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

Wed Apr 5 18:20:32 UTC 2017

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? Isn't the effort to maintain such a document just a waste?

> 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 <p.giarrusso at gmail.com> 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" <tikhon at jelv.is> 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 <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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