Re: [PATCH] add a Code of Conduct document

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 24, 2019, 20:52 UTC
Message-ID: <20190924205226.GB20858@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20190924200533.pfi7zjv73zklaahw@yadavpratyush.com>

On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 01:35:33AM +0530, Pratyush Yadav wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> > 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 agree with this. I would certainly like to know who the people who 
> will judge these cases are.

See my other reply to Denton for details here.

> I want to add another question: what will the judgement process be like? 
> Will it be an open discussion on this list, or will it be decided behind 
> closed doors by the committee, and we just get to hear the results?

I think we'll have to approach this on a case by case basis to some degree. If people are having conflict on the mailing list, I'd like to see it resolved there, too. If somebody is sexually assaulted at the Git Contributor Summit, that probably needs to be handled with more discretion.

Keep in mind that a lot of this isn't changing the status quo. When we had a problem on the mailing list in the past, it was discussed on the list _and_ in private. And ultimately decisions came down to the maintainer: am I going to start ignoring this person's patches, or will I continue to encourage them to interact with the project even though they're causing problems.

So I think a lot of this is really just writing down the current practice.

Show 5 quoted lines

> While there might be no plans regarding this as of now, I'd _really_ 
> like an open discussion regarding these issues that arise in the future, 
> rather than it being decided behind closed doors with us regular old
> contributors getting no say in it. A closed discussion would be much 
> more prone to power abuse, if any.

Yes, I don't like the idea of creating a pseudo-judicial system that has none of the normal guarantees of rights (like say, facing your accuser and seeing their evidence). At the same time, I don't want to re-create a court system (badly). Especially given that most of our enforcement is pretty "soft" in the first place; i.e., the most we can probably do is stop interacting with a person, and maybe ask vger admins to block them from using the list.

-Peff