider them offensive, an affront on my way 
of life, and a stain on my country.

1) Can I report anyone holding such views and discussing them on a 3rd party 
forum?

2) Could I be reported for saying the above on a 3rd party forum?

Obviously the pg mailing list isn't a place for such discussion, but is being a 
member of this community a deal with the devil to give up my right to free 
speech elsewhere?

Jim
On September 14, 2018 6:10:47 AM EDT, Chris Travers  
wrote:

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:45 AM Ilya Kosmodemiansky 
mailto:i...@dataegret.com>> wrote:
On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM, Chris Travers 
mailto:chris.trav...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> I really have to object to this addition:
> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
> whether or not it takes place within 
> postgresql.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__postgresql.org=DwMFaQ=yHlS04HhBraes5BQ9ueu5zKhE7rtNXt_d012z2PA6ws=rG8zxOdssqSzDRz4x1GLlmLOW60xyVXydxwnJZpkxbk=BYjxekkm1qd5vvRFXRtzSk35tzn2FgzBWbZZf_O53G4=2J5h4ShLpyZtHe5CYuBvsEKDxkSxUtzXxffWGDSpOB8=>
>  infrastructure, so long
> as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a
> conference's Code of Conduct)."
>
> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
> controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is
> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
> politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for example,
> what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage use of
> this to silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.

I think, this point has nothing to do with _correct_ discussions or
public tweets.

If one community member tweets publicly and in a way which abuses
other community members, it is obvious CoC violation. It is hard to
imagine healthy community if someone interacts with others  correctly
on the list or at a conference because the CoC stops him doing things
which he will do on private capacity to the same people when CoC
doesnt apply.

If someone reports CoC violation just because other community member's
_correct_ public tweet or whatsoever  expressed different
political/philosophical/religious views, this is a quite different
story. I suppose CoC committee and/or Core team in this case should
explain the reporter the purpose of CoC rather than automatically
enforce it.

So first, I think what the clause is trying to do is address cases where 
harassment targeting a particular community member takes place outside the 
infrastructure and frankly ensuring that the code of conduct applies in these 
cases is important and something I agree with.

However, let's look at problem cases:

"I am enough of a Marxist to see gender as a qualitative relationship to 
biological reproduction and maybe economic production too."

I can totally imagine someone arguing that such a tweet might be abusive, and 
certainly not "correct."

Or consider:

"The effort to push GLBT rights on family-business economies is nothing more 
than an effort at corporate neocolonialism."

Which would make the problem more clear.  Whether or not a comment like that 
occurring outside 
postgresql.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__postgresql.org=DwMFaQ=yHlS04HhBraes5BQ9ueu5zKhE7rtNXt_d012z2PA6ws=rG8zxOdssqSzD

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[James Keener]

I find a lot of neo-con/trumpian political stances moronic, short-sighted, and 
anti-intellectual and therefore consider them offensive, an affront on my way 
of life, and a stain on my country.

1) Can I report anyone holding such views and discussing them on a 3rd party 
forum? 

2) Could I be reported for saying the above on a 3rd party forum? 

Obviously the pg mailing list isn't a place for such discussion, but is being a 
member of this community a deal with the devil to give up my right to free 
speech elsewhere?

Jim

On September 14, 2018 6:10:47 AM EDT, Chris Travers  
wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:45 AM Ilya Kosmodemiansky 
>wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM, Chris Travers
>
>> wrote:
>> > I really have to object to this addition:
>> > "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community
>members,
>> > whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure,
>so
>> long
>> > as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such
>as a
>> > conference's Code of Conduct)."
>> >
>> > That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
>> > controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if
>one
>> is
>> > going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor
>for
>> > non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues,
>and
>> > politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for
>> example,
>> > what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage
>use
>> of
>> > this to silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.
>>
>> I think, this point has nothing to do with _correct_ discussions or
>> public tweets.
>>
>> If one community member tweets publicly and in a way which abuses
>> other community members, it is obvious CoC violation. It is hard to
>> imagine healthy community if someone interacts with others  correctly
>> on the list or at a conference because the CoC stops him doing things
>> which he will do on private capacity to the same people when CoC
>> doesnt apply.
>>
>> If someone reports CoC violation just because other community
>member's
>> _correct_ public tweet or whatsoever  expressed different
>> political/philosophical/religious views, this is a quite different
>> story. I suppose CoC committee and/or Core team in this case should
>> explain the reporter the purpose of CoC rather than automatically
>> enforce it.
>>
>
>So first, I think what the clause is trying to do is address cases
>where
>harassment targeting a particular community member takes place outside
>the
>infrastructure and frankly ensuring that the code of conduct applies in
>these cases is important and something I agree with.
>
>However, let's look at problem cases:
>
>"I am enough of a Marxist to see gender as a qualitative relationship
>to
>biological reproduction and maybe economic production too."
>
>I can totally imagine someone arguing that such a tweet might be
>abusive,
>and certainly not "correct."
>
>Or consider:
>
>"The effort to push GLBT rights on family-business economies is nothing
>more than an effort at corporate neocolonialism."
>
>Which would make the problem more clear.  Whether or not a comment like
>that occurring outside postgresql.org infrastructure would be
>considered
>"correct" or "abusive" is ultimately a political decision and something
>which, once that fight is picked, has no reasonable solution in an
>international and cross-cultural product (where issues like sexuality,
>economics, and how gender and individualism intersect will vary
>dramatically across members around the world).  There are people who
>will
>assume that both of the above statements are personally offensive and
>attacks on the basis of gender identity even if they are critiques of
>political agendas severable from that.  Worse, the sense of attack
>themselves could be seen as attacks on culture or religions of other
>participants.
>
>Now neither of these comments would be tolerated as viewpoints
>expressed on
>PostgreSQL.org email lists because they are off-topic, but once one
>expands
>the code of conduct in this way they become fair game.  Given the way
>culture war issues are shaping up particularly in the US, I think one
>has
>to be very careful not to set an expectation that this applies to
>literally
>everything that anyone does anywhere.
>
>So maybe something more like:
>
>"Conduct that occurs outside the postgresql.org infrastructure is not
>automatically excluded from enforcement of this code of conduct.  In
>particular if other parties are unable to act, and if it is, on
>balance, in
>the interest of the global community to apply the code of conduct, then
>the
>code of conduct shall apply."
>
>>
>> > --
>> > Best Wishes,
>> > Chris Travers
>> >
>> > Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No
>vendor
>> > lock-in.
>> > http://www.efficito.com/learn_more
>>
>
>
>-- 
>Best Wishes,
>Chris Travers
>
>Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Damir Colak]

Please take me off this list.


> On Sep 14, 2018, at 05:31, Chris Travers  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 10:53 PM Tom Lane  > wrote:
> I wrote:
> > Stephen Frost mailto:sfr...@snowman.net>> writes:
> >> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update on when
> >> this will be moving forward?
> >> Or did I miss something?
> 
> > Nope, you didn't.  Folks have been on holiday which made it hard to keep
> > forward progress going, particularly with respect to selecting the initial
> > committee members.  Now that Magnus is back on shore, I hope we can
> > wrap it up quickly --- say by the end of August.
> 
> I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been moving.
> The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
> the comments in this thread; see
> 
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct 
> 
> 
> (That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
> history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
> 
> I really have to object to this addition:
> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members, 
> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org  
> infrastructure, so long as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes 
> precedence (such as a conference's Code of Conduct)."
> 
> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political 
> controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is 
> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for 
> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and 
> politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for example, 
> what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage use of 
> this to silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.
> 
> I think we are about ready to announce the initial membership of the
> CoC committee, as well, but that should be a separate post.
> 
> regards, tom lane
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Best Wishes,
> Chris Travers
> 
> Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor 
> lock-in.
> http://www.efficito.com/learn_more 

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Ilya Kosmodemiansky]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM, Chris Travers  wrote:
> I really have to object to this addition:
> "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
> whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so long
> as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a
> conference's Code of Conduct)."
>
> That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
> controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is
> going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
> non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
> politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for example,
> what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage use of
> this to silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.

I think, this point has nothing to do with _correct_ discussions or
public tweets.

If one community member tweets publicly and in a way which abuses
other community members, it is obvious CoC violation. It is hard to
imagine healthy community if someone interacts with others  correctly
on the list or at a conference because the CoC stops him doing things
which he will do on private capacity to the same people when CoC
doesnt apply.

If someone reports CoC violation just because other community member's
_correct_ public tweet or whatsoever  expressed different
political/philosophical/religious views, this is a quite different
story. I suppose CoC committee and/or Core team in this case should
explain the reporter the purpose of CoC rather than automatically
enforce it.

> --
> Best Wishes,
> Chris Travers
>
> Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
> lock-in.
> http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Chris Travers]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:45 AM Ilya Kosmodemiansky 
wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM, Chris Travers 
> wrote:
> > I really have to object to this addition:
> > "This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
> > whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so
> long
> > as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a
> > conference's Code of Conduct)."
> >
> > That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
> > controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one
> is
> > going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
> > non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
> > politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for
> example,
> > what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to encourage use
> of
> > this to silence political controversies unrelated to PostgreSQL.
>
> I think, this point has nothing to do with _correct_ discussions or
> public tweets.
>
> If one community member tweets publicly and in a way which abuses
> other community members, it is obvious CoC violation. It is hard to
> imagine healthy community if someone interacts with others  correctly
> on the list or at a conference because the CoC stops him doing things
> which he will do on private capacity to the same people when CoC
> doesnt apply.
>
> If someone reports CoC violation just because other community member's
> _correct_ public tweet or whatsoever  expressed different
> political/philosophical/religious views, this is a quite different
> story. I suppose CoC committee and/or Core team in this case should
> explain the reporter the purpose of CoC rather than automatically
> enforce it.
>

So first, I think what the clause is trying to do is address cases where
harassment targeting a particular community member takes place outside the
infrastructure and frankly ensuring that the code of conduct applies in
these cases is important and something I agree with.

However, let's look at problem cases:

"I am enough of a Marxist to see gender as a qualitative relationship to
biological reproduction and maybe economic production too."

I can totally imagine someone arguing that such a tweet might be abusive,
and certainly not "correct."

Or consider:

"The effort to push GLBT rights on family-business economies is nothing
more than an effort at corporate neocolonialism."

Which would make the problem more clear.  Whether or not a comment like
that occurring outside postgresql.org infrastructure would be considered
"correct" or "abusive" is ultimately a political decision and something
which, once that fight is picked, has no reasonable solution in an
international and cross-cultural product (where issues like sexuality,
economics, and how gender and individualism intersect will vary
dramatically across members around the world).  There are people who will
assume that both of the above statements are personally offensive and
attacks on the basis of gender identity even if they are critiques of
political agendas severable from that.  Worse, the sense of attack
themselves could be seen as attacks on culture or religions of other
participants.

Now neither of these comments would be tolerated as viewpoints expressed on
PostgreSQL.org email lists because they are off-topic, but once one expands
the code of conduct in this way they become fair game.  Given the way
culture war issues are shaping up particularly in the US, I think one has
to be very careful not to set an expectation that this applies to literally
everything that anyone does anywhere.

So maybe something more like:

"Conduct that occurs outside the postgresql.org infrastructure is not
automatically excluded from enforcement of this code of conduct.  In
particular if other parties are unable to act, and if it is, on balance, in
the interest of the global community to apply the code of conduct, then the
code of conduct shall apply."

>
> > --
> > Best Wishes,
> > Chris Travers
> >
> > Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
> > lock-in.
> > http://www.efficito.com/learn_more
>


-- 
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Chris Travers]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 10:53 PM Tom Lane  wrote:

> I wrote:
> > Stephen Frost  writes:
> >> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update on when
> >> this will be moving forward?
> >> Or did I miss something?
>
> > Nope, you didn't.  Folks have been on holiday which made it hard to keep
> > forward progress going, particularly with respect to selecting the
> initial
> > committee members.  Now that Magnus is back on shore, I hope we can
> > wrap it up quickly --- say by the end of August.
>
> I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been moving.
> The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
> the comments in this thread; see
>
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
>
> (That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
> history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)
>

I really have to object to this addition:
"This Code is meant to cover all interaction between community members,
whether or not it takes place within postgresql.org infrastructure, so long
as there is not another Code of Conduct that takes precedence (such as a
conference's Code of Conduct)."

That covers things like public twitter messages over live political
controversies which might not be personally directed.   At least if one is
going to go that route, one ought to *also* include a safe harbor for
non-personally-directed discussions of philosophy, social issues, and
politics.  Otherwise, I think this is asking for trouble.  See, for
example, what happened with Opalgate and how this could be seen to
encourage use of this to silence political controversies unrelated to
PostgreSQL.

>
> I think we are about ready to announce the initial membership of the
> CoC committee, as well, but that should be a separate post.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
>

-- 
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
lock-in.
http://www.efficito.com/learn_more

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Tom Lane]

I wrote:
> Stephen Frost  writes:
>> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update on when
>> this will be moving forward?
>> Or did I miss something?

> Nope, you didn't.  Folks have been on holiday which made it hard to keep
> forward progress going, particularly with respect to selecting the initial
> committee members.  Now that Magnus is back on shore, I hope we can
> wrap it up quickly --- say by the end of August.

I apologize for the glacial slowness with which this has all been moving.
The core team has now agreed to some revisions to the draft CoC based on
the comments in this thread; see

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

(That's the updated text, but you can use the diff tool on the page
history tab to see the changes from the previous draft.)

I think we are about ready to announce the initial membership of the
CoC committee, as well, but that should be a separate post.

regards, tom lane

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Stephen Frost]

Greetings,

* Tom Lane (t...@sss.pgh.pa.us) wrote:
> Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a result
> of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
> July 1 2018.

We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update on when
this will be moving forward?

Or did I miss something?

Thanks!

Stephen


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Tom Lane]

Stephen Frost  writes:
> * Tom Lane (t...@sss.pgh.pa.us) wrote:
>> Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a result
>> of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
>> July 1 2018.

> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update on when
> this will be moving forward?

> Or did I miss something?

Nope, you didn't.  Folks have been on holiday which made it hard to keep
forward progress going, particularly with respect to selecting the initial
committee members.  Now that Magnus is back on shore, I hope we can
wrap it up quickly --- say by the end of August.

regards, tom lane

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Bruce Momjian]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 03:22:10PM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> * Tom Lane (t...@sss.pgh.pa.us) wrote:
> > Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a result
> > of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
> > July 1 2018.
> 
> We seem to be a bit past that timeline...  Do we have any update on when
> this will be moving forward?
> 
> Or did I miss something?

Are we waiting for the conference community guidlines to be solidified?

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ As you are, so once was I.  As I am, so you will be. +
+  Ancient Roman grave inscription +

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Isaac Morland]

On 5 June 2018 at 17:34, Ozz Nixon  wrote:

> Sorry...
>
> > 1) CoC might result in developers leaving projects
>
>
> I know this on going regurgitation is going to cause my team to
> leave the project, right around 100 posts on this off topic topic it
> was bad enough when the original idea came up (2 years ago I think). It
> used to be exciting to sit back and review the day or weeks posts... not
> much anymore.
>

With all due respect, it is completely unreasonable to quit just because
there has been some discussion of the rules for co-existing within the
project. The intent of codes of conduct is usually supposed to be to make
it clear that bullying and harassment are not permitted, something that is
not always clear to everybody. That doesn't mean that any particular
position on them is required, only that discussion of them is definitely
*not* off topic. In any event, if you aren't interested in a thread, you
can easily mute it. Personally, I have about 95% of pgsql-hackers muted,
because I simply don't have time to be interested in every topic that is
discussed, and I suspect many subscribers are similar. If somebody is so
sensitive to even being aware of a discussion of the issue that they feel
they have to leave, then I would expect them to leave at some point anyway
due to becoming offended by some trivial matter that nobody else would even
notice.

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Christophe Pettus]

> On Jun 5, 2018, at 15:20, Peter Geoghegan  wrote:
> I don't follow. Practically any organized group has rules around
> conduct, with varying degrees of formality, means of enforcement, etc.

I believe the objection is to setting up a separate CoC committee, rather than 
using the core team as the enforcement mechanism.

This is more important than may be obvious.  Having a separation of the CoC 
committee and the organization that sets up and supervises the CoC committee is 
very important to prevent the perception, or the fact, that the CoC enforcement 
mechanism is a Star Chamber that is answerable only to itself.  It also allows 
for an appeal mechanism.

--
-- Christophe Pettus
   x...@thebuild.com

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Peter Geoghegan]

On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 2:06 PM, Sven R. Kunze  wrote:
> 1) CoC might result in developers leaving projects
> http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2018-May/122922.html

This guy left LLVM for several reasons. The pertinent reason for us
was that he had to agree to a code of conduct in order to attend
conferences, which he found to be unacceptable. He did not have to
agree that the idea of a code of conduct was a good one, though. It
would have been perfectly possible for him to be opposed in principle
to the idea of a CoC, while also formally agreeing to it and attending
those conferences. I gather that his objections were around questions
of unintended consequences, the role of a certain authority to assess
violations of the CoC, and so on (I surmise that he was not actually
opposed to or constrained by any of the specific rules around content
in technical presentations and so on).

I for one accept that these may have been reasonable concerns, even
though I don't really agree, since the LLVM CoC seems quite
reasonable. Anybody that participates in an open source community soon
learns that their opinion on almost any matter may not be the one that
prevails. There are often differences of opinion on -hackers that seem
to fundamentally be down to a difference in values. We still manage to
make it work, somehow.

> 2) CoC might result in not so equal peers and friends, might result in a
> committee which feels above their peers, and might promote conceit and
> denunciation.

I think that having a code of conduct is better than not having one,
and I think that the one that we came up with is appropriate and
proportionate. We could speculate all day about specific unintended
consequences that may or may not follow. That doesn't seem very
constructive, though. Besides, the time for that has passed.

> In related discussions, people recurringly ask not to establish a secondary
> judicial system but to use the already existing ones.

I don't follow. Practically any organized group has rules around
conduct, with varying degrees of formality, means of enforcement, etc.
Naturally, the rules across disparate groups vary widely for all kinds
of reasons. Formalizing and being more transparent about how this
works seems like the opposite of paternalism to me.

-- 
Peter Geoghegan

RE: Code of Conduct plan

[Ozz Nixon]

Sorry...

> 1) CoC might result in developers leaving projects


I know this on going regurgitation is going to cause my team to leave 
the project, right around 100 posts on this off topic topic it was bad 
enough when the original idea came up (2 years ago I think). It used to be 
exciting to sit back and review the day or weeks posts... not much anymore.

Regards,
Ozz

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Sven R. Kunze]

Hi PostgreSQL Community,

some points I like to make mainly because of observations of how other 
open source projects handle this topic:



1) CoC might result in developers leaving projects
http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2018-May/122922.html

2) CoC might result in not so equal peers and friends, might result in a 
committee which feels above their peers, and might promote conceit and 
denunciation. That is why some projects choose not to have one
https://freie-software.org/verein/coc.html - they say: "we're friends - 
that's our CoC, more would be harmful" [1]


3) https://shiromarieke.github.io/coc.html explains why there's no safe 
space and CoC won't change that (she's a queer woman who experienced 
harassment and sexual assault)



In related discussions, people recurringly ask not to establish a 
secondary judicial system but to use the already existing ones.



I hope these points can influence what is in the CoC or whether there 
will a CoC at all.
Personally, I find 2) a very good case against CoC (although I like the 
"we're friends - that's our CoC, more would be harmful").



Best,
Sven


On 03.06.2018 20:29, Tom Lane wrote:

Two years ago, there was considerable discussion about creating a
Code of Conduct for the Postgres community, as a result of which
the core team announced a plan to create an exploration committee
to draft a CoC [1].  That process has taken far longer than expected,
but the committee has not been idle.  They worked through many comments
and many drafts to produce a version that seems acceptable in the view
of the core team.  This final(?) draft can be found at

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct


[1] Appendix - Google translation of the CoC of Freie Software:

Code of Conduct
Don't have it. Don't want to have.

That's the short version. The long version follows.

A "Code of Conduct" is a code of conduct in the sense of a set of norms 
intended to determine the behavior of addressees of the Code.


Thoughts on the normalization of the self-evident
If one reads current, relevant regulations, one finds that normal 
self-evident behaviors are normalized there. What is required there is 
the attitude and behavior of a reasonably reasonable, reasonably well 
behaved person.


That seems remarkable. Rules are set up when there is a risk that they 
will be broken. You should act on the addressee from the outside, 
because you fear that he will not behave properly without this impact.


Such a framework thus says something about the constitution of the 
community or society to which the rules apply. In this case, a 
reasonable behavior is obviously not (of course) obvious.


Among friends, the behaviors and attitudes described in the relevant 
regulations, such as respect, attention and helpfulness, 
non-discrimination, the will to cooperate, rule-free intercourse, etc., 
are self-evident. Friends behave as each other as required in these 
rules. At least most. If not always.


The biggest lump in the whole country ...
The relevant regulations then provide for the appointment of persons or 
bodies to whom, if one believes the rules have been violated, one can 
turn to oneself.


In most cases such a complaint is permissible not only in case of 
personal concern, but also if one thinks that the rules have been 
violated to the detriment of one or the other. Experience teaches that 
this often challenges behaviors that can kill any friendship. Knowing 
better and being feeling informers usually have only like-minded people 
as social contact.


But we do not want to promote either conceit or denunciation.

If someone does not behave as it is self-evident, then there are 
reasons. These can be different types. A clear word among friends in 
private or in a small circle is then helpful - for the "victim", as well 
as for the "perpetrator". The latter deserves respect, 
non-discrimination, attention, helpfulness and understanding. The latter 
should actually be self-evident, but it is often not the case when 
executing a Code of Conduct.


Nor is a rule-free, friendly dealing with the accused possible. The 
roles of the judge and a friend are incompatible. Friends meet at eye 
level; the judge has power and authority to exercise, even if he acquits.


Penalties among friends?
Finally, a Code of Conduct will include a sanctioning apparatus to 
sanction undesirable behavior. Deliberate addition of evils 
(punishments) among friends is a contradiction in terms.


From this, it can be concluded that the moment a Code of Conduct takes 
effect, the friendship is already over. When we get to that point, we 
should dissolve our club, because then we failed - all together.


Therefore, we do not need and do not want a code of conduct in the sense 
of a set of rules.


Resistance to unreasonableness
Sometimes, in recent times, the demand for a code of conduct in the form 
of a corresponding set of rules is unfortunately linked with a 
(financial) aid offer. Help under 

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Stephen Frost]

Greetings,

* Magnus Hagander (mag...@hagander.net) wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 4:45 PM, Chris Travers 
> wrote:
> > If I may suggest:  The committee should be international as well and
> > include people from around the world.  The last thing we want is for it to
> > be dominated by people from one particular cultural viewpoint.
> 
> It will be. This is the PostgreSQL *global* development group and project,
> after all. Yes, there is definitely a slant in the project in general
> towards the US side, as is true in many other such projects, but in general
> we have decent coverage of other cultures and countries as well. We can't
> cover them all  on the committee (that would make for a gicantic
> committee), but we can cover it with people who are used to communicating
> and working with people from other areas as well, which makes for a better
> understanding.
> 
> It won't be perfect in the first attempt, of course, but that one is
> covered.

This drives to a point which I was thinking about also- what is needed
on the committee are people who are worldly to the point of
understanding that there are different cultures and viewpoints, and
knowing when and how to ask during an investigation to get an
understanding of if the issue is one of cultural differences (leading
potentially to education and not to reprimand, as discussed in the CoC),
something else, or perhaps both.

The CoC committee doesn't need to be comprimised of individuals from
every culture to which the community extends, as that quickly becomes
untenable.

I'm confident that the Core team will work to ensure that the initial
committee is comprised of such individuals and that both Core and the
subsequent CoC committees will work to maintain that.

Thanks!

Stephen


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Magnus Hagander]

On Tue, Jun 5, 2018 at 4:45 PM, Chris Travers 
wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 6:59 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
> wrote:
>
>> On 06/03/2018 04:08 PM, Gavin Flower wrote:
>>
>> My comments:

 1) Reiterate my contention that this is a solution is search of
 problem. Still it looks like it is going forward, so see below.

 2) "... engaging in behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project into
 disrepute, ..."
 This to me is overly broad and pulls in actions that may happen outside
 the community. Those if they are actually an issue should be handled where
 they occur not here.

>>>
>> This is good point. There are those who would think that one has
>> performed an action that brings the project into disrepute and a similar
>> sized bias that suggests that in fact that isn't the case. This based on
>> the CoC would be judged by the CoC committee.
>>
>> It is my hope that PostgreSQL.Org -Core chooses members for that
>> committee that are exceedingly diverse otherwise it is just an echo chamber
>> for a single ideology and that will destroy this community.
>
>
> If I may suggest:  The committee should be international as well and
> include people from around the world.  The last thing we want is for it to
> be dominated by people from one particular cultural viewpoint.
>

It will be. This is the PostgreSQL *global* development group and project,
after all. Yes, there is definitely a slant in the project in general
towards the US side, as is true in many other such projects, but in general
we have decent coverage of other cultures and countries as well. We can't
cover them all  on the committee (that would make for a gicantic
committee), but we can cover it with people who are used to communicating
and working with people from other areas as well, which makes for a better
understanding.

It won't be perfect in the first attempt, of course, but that one is
covered.

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: https://www.hagander.net/ 
 Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/ 

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 06/05/2018 07:45 AM, Chris Travers wrote:


It is my hope that PostgreSQL.Org -Core chooses members for that
committee that are exceedingly diverse otherwise it is just an echo
chamber for a single ideology and that will destroy this community.


If I may suggest:  The committee should be international as well and 
include people from around the world.  The last thing we want is for it 
to be dominated by people from one particular cultural viewpoint.




+1



"considered offensive by fellow members"

Is definitely too broad. The problem comes in here:

I might possibly say that "I'm the master in this area" when
talking to someone on a technical subject.  In the sense that
I'm better at that particular skill, but some hypersensitive
American could get their knickers in a twist (notice, that in
this context, no gender is implied -- also in using that that
expression "get their knickers in a twist" could offend some
snowflake) claiming that I'm suggesting that whoever


"snowflake", I find that term hilarious others find it highly
offensive. Which is correct?


I agree with both concerns in the above exchange.

This is an economic common project.  The goal should be for people to 
come together and act civilly.  Waging culture war using the code of 
conduct itself should be a violation of the code of conduct and this 
goes on *all* (not just one or two) sides.




[snip]



Yes and that is a problem. We need to have some simple barrier of
acceptance that we are all adults here (or should act like adults).
Knowing your audience is important.


I would point out also that the PostgreSQL community is nice and 
mature.  At PGConf US I saw what appeared to be two individuals with red 
MAGA hats.  And yet everyone managed to be civil.  We manage to do 
better than the US does on the whole in this regard and we should be 
proud of ourselves.


To be fair, those were South Africans but yes, nobody gave them any 
public grief as far as I know.




Correct. I think one way to look at all of this is, "if you wouldn't
say it to your boss or a client don't say it here". That too has
problems but generally speaking I think it keeps the restrictions
rational.


I will post a more specific set of thoughts here but in general I think 
the presumption ought to be that people are trying to work together.  
Misunderstanding can happen.  But let's try to act in a collegial and 
generally respectful way around eachother.


+1

JD




--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: [MASSMAIL]Re: Code of Conduct plan

[gilberto . castillo]

El 2018-06-05 10:54, gilberto.casti...@etecsa.cu escribió:

Hello,

Maybe must include policy of money support from several at member from
country less earnings.


El 2018-06-05 10:45, Chris Travers escribió:

On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 6:59 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
wrote:


On 06/03/2018 04:08 PM, Gavin Flower wrote:

My comments:

1) Reiterate my contention that this is a solution is search of
problem. Still it looks like it is going forward, so see below.

2) "... engaging in behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project
into disrepute, ..."
This to me is overly broad and pulls in actions that may happen
outside the community. Those if they are actually an issue should be
handled where they occur not here.


 This is good point. There are those who would think that one has
performed an action that brings the project into disrepute and a
similar sized bias that suggests that in fact that isn't the case.
This based on the CoC would be judged by the CoC committee.

It is my hope that PostgreSQL.Org -Core chooses members for that
committee that are exceedingly diverse otherwise it is just an echo
chamber for a single ideology and that will destroy this community.

If I may suggest:  The committee should be international as well and
include people from around the world.  The last thing we want is for
it to be dominated by people from one particular cultural viewpoint.


3) "... members must be sensitive to conduct that may be considered
offensive by fellow members and must refrain from engaging in such
conduct. "



Again overly broad, especially given the hypersensitivity of
people these days. I have found that it is enough to disagree with
someone to have it called offensive. This section should be
removed as proscribed behavior is called out in detail in the
paragraphs above it.


"considered offensive by fellow members"

 Is definitely too broad. The problem comes in here:


I might possibly say that "I'm the master in this area" when talking
to someone on a technical subject.  In the sense that I'm better at
that particular skill, but some hypersensitive American could get
their knickers in a twist (notice, that in this context, no gender
is implied -- also in using that that expression "get their knickers
in a twist" could offend some snowflake) claiming that I'm
suggesting that whoever


 "snowflake", I find that term hilarious others find it highly
offensive. Which is correct?

I agree with both concerns in the above exchange.

This is an economic common project.  The goal should be for people to
come together and act civilly.  Waging culture war using the code of
conduct itself should be a violation of the code of conduct and this
goes on *all* (not just one or two) sides.


I'm talking to is my slave!  I heard of an American university
that doesn't want people to use the term master, like in an MSc,
because of the history of slavery.


The PostgreSQL project already has this problem, note we don't use
the terms Master and Slave in reference to replication anymore.


I've used the expressions "sacrifice a willing virgin" and
"offering my first born to the gods" as ways to ensure success of
resolving a technical issue.  The people I say that to, know what
I mean -- and they implicitly know that I'm not seriously
suggesting such conduct.  Yet, if I wrote that publicly, it is
conceivable that someone might object!


Yes and that is a problem. We need to have some simple barrier of
acceptance that we are all adults here (or should act like adults).
Knowing your audience is important.


I would point out also that the PostgreSQL community is nice and
mature.  At PGConf US I saw what appeared to be two individuals with
red MAGA hats.  And yet everyone managed to be civil.  We manage to do
better than the US does on the whole in this regard and we should be
proud of ourselves.


Consider a past advertising campaign in Australia to sell
government Bonds.  They used two very common hand gestures that
are very Australian.  Bond sales dropped.  On investigation, they
found the bonds were mainly bought by old Greek people, who found
the gestures obscene. The gestures?  Thumbs up, and the okay
gesture formed by touching the thumb with the next finger --
nothing sexually suggestive to most Australians, but traditional
Greeks found them offensive.


Using Australia as an example, my understanding is that the word
c**t is part of nomenclature but in the states the word is taboo and
highly frowned upon.


Again key point that a CoC committee needs to be international and
used to addressing these sorts of issues.


Be very careful in attempting to codify 'correct' behaviour!


Correct. I think one way to look at all of this is, "if you
wouldn't say it to your boss or a client don't say it here". That
too has problems but generally speaking I think it keeps the
restrictions rational.


I will post a more specific set of thoughts here but in general I
think the presumption ought to be that people are trying to work

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Chris Travers]

On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 6:59 PM, Joshua D. Drake 
wrote:

> On 06/03/2018 04:08 PM, Gavin Flower wrote:
>
> My comments:
>>>
>>> 1) Reiterate my contention that this is a solution is search of problem.
>>> Still it looks like it is going forward, so see below.
>>>
>>> 2) "... engaging in behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project into
>>> disrepute, ..."
>>> This to me is overly broad and pulls in actions that may happen outside
>>> the community. Those if they are actually an issue should be handled where
>>> they occur not here.
>>>
>>
> This is good point. There are those who would think that one has performed
> an action that brings the project into disrepute and a similar sized bias
> that suggests that in fact that isn't the case. This based on the CoC would
> be judged by the CoC committee.
>
> It is my hope that PostgreSQL.Org -Core chooses members for that committee
> that are exceedingly diverse otherwise it is just an echo chamber for a
> single ideology and that will destroy this community.


If I may suggest:  The committee should be international as well and
include people from around the world.  The last thing we want is for it to
be dominated by people from one particular cultural viewpoint.


>
>
>
>>> 3) "... members must be sensitive to conduct that may be considered
>>> offensive by fellow members and must refrain from engaging in such conduct.
>>> "
>>>
>>
> Again overly broad, especially given the hypersensitivity of people these
>>> days. I have found that it is enough to disagree with someone to have it
>>> called offensive. This section should be removed as proscribed behavior is
>>> called out in detail in the paragraphs above it.
>>>
>>
> "considered offensive by fellow members"
>
> Is definitely too broad. The problem comes in here:
>
> I might possibly say that "I'm the master in this area" when talking to
>> someone on a technical subject.  In the sense that I'm better at that
>> particular skill, but some hypersensitive American could get their knickers
>> in a twist (notice, that in this context, no gender is implied -- also in
>> using that that expression "get their knickers in a twist" could offend
>> some snowflake) claiming that I'm suggesting that whoever
>>
>
> "snowflake", I find that term hilarious others find it highly offensive.
> Which is correct?


I agree with both concerns in the above exchange.

This is an economic common project.  The goal should be for people to come
together and act civilly.  Waging culture war using the code of conduct
itself should be a violation of the code of conduct and this goes on *all*
(not just one or two) sides.


>
>
> I'm talking to is my slave!  I heard of an American university that
>> doesn't want people to use the term master, like in an MSc, because of the
>> history of slavery.
>>
>
> The PostgreSQL project already has this problem, note we don't use the
> terms Master and Slave in reference to replication anymore.
>
>
>> I've used the expressions "sacrifice a willing virgin" and "offering my
>> first born to the gods" as ways to ensure success of resolving a technical
>> issue.  The people I say that to, know what I mean -- and they implicitly
>> know that I'm not seriously suggesting such conduct.  Yet, if I wrote that
>> publicly, it is conceivable that someone might object!
>>
>
> Yes and that is a problem. We need to have some simple barrier of
> acceptance that we are all adults here (or should act like adults). Knowing
> your audience is important.


I would point out also that the PostgreSQL community is nice and mature.
At PGConf US I saw what appeared to be two individuals with red MAGA hats.
And yet everyone managed to be civil.  We manage to do better than the US
does on the whole in this regard and we should be proud of ourselves.


>
>
> Consider a past advertising campaign in Australia to sell government
>> Bonds.  They used two very common hand gestures that are very Australian.
>> Bond sales dropped.  On investigation, they found the bonds were mainly
>> bought by old Greek people, who found the gestures obscene. The gestures?
>> Thumbs up, and the okay gesture formed by touching the thumb with the next
>> finger -- nothing sexually suggestive to most Australians, but traditional
>> Greeks found them offensive.
>>
>
> Using Australia as an example, my understanding is that the word c**t is
> part of nomenclature but in the states the word is taboo and highly frowned
> upon.


Again key point that a CoC committee needs to be international and used to
addressing these sorts of issues.


>
>
> Be very careful in attempting to codify 'correct' behaviour!
>>
>>
> Correct. I think one way to look at all of this is, "if you wouldn't say
> it to your boss or a client don't say it here". That too has problems but
> generally speaking I think it keeps the restrictions rational.
>
>
I will post a more specific set of thoughts here but in general I think the
presumption ought to be that people are trying to work 

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Tatsuo Ishii]

> Two years ago, there was considerable discussion about creating a
> Code of Conduct for the Postgres community, as a result of which
> the core team announced a plan to create an exploration committee
> to draft a CoC [1].  That process has taken far longer than expected,
> but the committee has not been idle.  They worked through many comments
> and many drafts to produce a version that seems acceptable in the view
> of the core team.  This final(?) draft can be found at
> 
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct
> 
> We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
> Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
> If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
> c...@postgresql.org.
> 
> The initial membership of the CoC committee will be announced separately,
> but shortly.
> 
> Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a result
> of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
> July 1 2018.
> 
>   regards, tom lane
> 
> [1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/56a8516b.8000...@agliodbs.com

Do we want official translations of this? We allow local communities
do their own manual translations. However CoC is so important, I feel
like we need more for Coc. Good thing with CoC is, it is expected that
it would be stable (at least I hope so) and translation works when
it's changed is expected to be minimal, unlike the manual translation
works.

One concern is, who checks for the correctness of the translations. I
think committers could do the job since there are good number of
non-English native speakers in the group.

Best regards,
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
English: http://www.sraoss.co.jp/index_en.php
Japanese:http://www.sraoss.co.jp

Re: [MASSMAIL]Re: Code of Conduct plan

[gilberto . castillo]

El 2018-06-04 12:52, Joshua D. Drake escribió:

On 06/03/2018 11:29 AM, Tom Lane wrote:


https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
c...@postgresql.org.


Thanks for all the efforts on this. It is nice to see us explicitly
moving toward modernizing our community policies and creating an
openly inclusive community. There are a couple of notes I have about
this:

I think we need language that explicitly states that this is about
participation within postgresql.org only. It is not postgresql.org's
mission or purpose to police actions outside of their domain. The
following minor modification would work:

"To that end, we have established this Code of Conduct for community
interaction and participation within the Postgresql.org project."

There is no language that protects different political or social
views. In today's climate it is important especially as we are a
worldwide project. Something simple like the following should be
enough:

"Examples of personal characteristics include, but are not limited to
age, race, national origin or ancestry, religion, political
affiliation, social class, gender, or sexual orientation."


i don't know, because a check "Your agree ours rules", may enough.

Categorize, we will can have different interpretation.

JD

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 06/03/2018 04:08 PM, Gavin Flower wrote:


My comments:

1) Reiterate my contention that this is a solution is search of 
problem. Still it looks like it is going forward, so see below.


2) "... engaging in behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project 
into disrepute, ..."
This to me is overly broad and pulls in actions that may happen 
outside the community. Those if they are actually an issue should be 
handled where they occur not here.


This is good point. There are those who would think that one has 
performed an action that brings the project into disrepute and a similar 
sized bias that suggests that in fact that isn't the case. This based on 
the CoC would be judged by the CoC committee.


It is my hope that PostgreSQL.Org -Core chooses members for that 
committee that are exceedingly diverse otherwise it is just an echo 
chamber for a single ideology and that will destroy this community.




3) "... members must be sensitive to conduct that may be considered 
offensive by fellow members and must refrain from engaging in such 
conduct. "


Again overly broad, especially given the hypersensitivity of people 
these days. I have found that it is enough to disagree with someone to 
have it called offensive. This section should be removed as proscribed 
behavior is called out in detail in the paragraphs above it.


"considered offensive by fellow members"

Is definitely too broad. The problem comes in here:

I might possibly say that "I'm the master in this area" when talking to 
someone on a technical subject.  In the sense that I'm better at that 
particular skill, but some hypersensitive American could get their 
knickers in a twist (notice, that in this context, no gender is implied 
-- also in using that that expression "get their knickers in a twist" 
could offend some snowflake) claiming that I'm suggesting that whoever 


"snowflake", I find that term hilarious others find it highly offensive. 
Which is correct?


I'm talking to is my slave!  I heard of an American university that 
doesn't want people to use the term master, like in an MSc, because of 
the history of slavery.


The PostgreSQL project already has this problem, note we don't use the 
terms Master and Slave in reference to replication anymore.




I've used the expressions "sacrifice a willing virgin" and "offering my 
first born to the gods" as ways to ensure success of resolving a 
technical issue.  The people I say that to, know what I mean -- and they 
implicitly know that I'm not seriously suggesting such conduct.  Yet, if 
I wrote that publicly, it is conceivable that someone might object!


Yes and that is a problem. We need to have some simple barrier of 
acceptance that we are all adults here (or should act like adults). 
Knowing your audience is important.


Consider a past advertising campaign in Australia to sell government 
Bonds.  They used two very common hand gestures that are very 
Australian.  Bond sales dropped.  On investigation, they found the bonds 
were mainly bought by old Greek people, who found the gestures obscene. 
The gestures?  Thumbs up, and the okay gesture formed by touching the 
thumb with the next finger -- nothing sexually suggestive to most 
Australians, but traditional Greeks found them offensive.


Using Australia as an example, my understanding is that the word c**t is 
part of nomenclature but in the states the word is taboo and highly 
frowned upon.



Be very careful in attempting to codify 'correct' behaviour!



Correct. I think one way to look at all of this is, "if you wouldn't say 
it to your boss or a client don't say it here". That too has problems 
but generally speaking I think it keeps the restrictions rational.


JD


--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Joshua D. Drake]

On 06/03/2018 11:29 AM, Tom Lane wrote:


https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
c...@postgresql.org.


Thanks for all the efforts on this. It is nice to see us explicitly 
moving toward modernizing our community policies and creating an openly 
inclusive community. There are a couple of notes I have about this:


I think we need language that explicitly states that this is about 
participation within postgresql.org only. It is not postgresql.org's 
mission or purpose to police actions outside of their domain. The 
following minor modification would work:


"To that end, we have established this Code of Conduct for community 
interaction and participation within the Postgresql.org project."


There is no language that protects different political or social views. 
In today's climate it is important especially as we are a worldwide 
project. Something simple like the following should be enough:


"Examples of personal characteristics include, but are not limited to 
age, race, national origin or ancestry, religion, political affiliation, 
social class, gender, or sexual orientation."


JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. || http://the.postgres.company/ || @cmdpromptinc
***  A fault and talent of mine is to tell it exactly how it is.  ***
PostgreSQL centered full stack support, consulting and development.
Advocate: @amplifypostgres || Learn: https://postgresconf.org
* Unless otherwise stated, opinions are my own.   *

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Darren Duncan]

Some people are not paying attention and are sending code-of-conduct comments to 
all lists, not just pgsql-general, but -hackers and -advocacy too.


I've seen 3 of these so far today.

This is a reminder to please send the comments to pgsql-general only.

-- Darren Duncan

On 2018-06-03 11:29 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
c...@postgresql.org.

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Guyren Howe]

On Jun 3, 2018, at 16:08 , Gavin Flower  wrote:
> 
> Be very careful in attempting to codify 'correct' behaviour!

+1 this is a distraction.

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Gavin Flower]

On 04/06/18 07:32, Adrian Klaver wrote:

On 06/03/2018 11:29 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

Two years ago, there was considerable discussion about creating a
Code of Conduct for the Postgres community, as a result of which
the core team announced a plan to create an exploration committee
to draft a CoC [1].  That process has taken far longer than expected,
but the committee has not been idle.  They worked through many comments
and many drafts to produce a version that seems acceptable in the view
of the core team.  This final(?) draft can be found at

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
c...@postgresql.org.

The initial membership of the CoC committee will be announced 
separately,

but shortly.

Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a 
result

of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
July 1 2018.


My comments:

1) Reiterate my contention that this is a solution is search of 
problem. Still it looks like it is going forward, so see below.


2) "... engaging in behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project 
into disrepute, ..."
This to me is overly broad and pulls in actions that may happen 
outside the community. Those if they are actually an issue should be 
handled where they occur not here.


3) "... members must be sensitive to conduct that may be considered 
offensive by fellow members and must refrain from engaging in such 
conduct. "
Again overly broad, especially given the hypersensitivity of people 
these days. I have found that it is enough to disagree with someone to 
have it called offensive. This section should be removed as proscribed 
behavior is called out in detail in the paragraphs above it.
I might possibly say that "I'm the master in this area" when talking to 
someone on a technical subject.  In the sense that I'm better at that 
particular skill, but some hypersensitive American could get their 
knickers in a twist (notice, that in this context, no gender is implied 
-- also in using that that expression "get their knickers in a twist" 
could offend some snowflake) claiming that I'm suggesting that whoever 
I'm talking to is my slave!  I heard of an American university that 
doesn't want people to use the term master, like in an MSc, because of 
the history of slavery.


I've used the expressions "sacrifice a willing virgin" and "offering my 
first born to the gods" as ways to ensure success of resolving a 
technical issue.  The people I say that to, know what I mean -- and they 
implicitly know that I'm not seriously suggesting such conduct.  Yet, if 
I wrote that publicly, it is conceivable that someone might object!


There are a lot of words and phrases that are okay in some cultures, but 
may be offensive in others -- even within the ame country.


Consider a past advertising campaign in Australia to sell government 
Bonds.  They used two very common hand gestures that are very 
Australian.  Bond sales dropped.  On investigation, they found the bonds 
were mainly bought by old Greek people, who found the gestures obscene.  
The gestures?  Thumbs up, and the okay gesture formed by touching the 
thumb with the next finger -- nothing sexually suggestive to most 
Australians, but traditional Greeks found them offensive.


You should look at the hoohaa over what Linus Torvalds says.  I've read 
several of his posts and seen videos were he has been less than polite.  
But I know when he is coming from.  If Linus was rude to me, I would be 
chuffed, because than I'd know I was good enough for him to reply to me, 
but that either I could have done better or that Linus was wrong.  For 
example see the email exchange with the infamous Sarah Sharp 
https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/407.  At the 2015 Australian Linux 
Conference, I watched as Sarah harangued Linus for over twenty minutes, 
Linus kept calm and polite throughout.


So common words and phrases could be offensive to some people. Sometimes 
people just need to let of stream.


You could end up with people being excessively polite to show their 
displeasure.  Come across the expression "icely polite" -- it was a way 
of showing contempt while denying the victim any excuse for a deadly 
duel!  Which would lead to the issue that people wouldn't always know if 
the politeness was real, or if it was intended to show disdain.


Be very careful in attempting to codify 'correct' behaviour!


Cheers,
Gavin





    regards, tom lane

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/56a8516b.8000...@agliodbs.com

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Adrian Klaver]

On 06/03/2018 11:29 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

Two years ago, there was considerable discussion about creating a
Code of Conduct for the Postgres community, as a result of which
the core team announced a plan to create an exploration committee
to draft a CoC [1].  That process has taken far longer than expected,
but the committee has not been idle.  They worked through many comments
and many drafts to produce a version that seems acceptable in the view
of the core team.  This final(?) draft can be found at

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
c...@postgresql.org.

The initial membership of the CoC committee will be announced separately,
but shortly.

Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a result
of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
July 1 2018.


My comments:

1) Reiterate my contention that this is a solution is search of problem. 
Still it looks like it is going forward, so see below.


2) "... engaging in behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project into 
disrepute, ..."
This to me is overly broad and pulls in actions that may happen outside 
the community. Those if they are actually an issue should be handled 
where they occur not here.


3) "... members must be sensitive to conduct that may be considered 
offensive by fellow members and must refrain from engaging in such 
conduct. "
Again overly broad, especially given the hypersensitivity of people 
these days. I have found that it is enough to disagree with someone to 
have it called offensive. This section should be removed as proscribed 
behavior is called out in detail in the paragraphs above it.




regards, tom lane

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/56a8516b.8000...@agliodbs.com





--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@aklaver.com

Re: Code of Conduct plan

[Tom Lane]

Two years ago, there was considerable discussion about creating a
Code of Conduct for the Postgres community, as a result of which
the core team announced a plan to create an exploration committee
to draft a CoC [1].  That process has taken far longer than expected,
but the committee has not been idle.  They worked through many comments
and many drafts to produce a version that seems acceptable in the view
of the core team.  This final(?) draft can be found at

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Code_of_Conduct

We are now asking for a final round of community comments.
Please send any public comments to the pgsql-general list (only).
If you wish to make a private comment, you may send it to
c...@postgresql.org.

The initial membership of the CoC committee will be announced separately,
but shortly.

Unless there are substantial objections, or nontrivial changes as a result
of this round of comments, we anticipate making the CoC official as of
July 1 2018.

regards, tom lane

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/56a8516b.8000...@agliodbs.com