From simonpj at microsoft.com Mon Apr 3 08:13:37 2017 From: simonpj at microsoft.com (Simon Peyton Jones) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 08:13:37 +0000 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Friends I second what Tom says below. Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten standard. Any views on that? Simon From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Tom Murphy Sent: 02 April 2017 19:18 To: Fumiaki Kinoshita Cc: libraries Subject: Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") Hi Fumiaki! I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced view than before talking with everyone here. Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to fix it. I'd propose: - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly we're not finished. - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" Thanks, all! Tom [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita > wrote: The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a patch instead. 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita >: It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make people grumpy). _______________________________________________ Libraries mailing list Libraries at haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tikhon at jelv.is Mon Apr 3 08:52:38 2017 From: tikhon at jelv.is (Tikhon Jelvis) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 01:52:38 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). One of the best examples I've seen in the wild had a single rule: no personal attacks. It's simple to understand and follow with no risk of stifling or derailing real discussions, and yet unambiguously rules out the majority of rude comments I see online (ignoring spam and outright trolling). I do *not* like Rust's code of conduct specifically. It does not provide clear guidelines on civility/politeness and covers too many other things, including a lot of (often political) baggage. Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? The rule on politeness is clearly deemphasized: "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude." is so vague it may as well not be in the code of conduct. We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. The "Citizen Code of Conduct" they link to has even more baggage and I believe it should *not* serve as the basis for anything we might adopt as a community. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html see section "In Comments" On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-community < haskell-community at haskell.org> wrote: > Friends > > > > I second what Tom says below. > > > > Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when > disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at > least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them > unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over > time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has > helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. > > > > I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful > to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online > communities have one (e.g. Rust > ), and it might be helpful > for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten > standard. Any views on that? > > > > Simon > > > > *From:* Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces at haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Tom > Murphy > *Sent:* 02 April 2017 19:18 > *To:* Fumiaki Kinoshita > *Cc:* libraries > *Subject:* Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") > > > > Hi Fumiaki! > > I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have > soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off > of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think > it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our > -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced > view than before talking with everyone here. > > Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 > chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress > to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). > > To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty > stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away > and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to > fix it. I'd propose: > > - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt > letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly > we're not finished. > > - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From a > distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we > don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone > makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. > > - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a > sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. > > > > If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, > regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire > for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not > trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's > your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything > at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" > > Thanks, all! > > Tom > > > [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita > wrote: > > The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I > guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a > patch instead. > > > > 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita : > > It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make > people grumpy). > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Libraries mailing list > Libraries at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries > > > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fa-ml at ariis.it Mon Apr 3 09:32:01 2017 From: fa-ml at ariis.it (Francesco Ariis) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 11:32:01 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20170403093201.GA749@casa.casa> On Mon, Apr 03, 2017 at 01:52:38AM -0700, Tikhon Jelvis wrote: > Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct > that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear > guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite > way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at > least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). You might be interested in Ruby's COC [1] too. They had a discussion some time ago and Matz&co requirements were "short and to the point". Indeed it's very clear to read. [1] https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/conduct/ From lemming at henning-thielemann.de Mon Apr 3 08:42:37 2017 From: lemming at henning-thielemann.de (Henning Thielemann) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 10:42:37 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Apr 2017, Simon Peyton Jones via Libraries wrote: > I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful > to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct.  Many online > communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for everyone > to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten standard.  Any > views on that? I think these Code of Conducts make things even worse because then some people start to check every word against these codes. Instead I suggest we make more use of humor. E.g. Carter Schonwald's comment about grumpy people made me think about renaming my prelude-compat package to grumpy-prelude. :-) From b at chreekat.net Mon Apr 3 19:18:48 2017 From: b at chreekat.net (Bryan Richter) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 12:18:48 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: <20170403093201.GA749@casa.casa> References: <20170403093201.GA749@casa.casa> Message-ID: <20170403191848.GA368@fuzzbomb> On Mon, Apr 03, 2017 at 11:32:01AM +0200, Francesco Ariis wrote: > On Mon, Apr 03, 2017 at 01:52:38AM -0700, Tikhon Jelvis wrote: > > Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct > > that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear > > guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite > > way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at > > least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). > > You might be interested in Ruby's COC [1] too. They had a discussion > some time ago and Matz&co requirements were "short and to the point". > Indeed it's very clear to read. +1 to having an explicit code of conduct. All communities have such a code; some are merely unwritten and harder to scrutinize. For a slightly longer example that is still rather clear, Snowdrift.coop has its code here: https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/community/conduct. It can be summarized as, "Act with honor and good will, assume good faith, and do not use hostile language." It's very similar to Ruby's code, with Ruby's first item captured in "act with honor and good will", and Ruby's second and forth items captured in "do not use hostile language". I like that they both include the assumption of good faith. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 801 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: From carter.schonwald at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 15:41:13 2017 From: carter.schonwald at gmail.com (Carter Schonwald) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 11:41:13 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: :) I look forward to the ways we all disagree. I personally worry that a code of conduct still has a crucial weakness, .... HUMANS. interpretation of natural language rules or human behavior always has an ambiguous element, and this is why any sufficiently not sure set of rules *must* have a legal enforcment and judicial infrastructure. (i think Tikhon articulates my perspective on code of conducts way better than I could ) On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 4:42 AM, Henning Thielemann < lemming at henning-thielemann.de> wrote: > > On Mon, 3 Apr 2017, Simon Peyton Jones via Libraries wrote: > > I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful >> to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online >> communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for everyone to >> have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten standard. Any views on >> that? >> > > I think these Code of Conducts make things even worse because then some > people start to check every word against these codes. Instead I suggest we > make more use of humor. E.g. Carter Schonwald's comment about grumpy people > made me think about renaming my prelude-compat package to grumpy-prelude. > :-) > _______________________________________________ > Libraries mailing list > Libraries at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carter.schonwald at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 15:41:28 2017 From: carter.schonwald at gmail.com (Carter Schonwald) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 11:41:28 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: agreed with Tikhon's points, they say it way better than I could On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 4:52 AM, Tikhon Jelvis wrote: > Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct > that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear > guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite > way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at > least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). > > One of the best examples I've seen in the wild had a single rule: no > personal attacks. It's simple to understand and follow with no risk of > stifling or derailing real discussions, and yet unambiguously rules out the > majority of rude comments I see online (ignoring spam and outright > trolling). > > I do *not* like Rust's code of conduct specifically. It does not provide > clear guidelines on civility/politeness and covers too many other things, > including a lot of (often political) baggage. Why is the idea that > "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? The rule on politeness is > clearly deemphasized: "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be > mean or rude." is so vague it may as well not be in the code of conduct. We > should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do > that consistently. The "Citizen Code of Conduct" they link to has even more > baggage and I believe it should *not* serve as the basis for anything we > might adopt as a community. > > [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html see section "In > Comments" > > On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-community < > haskell-community at haskell.org> wrote: > >> Friends >> >> >> >> I second what Tom says below. >> >> >> >> Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when >> disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at >> least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them >> unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over >> time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has >> helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. >> >> >> >> I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful >> to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online >> communities have one (e.g. Rust >> ), and it might be helpful >> for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten >> standard. Any views on that? >> >> >> >> Simon >> >> >> >> *From:* Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces at haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Tom >> Murphy >> *Sent:* 02 April 2017 19:18 >> *To:* Fumiaki Kinoshita >> *Cc:* libraries >> *Subject:* Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") >> >> >> >> Hi Fumiaki! >> >> I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have >> soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off >> of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think >> it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our >> -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced >> view than before talking with everyone here. >> >> Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 >> chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress >> to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). >> >> To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty >> stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away >> and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to >> fix it. I'd propose: >> >> - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt >> letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly >> we're not finished. >> >> - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From >> a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we >> don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone >> makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. >> >> - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a >> sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. >> >> >> >> If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, >> regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire >> for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not >> trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's >> your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything >> at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" >> >> Thanks, all! >> >> Tom >> >> >> [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html >> >> >> >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita >> wrote: >> >> The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I >> guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a >> patch instead. >> >> >> >> 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita : >> >> It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make >> people grumpy). >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Libraries mailing list >> Libraries at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Libraries mailing list > Libraries at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From p.giarrusso at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 16:44:49 2017 From: p.giarrusso at gmail.com (Paolo Giarrusso) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 18:44:49 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Rust's code of conduct (and the conduct of leaders) have been very successful at creating a welcoming community. However, those rules were there from the start. What's crucial is that a code of conduct is really agreed upon by a community and its elders. So thanks to Simon Peyton Jones for starting this conversation. In particular, a CoC to address known issues (not just in the present discussion) would probably be easier to agree on. > We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. The guideline I find useful is "assume good faith" (used for instance in Wikipedia), as long as you don't have extraordinary evidence. And that's a guidelines that needs to be stated. Opinions on politeness in the wild are much more varied. How polite do you need to be, if somebody insists on being wrong? And with actual trolls? > Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? I don't know if it's a strict rule there, how strict it should be, or whether it works in a CoC. But I find it a very good guideline for educated debate. I learned it (implicitly) in my academic PL training: PL design is founded on math but is no science yet. Debate in hard sciences is different. Because this rule is in fact fundamental to establish respect under disagreement. The Rust CoC says "There is *seldom* a right answer." If a question has a right answer, the others become wrong, misguided, heretics, .... idiots... OK, you can censor the word "idiot", but that won't help much. Or you can admit that reasonable people might disagree on `Foldable ((,) a)` (as most already agree), and give that as a guideline, just as "assume good faith". That doesn't make "2 + 2 = 5" legitimate of course—some "common sense" is still needed. "There is *seldom* a right answer" is an unstated rule in academic papers (where it's implied by peer review), and it IMHO works rather well there, even on the few academics who will loudly proclaim elsewhere there is a right answer. Indeed, I don't want to misrepresent SPJ, but I feel he is often happy to talk about Haskell tradeoffs when they're there, even when others loudly proclaim Haskell is strictly and clearly better than X. Cheers, Paolo On Apr 3, 2017 10:55, "Tikhon Jelvis" wrote: > Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct > that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear > guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite > way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at > least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). > > One of the best examples I've seen in the wild had a single rule: no > personal attacks. It's simple to understand and follow with no risk of > stifling or derailing real discussions, and yet unambiguously rules out the > majority of rude comments I see online (ignoring spam and outright > trolling). > > I do *not* like Rust's code of conduct specifically. It does not provide > clear guidelines on civility/politeness and covers too many other things, > including a lot of (often political) baggage. Why is the idea that > "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? The rule on politeness is > clearly deemphasized: "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be > mean or rude." is so vague it may as well not be in the code of conduct. We > should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do > that consistently. The "Citizen Code of Conduct" they link to has even more > baggage and I believe it should *not* serve as the basis for anything we > might adopt as a community. > > [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html see section "In > Comments" > > On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-community < > haskell-community at haskell.org> wrote: > >> Friends >> >> >> >> I second what Tom says below. >> >> >> >> Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when >> disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at >> least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them >> unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over >> time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has >> helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. >> >> >> >> I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful >> to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online >> communities have one (e.g. Rust >> ), and it might be helpful >> for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten >> standard. Any views on that? >> >> >> >> Simon >> >> >> >> *From:* Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces at haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Tom >> Murphy >> *Sent:* 02 April 2017 19:18 >> *To:* Fumiaki Kinoshita >> *Cc:* libraries >> *Subject:* Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") >> >> >> >> Hi Fumiaki! >> >> I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have >> soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off >> of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think >> it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our >> -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced >> view than before talking with everyone here. >> >> Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 >> chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress >> to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). >> >> To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty >> stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away >> and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to >> fix it. I'd propose: >> >> - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt >> letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly >> we're not finished. >> >> - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From >> a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we >> don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone >> makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. >> >> - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a >> sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. >> >> >> >> If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, >> regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire >> for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not >> trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's >> your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything >> at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" >> >> Thanks, all! >> >> Tom >> >> >> [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html >> >> >> >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita >> wrote: >> >> The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I >> guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a >> patch instead. >> >> >> >> 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita : >> >> It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make >> people grumpy). >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Libraries mailing list >> Libraries at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amindfv at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 18:54:00 2017 From: amindfv at gmail.com (amindfv at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 13:54:00 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm also +1 to a CoC, although have less of an opinion on what shape it should take. CoCs are an effective way of making people who may feel like outsiders to a community feel more welcome. The Haskell community is amazing and inclusive but not the most diverse, and projects which are doing better on that front largely all have CoCs. In terms of what shape it takes: there are lots of off-the-shelf ones for different needs: I'd suggest picking one of them. Tom > El 5 abr 2017, a las 11:44, Paolo Giarrusso escribió: > > Rust's code of conduct (and the conduct of leaders) have been very successful at creating a welcoming community. However, those rules were there from the start. > > What's crucial is that a code of conduct is really agreed upon by a community and its elders. So thanks to Simon Peyton Jones for starting this conversation. > In particular, a CoC to address known issues (not just in the present discussion) would probably be easier to agree on. > > > We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. > > The guideline I find useful is "assume good faith" (used for instance in Wikipedia), as long as you don't have extraordinary evidence. And that's a guidelines that needs to be stated. > Opinions on politeness in the wild are much more varied. How polite do you need to be, if somebody insists on being wrong? And with actual trolls? > > > Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? > > I don't know if it's a strict rule there, how strict it should be, or whether it works in a CoC. But I find it a very good guideline for educated debate. I learned it (implicitly) in my academic PL training: PL design is founded on math but is no science yet. Debate in hard sciences is different. > > Because this rule is in fact fundamental to establish respect under disagreement. The Rust CoC says "There is *seldom* a right answer." If a question has a right answer, the others become wrong, misguided, heretics, .... idiots... OK, you can censor the word "idiot", but that won't help much. Or you can admit that reasonable people might disagree on `Foldable ((,) a)` (as most already agree), and give that as a guideline, just as "assume good faith". That doesn't make "2 + 2 = 5" legitimate of course—some "common sense" is still needed. > > "There is *seldom* a right answer" is an unstated rule in academic papers (where it's implied by peer review), and it IMHO works rather well there, even on the few academics who will loudly proclaim elsewhere there is a right answer. > > Indeed, I don't want to misrepresent SPJ, but I feel he is often happy to talk about Haskell tradeoffs when they're there, even when others loudly proclaim Haskell is strictly and clearly better than X. > > Cheers, > Paolo > >> On Apr 3, 2017 10:55, "Tikhon Jelvis" wrote: >> Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). >> >> One of the best examples I've seen in the wild had a single rule: no personal attacks. It's simple to understand and follow with no risk of stifling or derailing real discussions, and yet unambiguously rules out the majority of rude comments I see online (ignoring spam and outright trolling). >> >> I do *not* like Rust's code of conduct specifically. It does not provide clear guidelines on civility/politeness and covers too many other things, including a lot of (often political) baggage. Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? The rule on politeness is clearly deemphasized: "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude." is so vague it may as well not be in the code of conduct. We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. The "Citizen Code of Conduct" they link to has even more baggage and I believe it should *not* serve as the basis for anything we might adopt as a community. >> >> [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html see section "In Comments" >> >>> On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-community wrote: >>> Friends >>> >>> >>> >>> I second what Tom says below. >>> >>> >>> >>> Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. >>> >>> >>> >>> I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten standard. Any views on that? >>> >>> >>> >>> Simon >>> >>> >>> >>> From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Tom Murphy >>> Sent: 02 April 2017 19:18 >>> To: Fumiaki Kinoshita >>> Cc: libraries >>> Subject: Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") >>> >>> >>> >>> Hi Fumiaki! >>> >>> I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced view than before talking with everyone here. >>> Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). >>> >>> To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to fix it. I'd propose: >>> >>> - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly we're not finished. >>> - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. >>> - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. >>> >>> If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" >>> >>> Thanks, all! >>> Tom >>> >>> [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita wrote: >>> The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a patch instead. >>> >>> 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita : >>> It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make people grumpy). >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Libraries mailing list >>> Libraries at haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Haskell-community mailing list >>> Haskell-community at haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jackhill at jackhill.us Wed Apr 5 18:08:41 2017 From: jackhill at jackhill.us (Jack Hill) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 14:08:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Apr 2017, amindfv at gmail.com wrote: > I'm also +1 to a CoC, although have less of an opinion on what shape it should take. CoCs are an effective way of making people who may feel like outsiders to a community feel > more welcome. The Haskell community is amazing and inclusive but not the most diverse, and projects which are doing better on that front largely all have CoCs. > > In terms of what shape it takes: there are lots of off-the-shelf ones for different needs: I'd suggest picking one of them. > > Tom +1 to a CoC. My sentiments almost exactly mirror Tom's. In addition, one thing that I really like about the Python community is that in addition to a CoC, which I see as a means document (i.e. it is by adhering to the CoC that we create the community that we want), they also have a diversity statement, which I see as an ends document (i.e. an aspirational statement about what the community we want should be). I encourage us to adopt a similar approach. In fact, I imagine that eventually we would have multiple means of working towards our ends; in addition to a CoC, we could have, for example, policies to promote respect and inclusivity in our Summer of Code projects. Best, Jack [0] https://www.python.org/community/diversity/ From harendra.kumar at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 18:17:59 2017 From: harendra.kumar at gmail.com (Harendra Kumar) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 23:47:59 +0530 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: +1 for a CoC, for the reason that written guidelines are easy to point someone to rather than reiterating the same guidelines in different ways every now and then. However, it should be very succinct. Though these are pretty much common sense guidelines, some of us need to be sensitized towards them. -harendra On 5 April 2017 at 23:38, Jack Hill wrote: > On Wed, 5 Apr 2017, amindfv at gmail.com wrote: > > I'm also +1 to a CoC, although have less of an opinion on what shape it >> should take. CoCs are an effective way of making people who may feel like >> outsiders to a community feel >> more welcome. The Haskell community is amazing and inclusive but not the >> most diverse, and projects which are doing better on that front largely all >> have CoCs. >> >> In terms of what shape it takes: there are lots of off-the-shelf ones for >> different needs: I'd suggest picking one of them. >> >> Tom >> > > +1 to a CoC. My sentiments almost exactly mirror Tom's. > > In addition, one thing that I really like about the Python community is > that in addition to a CoC, which I see as a means document (i.e. it is by > adhering to the CoC that we create the community that we want), they also > have a diversity statement, which I see as an ends document (i.e. an > aspirational statement about what the community we want should be). I > encourage us to adopt a similar approach. In fact, I imagine that > eventually we would have multiple means of working towards our ends; in > addition to a CoC, we could have, for example, policies to promote respect > and inclusivity in our Summer of Code projects. > > Best, > Jack > > [0] https://www.python.org/community/diversity/ > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amindfv at gmail.com Thu Apr 6 01:24:20 2017 From: amindfv at gmail.com (amindfv at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 20:24:20 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Fwd: Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") References: <15DE6EAB-A68B-46CE-B0AF-D8E6F665DFDE@gmail.com> Message-ID: Whoops, forgot to CC community@: Inicio del mensaje reenviado: > De: amindfv at gmail.com > Fecha: 5 de abril de 2017, 19:25:14 CDT > Para: Jakub Daniel > Cc: libraries at haskell.org > Asunto: Re: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") > > > >> El 5 abr 2017, a las 13:20, Jakub Daniel escribió: >> >> What is the expected effect/role of CoC? Is it expected that people would actually exhibit different behaviour because of a document? Is there a reason to believe good behaviour in other communities come from existing CoCs? I honestly doubt people prone to violate such rules tend to read such documents and since there is no way to enforce it, what point is there? > > If you'll forgive a strained metaphor: imagine you arrive in an unfamiliar land, one which has a reputation for the occasional food fight. You're wearing nice clothes and don't want your day ruined by getting food on them. Some restaurants have a big sign out front: "Absolutely NO food fighting. Anyone caught food fighting will be ejected". Other restaurants don't have the sign. When picking a place to eat, aren't you likely to gravitate to a restaurant which has a sign? > >> Isn't the effort to maintain such a document just a waste? > > Hopefully it'll be very low-maintenance! > > Tom > > > >> >>> On 5 Apr 2017, at 20:54, amindfv at gmail.com wrote: >>> >>> I'm also +1 to a CoC, although have less of an opinion on what shape it should take. CoCs are an effective way of making people who may feel like outsiders to a community feel more welcome. The Haskell community is amazing and inclusive but not the most diverse, and projects which are doing better on that front largely all have CoCs. >>> >>> In terms of what shape it takes: there are lots of off-the-shelf ones for different needs: I'd suggest picking one of them. >>> >>> Tom >>> >>> >>>> El 5 abr 2017, a las 11:44, Paolo Giarrusso escribió: >>>> >>>> Rust's code of conduct (and the conduct of leaders) have been very successful at creating a welcoming community. However, those rules were there from the start. >>>> >>>> What's crucial is that a code of conduct is really agreed upon by a community and its elders. So thanks to Simon Peyton Jones for starting this conversation. >>>> In particular, a CoC to address known issues (not just in the present discussion) would probably be easier to agree on. >>>> >>>> > We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. >>>> >>>> The guideline I find useful is "assume good faith" (used for instance in Wikipedia), as long as you don't have extraordinary evidence. And that's a guidelines that needs to be stated. >>>> Opinions on politeness in the wild are much more varied. How polite do you need to be, if somebody insists on being wrong? And with actual trolls? >>>> >>>> > Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? >>>> >>>> I don't know if it's a strict rule there, how strict it should be, or whether it works in a CoC. But I find it a very good guideline for educated debate. I learned it (implicitly) in my academic PL training: PL design is founded on math but is no science yet. Debate in hard sciences is different. >>>> >>>> Because this rule is in fact fundamental to establish respect under disagreement. The Rust CoC says "There is *seldom* a right answer." If a question has a right answer, the others become wrong, misguided, heretics, .... idiots... OK, you can censor the word "idiot", but that won't help much. Or you can admit that reasonable people might disagree on `Foldable ((,) a)` (as most already agree), and give that as a guideline, just as "assume good faith". That doesn't make "2 + 2 = 5" legitimate of course—some "common sense" is still needed. >>>> >>>> "There is *seldom* a right answer" is an unstated rule in academic papers (where it's implied by peer review), and it IMHO works rather well there, even on the few academics who will loudly proclaim elsewhere there is a right answer. >>>> >>>> Indeed, I don't want to misrepresent SPJ, but I feel he is often happy to talk about Haskell tradeoffs when they're there, even when others loudly proclaim Haskell is strictly and clearly better than X. >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> Paolo >>>> >>>>> On Apr 3, 2017 10:55, "Tikhon Jelvis" wrote: >>>>> Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). >>>>> >>>>> One of the best examples I've seen in the wild had a single rule: no personal attacks. It's simple to understand and follow with no risk of stifling or derailing real discussions, and yet unambiguously rules out the majority of rude comments I see online (ignoring spam and outright trolling). >>>>> >>>>> I do *not* like Rust's code of conduct specifically. It does not provide clear guidelines on civility/politeness and covers too many other things, including a lot of (often political) baggage. Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? The rule on politeness is clearly deemphasized: "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude." is so vague it may as well not be in the code of conduct. We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. The "Citizen Code of Conduct" they link to has even more baggage and I believe it should *not* serve as the basis for anything we might adopt as a community. >>>>> >>>>> [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html see section "In Comments" >>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-community wrote: >>>>>> Friends >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I second what Tom says below. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten standard. Any views on that? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Simon >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Tom Murphy >>>>>> Sent: 02 April 2017 19:18 >>>>>> To: Fumiaki Kinoshita >>>>>> Cc: libraries >>>>>> Subject: Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Fumiaki! >>>>>> >>>>>> I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced view than before talking with everyone here. >>>>>> Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). >>>>>> >>>>>> To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to fix it. I'd propose: >>>>>> >>>>>> - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly we're not finished. >>>>>> - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. >>>>>> - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. >>>>>> >>>>>> If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks, all! >>>>>> Tom >>>>>> >>>>>> [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita wrote: >>>>>> The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a patch instead. >>>>>> >>>>>> 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita : >>>>>> It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make people grumpy). >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Libraries mailing list >>>>>> Libraries at haskell.org >>>>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Haskell-community mailing list >>>>>> Haskell-community at haskell.org >>>>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Haskell-community mailing list >>>>> Haskell-community at haskell.org >>>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Haskell-community mailing list >>>> Haskell-community at haskell.org >>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Libraries mailing list >>> Libraries at haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >> _______________________________________________ >> Libraries mailing list >> Libraries at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tanuki at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 04:26:20 2017 From: tanuki at gmail.com (Theodore Lief Gannon) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2017 21:26:20 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm also -1 to an explicit code of conduct. Sure, once in a while someone has to step in with Wheaton's Law or what I can't resist calling Simon Says; but all it takes is a gentle reminder. Nobody here is genuinely contemptuous toward anyone else. The barrier of entry is too high -- the trolls are happy enough on reddit. ;) On Apr 6, 2017 6:17 AM, "Andreas Abel" wrote: On 03.04.2017 10:42, Henning Thielemann wrote: > On Mon, 3 Apr 2017, Simon Peyton Jones via Libraries wrote: > > I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be >> useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many >> online communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for >> everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten >> standard. Any views on that? >> > > I think these Code of Conducts make things even worse because then some > people start to check every word against these codes. Instead I suggest > we make more use of humor. E.g. Carter Schonwald's comment about grumpy > people made me think about renaming my prelude-compat package to > grumpy-prelude. :-) > I agree with Henning. The discussion gets heated because people are passionate about Haskell; and the latter is a good thing. I rather stomach some insults on a mailing list than having a formal code of conduct. Severe violations of politeness can be pointed out without having such a formal code. We can apply common sense. -- Andreas Abel <>< Du bist der geliebte Mensch. Department of Computer Science and Engineering Chalmers and Gothenburg University, Sweden andreas.abel at gu.se http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~abela/ _______________________________________________ Libraries mailing list Libraries at haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eacameron at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 16:22:55 2017 From: eacameron at gmail.com (Elliot Cameron) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 12:22:55 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: +1 on Tikhon's points as well. Short and sweet. Get to the point. Leave it at that. The bigger it is, the more there is to argue about! On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 11:41 AM, Carter Schonwald < carter.schonwald at gmail.com> wrote: > agreed with Tikhon's points, they say it way better than I could > > On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 4:52 AM, Tikhon Jelvis wrote: > >> Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct >> that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear >> guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite >> way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at >> least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). >> >> One of the best examples I've seen in the wild had a single rule: no >> personal attacks. It's simple to understand and follow with no risk of >> stifling or derailing real discussions, and yet unambiguously rules out the >> majority of rude comments I see online (ignoring spam and outright >> trolling). >> >> I do *not* like Rust's code of conduct specifically. It does not provide >> clear guidelines on civility/politeness and covers too many other things, >> including a lot of (often political) baggage. Why is the idea that >> "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? The rule on politeness is >> clearly deemphasized: "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be >> mean or rude." is so vague it may as well not be in the code of conduct. We >> should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do >> that consistently. The "Citizen Code of Conduct" they link to has even more >> baggage and I believe it should *not* serve as the basis for anything we >> might adopt as a community. >> >> [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html see section "In >> Comments" >> >> On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-community >> wrote: >> >>> Friends >>> >>> >>> >>> I second what Tom says below. >>> >>> >>> >>> Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when >>> disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at >>> least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them >>> unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over >>> time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has >>> helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. >>> >>> >>> >>> I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful >>> to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online >>> communities have one (e.g. Rust >>> ), and it might be >>> helpful for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten >>> standard. Any views on that? >>> >>> >>> >>> Simon >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces at haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Tom >>> Murphy >>> *Sent:* 02 April 2017 19:18 >>> *To:* Fumiaki Kinoshita >>> *Cc:* libraries >>> *Subject:* Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") >>> >>> >>> >>> Hi Fumiaki! >>> >>> I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have >>> soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off >>> of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think >>> it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our >>> -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced >>> view than before talking with everyone here. >>> >>> Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the >>> +1/-1 chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important >>> progress to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler >>> changes). >>> >>> To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a >>> pretty stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared >>> away and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part >>> to fix it. I'd propose: >>> >>> - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt >>> letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly >>> we're not finished. >>> >>> - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From >>> a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we >>> don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone >>> makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. >>> >>> - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a >>> sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. >>> >>> >>> >>> If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, >>> regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire >>> for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not >>> trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's >>> your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything >>> at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" >>> >>> Thanks, all! >>> >>> Tom >>> >>> >>> [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/02 >>> 4995.html >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita >>> wrote: >>> >>> The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I >>> guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a >>> patch instead. >>> >>> >>> >>> 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita : >>> >>> It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make >>> people grumpy). >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Libraries mailing list >>> Libraries at haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Haskell-community mailing list >>> Haskell-community at haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Libraries mailing list >> Libraries at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Libraries mailing list > Libraries at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andreas.abel at ifi.lmu.de Thu Apr 6 13:16:12 2017 From: andreas.abel at ifi.lmu.de (Andreas Abel) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2017 15:16:12 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 03.04.2017 10:42, Henning Thielemann wrote: > On Mon, 3 Apr 2017, Simon Peyton Jones via Libraries wrote: > >> I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be >> useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many >> online communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for >> everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten >> standard. Any views on that? > > I think these Code of Conducts make things even worse because then some > people start to check every word against these codes. Instead I suggest > we make more use of humor. E.g. Carter Schonwald's comment about grumpy > people made me think about renaming my prelude-compat package to > grumpy-prelude. :-) I agree with Henning. The discussion gets heated because people are passionate about Haskell; and the latter is a good thing. I rather stomach some insults on a mailing list than having a formal code of conduct. Severe violations of politeness can be pointed out without having such a formal code. We can apply common sense. -- Andreas Abel <>< Du bist der geliebte Mensch. Department of Computer Science and Engineering Chalmers and Gothenburg University, Sweden andreas.abel at gu.se http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~abela/ From wren at community.haskell.org Tue Apr 25 01:39:50 2017 From: wren at community.haskell.org (wren romano) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2017 18:39:50 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm +1 to having a CoC. It doesn't have to be complicated, and indeed CoCs are better when they're uncomplicated (but explicit! vague CoCs help noone). The point of a CoC is not to change people's behavior (if you want that, there are more effective approaches). The point is to serve as a touchstone for community values. Without a touchstone, communities drift over time as people age and come and go. Drifting itself is unavoidable and not necessarily bad, but sometimes that drifting is the slipping that becomes corrosive. Touchstones give communities a way to correct for corrosion: by concretely recording the past they make the past visible, and thus make the present visible as something that has changed from the past. CoCs also, as Tom says, make the community values explicit for outsiders to see. This is especially important for women and minorities, because we are disproportionately affected by breaches of civility. This is why numerous organizations for women in STEM advocate for having CoCs. To pick a few examples: https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/codes-of-conduct-101-faq https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/18/ https://geekfeminism.org/2014/06/30/ The mere existence of a CoC indicates that at least at some point the community cared enough about civility to try to ensure it. That alone indicates that the community has higher standards for civility than the vast bulk of online communities for programming. And it is something we look for. If you want to avoid discouraging women and minorities from joining, it's not enough to play Simon Says, you have to write the rules down too. -- Live well, ~wren From paul.connolley at gmail.com Wed Apr 26 18:23:08 2017 From: paul.connolley at gmail.com (Paul Connolley) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2017 19:23:08 +0100 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello all, (I've been lurking on the Haskell community list for a good while now and I'm just now plucking up the courage to say hello.) I feel that Wren is spot on: this isn't somehow an attempt to change the existing behaviour but a way to confirm to existing members and *advertise to newcomers* that this is a safe and friendly community. As more of a reader than a contributor to this community I don't feel I have earnt much say in what a future Haskell Community CoC contains. However, Wren has linked to some good articles that talk about existing CoCs that are being used in anger. I think that they would be a really valuable resource in this endeavour. I believe that Rust's CoC is MIT licensed and that some of the other codes of conduct mentioned in those articles are licensed under the Creative Commons. Deriving our own from one of these which have had a diverse set of people writing, discussing and refining it sounds, to me, like a good starting point. No matter what, I look forward to seeing this discussion continue and also to the finished document! Regards, Paul. On 25 April 2017 at 02:39, wren romano wrote: > I'm +1 to having a CoC. It doesn't have to be complicated, and indeed > CoCs are better when they're uncomplicated (but explicit! vague CoCs > help noone). > > The point of a CoC is not to change people's behavior (if you want > that, there are more effective approaches). The point is to serve as a > touchstone for community values. Without a touchstone, communities > drift over time as people age and come and go. Drifting itself is > unavoidable and not necessarily bad, but sometimes that drifting is > the slipping that becomes corrosive. Touchstones give communities a > way to correct for corrosion: by concretely recording the past they > make the past visible, and thus make the present visible as something > that has changed from the past. > > CoCs also, as Tom says, make the community values explicit for > outsiders to see. This is especially important for women and > minorities, because we are disproportionately affected by breaches of > civility. This is why numerous organizations for women in STEM > advocate for having CoCs. To pick a few examples: > > https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/codes-of-conduct-101-faq > https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/18/ > https://geekfeminism.org/2014/06/30/ > > The mere existence of a CoC indicates that at least at some point the > community cared enough about civility to try to ensure it. That alone > indicates that the community has higher standards for civility than > the vast bulk of online communities for programming. And it is > something we look for. If you want to avoid discouraging women and > minorities from joining, it's not enough to play Simon Says, you have > to write the rules down too. > > -- > Live well, > ~wren > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -- Paul Connolley *Software Developer* https://connrs.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lsp at informatik.uni-kiel.de Fri Apr 28 09:49:54 2017 From: lsp at informatik.uni-kiel.de (lennart spitzner) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 11:49:54 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A couple weeks earlier there was a discussion on tuple instances on this list that got somewhat out of hand, leading to a meta-discussion on civility. There was the suggestion to create and endorse a CoC for this community. Now both topics have not received much further contribution, an indication that not much more can be gained from these discussions. Yet I have a bad feeling about leaving them in such a manner, because: There is no real conclusion, there is no agreement, and I do not see much advancement of how we, as a community, cope with negative situations. And while I can understand that there is little incentive/motivation to continue due to negative emotions involved, I also fear that ending discussions on such negative emotions will discourage contributions in general not only now, but in the future as well. So I will dare to continue, ask a couple of questions, and make some suggestions: 1. At which point of the particular tuple instance discussion would it have helped to have some CoC, and in what way? Is the hope that the participants had considered this CoC and not said something in the way that they did? Or would it have allowed us to quickly point out the CoC at some specific point in response to some mail? Or something else? I _can_ see a couple of instances where a CoC could have been pointed out, but these don't convince me, because a) in those cases giving clear, respectful negative feedback (for example regarding "joking") (would/should) have worked just as well if not better and b) because simply pointing out the CoC during a discussion is rather non-constructive because it is a vague form of criticism and the receiving party will most likely consider it inappropriate, and so it has the opposite effect. 2. on a related note, I have a hard time pinpointing the moment in the discussion where things transitioned from cool to flaming. I'd perhaps name as important factors the useless rhetoric (go and ask those mathematicians) and the case of hiding behind "it was a dumb joke" followed by what in my eyes reads like a dishonest apology. But I am not certain and perhaps unfair. My subjective estimation is that discussing this a bit further is more constructive than working on a CoC. What parts of the discussion were unfortunate, exactly, and why? The general opinion here seems to be to ask for civility without naming names. I disagree: I have little hope that giving the vague feedback to all participants that some parts of the discussion were non-constructive/disrespectful will improve things in the future. As an example, we might take the following advice from this: "Humour is important and generally welcome, but it is necessary to be especially careful to make it clear when exactly we talk in jest, and to not let slip phrases that can easily interpreted as offensive if not interpreted as a joke. We will not accept retroactively hiding behind 'it was a joke'." (perhaps some people think such a statement belonged in a CoC, but then this is a different/more specific kind of advice than what I can see in existing/proposed CoCs.) 3. And back to first discussion: I refuse to vote -1 or +1, because the topic is more nuanced than that. Instead, I vote for the following: "Additional tuple instances shall be added after such a point in time where either the methods have been renamed as to avoid confusion, or after the generic versions are no longer exposed in the default Prelude. (and whether this point will come is intentionally left open.)" 4. And reflecting on the previous point, I encourage all participants to try to not make pure -1/+1 votes, but to include conditions under which they may switch, especially for controversial subjects. I have hopes that this will help finding a majority-backed compromise. 5. It would help to have the discussion and the arguments made by both sides archived somewhere other than on the mailing list. In one of the last mails I wrote to this list I implicitly complained about the signal-to-noise, and to be clear, I don't mean that any messages consist of noise. But it can easily take a couple of mails back-and-forth to get some point across, and these threads can grow to over a hundred mails quickly. I realize that the main issue here of course is the amount of work it would mean to somewhat objectively summarize an (often heated) debate. But then the alternative is the reiteration of the same topics in an almost predicable frequency. Thoughts? (Sorry, Tony, for somewhat singling out the "joking" as the negative example. This might be unfair. You have a valid point, but conveyed it rather poorly especially to the end of the discussion.) -- lennart From amindfv at gmail.com Sun Apr 30 15:49:54 2017 From: amindfv at gmail.com (Tom Murphy) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 11:49:54 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To address your point about: "My subjective estimation is that discussing this a bit further is more constructive than working on a CoC. What parts of the discussion were unfortunate, exactly, and why?" The problem with just discussing it further here is that: a) Nothing specific needs to get explicitly agreed upon, so we can all leave with our own interpretations and conclusions of what was decided b) We're 20-something emails into an email chain. All of us discussing will have developed more nuanced views, but for example a new person coming to the community will have no idea about what was discussed here. A CoC, on the other hand, is a big neon sign at the front door of the community, summarizing the basic bullet points of what we can agree we want our community to be. (By the way, I agreed with much of what you talked about but I think your points could have been made without calling anyone else out by name. Just my 2c.) Tom On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 5:49 AM, lennart spitzner < lsp at informatik.uni-kiel.de> wrote: > A couple weeks earlier there was a discussion on tuple instances on this > list > that got somewhat out of hand, leading to a meta-discussion on civility. > There was the suggestion to create and endorse a CoC for this community. > > Now both topics have not received much further contribution, an indication > that > not much more can be gained from these discussions. Yet I have a bad > feeling about leaving them in such a manner, because: There is no real > conclusion, there is no agreement, and I do not see much advancement of how > we, as a community, cope with negative situations. And while I can > understand > that there is little incentive/motivation to continue due to negative > emotions involved, I also fear that ending discussions on such negative > emotions will discourage contributions in general not only now, but in the > future as well. > > So I will dare to continue, ask a couple of questions, and make some > suggestions: > > 1. At which point of the particular tuple instance discussion would it have > helped to have some CoC, and in what way? Is the hope that the > participants > had considered this CoC and not said something in the way that they did? > Or would it have allowed us to quickly point out the CoC at some > specific > point in response to some mail? Or something else? > > I _can_ see a couple of instances where a CoC could have been pointed > out, > but these don't convince me, because > a) in those cases giving clear, respectful negative feedback (for > example > regarding "joking") (would/should) have worked just as well if not > better > and > b) because simply pointing out the CoC during a discussion is rather > non-constructive because it is a vague form of criticism and the > receiving party will most likely consider it inappropriate, and so > it has > the opposite effect. > > 2. on a related note, I have a hard time pinpointing the moment in the > discussion where things transitioned from cool to flaming. I'd perhaps > name > as important factors the useless rhetoric (go and ask those > mathematicians) > and the case of hiding behind "it was a dumb joke" followed by what in > my > eyes reads like a dishonest apology. But I am not certain and perhaps > unfair. > > My subjective estimation is that discussing this a bit further is more > constructive than working on a CoC. What parts of the discussion were > unfortunate, exactly, and why? The general opinion here seems to be to > ask for civility without naming names. I disagree: I have little hope > that > giving the vague feedback to all participants that some parts of the > discussion were non-constructive/disrespectful will improve things in > the > future. > > As an example, we might take the following advice from this: > "Humour is important and generally welcome, but it is necessary to be > especially careful to make it clear when exactly we talk in jest, and to > not let slip phrases that can easily interpreted as offensive if not > interpreted as a joke. We will not accept retroactively hiding behind > 'it was a joke'." > > (perhaps some people think such a statement belonged in a CoC, but then > this is a different/more specific kind of advice than what I can see in > existing/proposed CoCs.) > > 3. And back to first discussion: I refuse to vote -1 or +1, because the > topic > is more nuanced than that. Instead, I vote for the following: > "Additional tuple instances shall be added after such a point in time > where > either the methods have been renamed as to avoid confusion, or after the > generic versions are no longer exposed in the default Prelude. > (and whether this point will come is intentionally left open.)" > > 4. And reflecting on the previous point, I encourage all participants to > try to > not make pure -1/+1 votes, but to include conditions under which they > may > switch, especially for controversial subjects. I have hopes that this > will > help finding a majority-backed compromise. > > 5. It would help to have the discussion and the arguments made by both > sides > archived somewhere other than on the mailing list. In one of the last > mails I wrote to this list I implicitly complained about the > signal-to-noise, and to be clear, I don't mean that any messages consist > of noise. But it can easily take a couple of mails back-and-forth to get > some point across, and these threads can grow to over a hundred mails > quickly. > I realize that the main issue here of course is the amount of work it > would > mean to somewhat objectively summarize an (often heated) debate. But > then > the alternative is the reiteration of the same topics in an almost > predicable frequency. > Thoughts? > > (Sorry, Tony, for somewhat singling out the "joking" as the negative > example. > This might be unfair. You have a valid point, but conveyed it rather poorly > especially to the end of the discussion.) > > -- lennart > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tonymorris at gmail.com Sun Apr 30 13:00:39 2017 From: tonymorris at gmail.com (Tony Morris) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 23:00:39 +1000 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 28/04/17 19:49, lennart spitzner wrote: > the case of hiding behind "it was a dumb joke" followed by what in my > eyes reads like a dishonest apology. But I am not certain and perhaps > unfair. > > We will not accept retroactively hiding behind > 'it was a joke'." > > > (Sorry, Tony, Thank you for your incredibly genuine apology. Please leave me out of this discussion. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 488 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From tanuki at gmail.com Sun Apr 30 22:55:41 2017 From: tanuki at gmail.com (Theodore Lief Gannon) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 15:55:41 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 30, 2017 8:52 AM, "Tom Murphy" wrote: We're 20-something emails into an email chain. All of us discussing will have developed more nuanced views, but for example a new person coming to the community will have no idea about what was discussed here. A CoC, on the other hand, is a big neon sign at the front door of the community, summarizing the basic bullet points of what we can agree we want our community to be. ...okay, that point has tipped me to +1 on at least putting together a set of guidelines. Quote Simon, invoke Wheaton's Law, etc. I'm still -1 on any sort of "code" designed to enable enforcement, but a sign on the door saying "here's what we've learned" sounds like a pretty good idea. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: