[Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b")

Mon Apr 3 08:52:38 UTC 2017

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
> <https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html>), 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 <fumiexcel at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* libraries <libraries at haskell.org>
> *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 <fumiexcel at gmail.com>
> 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 <fumiexcel at gmail.com>:
>
> It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make
> people grumpy).
>
>
>
>
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