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

Wed Apr 5 23:46:20 UTC 2017

Just had a chance to look at Ruby's CoC, as suggested by Francesco Ariis.
It looks like exactly what I had in mind.

I agree with Tom that starting with an existing code would be a good idea
and, if we do decide to do it, my vote is definitely for Ruby's over the
alternatives I've seen.

On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 5:25 PM, <amindfv at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> El 5 abr 2017, a las 13:20, Jakub Daniel <jakub.daniel at gmail.com>
> 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 <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
>>> <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/02
>>> 4995.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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>>>
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>>>
>>
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