Re: [PATCH] add a Code of Conduct document

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 24, 2019, 20:46 UTC
Message-ID: <20190924204613.GA20858@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20190924171214.GA11452@dentonliu-ltm.internal.salesforce.com>

On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 10:12:14AM -0700, Denton Liu wrote:

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> > I've cc'd git@sfconservancy.org here, because I think it's important for
> > all of the project committee members to endorse it (and because the
> > document puts us on the hook for enforcing it!).
> 
> I tried looking it up but I couldn't find who the project committee
> members are. Is this list published anywhere? More on that later...

See:

  https://public-inbox.org/git/20180925215112.GA29627@sigill.intra.peff.net/

The current committee is:

  Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
  Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
  Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com>
  Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>

There's a link there that goes into more detail on how the selection process works.

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> > +* Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or electronic
> > +  address, without explicit permission
> 
> Since this is a mailing list-based project, we should explicitly state
> that email addresses and names don't count as private information since
> it's vital for discourse.

I'd argue that participating in the mailing list means you've given permission for your address to be public. Ditto including it in a git commit that gets pushed.

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> On that note, I like the idea of having a CoC-interpretations document,
> much like the one in the Linux kernel[1]. In my opinion, having one
> would remove a lot of the vagueness (such as the emails issue) in the
> CoC and close us off from people loophole lawyering over the language
> used.

Yeah, I like the kernel one, as well. I'd rather have an interpretation document than try to hack up the CoC. It's nice to be able to say "we use Contributor Covenent 1.4" and have that be a standard across projects.

> > +Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or
> > +reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions
> 
> Since we use patches here, we should probably explicitly state that too.

I'd just call that "commits", but I think "other contributions" is a fine catch-all. Again, I don't mind a clarification document but I'd prefer not to hack up this CoC for little things like this.

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> > +Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be
> > +reported by contacting the project team at git@sfconservancy.org. All
> > +complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response
> > +that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. The project
> > +team is obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of
> > +an incident. Further details of specific enforcement policies may be posted
> > +separately.
> 
> I feel uncomfortable with this being left so wide open. First of all, I
> know that the power *probably* won't be abused but I don't think
> probably is good enough.
> 
> As I said above, I couldn't find a public list of the people who were on
> the project committee. Perhaps that's because my Googling skills are bad
> but I feel uncomfortable knowing that *anyone* will be given judge, jury
> and executioner power, let alone people whom I don't know anything
> about.
> 
> I'm okay with leaving it open for now but I think I would be a lot more
> comfortable if we had the interpretations document to close up the
> vagueness later.

In general the project committee tries to involve the larger community on the list where possible. So I think if there were, say, a discussion about list behavior, I'd expect it to happen on the list. But I think we do need a semi-private reporting mechanism:

  - some issues may involve details that the reporter wishes to keep
    public (e.g,. a harasser follows somebody to a non-mailing-list
    venue like Twitter, but the harassed person doesn't want to publicly
    announce their Twitter handle; you can imagine even more extreme
    cases of details somebody doesn't want to make public).

  - people may want to report problems pseudo-anonymously because they
    fear retaliation. I think this gets into a grey area of facing your
    accuser, but it seems like there needs to be a private mechanism to
    at least make initial contact (e.g., not to deliver one-sided
    evidence, but to draw the committee's attention to a particular
    already-public thread).

-Peff