Subject: [alpine-devel] [DRAFT] Alpine Linux Code of Conduct

From: William Pitcock <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2017 03:14:00 -0500

Hello,

As I have mentioned before, I have been working on a proposed Code of
Conduct, in the spirit of previous proposals.

This is the first public proposed draft for the Code of Conduct.  If
there is consensus, it will be implemented shortly after the 3.7
release occurs.  Breaches of the Code of Conduct requiring third-party
mediation will be handled by a not-yet-created team.  An actual
proposal putting the Code of Conduct into force and creating a
moderation team to handle issues surrounding it will be put forward
after the 3.7 release is published.

In effect, the goal of this Code of Conduct was to take parts of the
previous Alpine Code of Conduct proposals and merge them with other
Codes of Conduct observed in the larger Alpine ecosystem (Docker,
Adelie, et al).

It is hoped that this Code of Conduct will contribute towards a more
inclusive, friendly and diverse Alpine community.  As such, I would
appreciate any feedback and suggestions to improve it.

A rendered version of the Code of Conduct is available at:
https://gist.github.com/kaniini/d27feb68f4dfc771bfc746de8d816838

The plaintext draft Code of Conduct follows:

======

Alpine Linux Code of Conduct
============================

This Code of Conduct applies to participants in Alpine projects, such as the
Alpine Linux distribution.

Diversity and inclusion make the Alpine community strong.  Anybody who wishes
to participate in the Alpine community are welcome as long as they follow this
Code of Conduct.

Our goal is to maintain a safe, helpful and friendly Alpine community for
everyone, regardless of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual
orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity,
age, religion, nationality or any other protected categories under applicable
law.

Community Guidelines
--------------------

1. The Alpine community is a public space.  Remember that actions influence the
   public perception of the project.

2. Be civil and tolerant towards others.

3. Do not make things personal and do not take things personally.

4. Avoid foul or abusive language.  As cultural standards differ, what may seem
   as a very mild statement can be perceived by others as highly abusive.

5. Avoid controversial topics unless directly relevant to the project, unless
   in an offtopic channel, such as the #alpine-offtopic IRC channel.

6. While conflict is inevitable, please work through the conflict in a
   transparent manner, so that all participants understand the resolution.

Explicitly Disallowed Conduct
-----------------------------

1. Discrimination based on, but not limited to, gender, gender identity, race,
   nationality, sexuality, religion, age, physical disability, mental
disability,
   init system preference, body type or size is not allowed.

2. Bullying or systematic harassment of other participants is not allowed.

3. Inciting, supporting or otherwise condoning any form of discrimination or
   harassment within the project or towards specific project participants is not
   allowed.

Influences
----------

This Code of Conduct is largely influenced by:

* The [Docker Code of
Conduct](https://github.com/docker/code-of-conduct/blob/master/code-of-conduct-EN.md)

* The [FreeBSD Code of
Conduct](https://www.freebsd.org/internal/code-of-conduct.html)

* Previous [proposed Alpine Codes of
Conduct](http://lists.alpinelinux.org/alpine-devel/5663.html)

======

William

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From: "A. Wilcox" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2017 17:11:30 -0500

On 05/10/17 03:14, William Pitcock wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> As I have mentioned before, I have been working on a proposed Code
> of Conduct, in the spirit of previous proposals.
> 
> This is the first public proposed draft for the Code of Conduct.
> If there is consensus, it will be implemented shortly after the
> 3.7 release occurs.  Breaches of the Code of Conduct requiring
> third-party mediation will be handled by a not-yet-created team.
> An actual proposal putting the Code of Conduct into force and
> creating a moderation team to handle issues surrounding it will be
> put forward after the 3.7 release is published.

One small idea: the moderation team should probably be held to a more
strict code of conduct than the rest of the project, since they are -
by design - the people who are going to be dealing with CoC violations.

It doesn't have to be anything major, but for example, they should
probably try to stay out of arguments even on -offtopic channels so
that all members of the community feel they are neutral.  Otherwise,
you run the risk of people "gaming the system" by choosing moderators
that will side with them (or against the other party) based on
offtopic spill over... seen that happen before, guess where ;)

> In effect, the goal of this Code of Conduct was to take parts of
> the previous Alpine Code of Conduct proposals and merge them with
> other Codes of Conduct observed in the larger Alpine ecosystem
> (Docker, Adelie, et al).
> 
> It is hoped that this Code of Conduct will contribute towards a
> more inclusive, friendly and diverse Alpine community.  As such, I
> would appreciate any feedback and suggestions to improve it.
> 

[snip]

+1 looks good.

Not sure if you want to explicitly call out discrimination based on
programming language preference in the explicitly disallowed conduct
section as well.  It's sometimes scary to be a Python developer in
#alpine-devel, and I really feel for the Go programmers as well.

All the best,
- --arw

- -- 
A. Wilcox (awilfox)
Project Lead, Adélie Linux
http://adelielinux.org

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From: Jakub Jirutka <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 01:46:57 +0200

> Not sure if you want to explicitly call out discrimination based on programming language preference in the explicitly disallowed conduct section as well.  It’s sometimes scary to be a Python developer in #alpine-devel, and I really feel for the Go programmers as well.

Oh, maybe also explicitly call out discrimination based on political views, favourite brand of a beer, tabs/spaces preference, relation to Star Wars and Star Trek, …, and gazillion of other things some people may feel uncomfortable hearing an opposite opinion… Don’t you see how insane is this?

Maybe I should also advocate for adding explicit disapproval of public accusation without any real evidence…

Jakub

> On 6. Oct 2017, at 0:11, A. Wilcox <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> --arw
> --

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From: Kiyoshi Aman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2017 00:16:46 +0000

> Oh, maybe also explicitly call out discrimination based on political
views, favourite brand of a beer, tabs/spaces preference, relation to Star
Wars and Star Trek, …, and gazillion of other things some people may feel
uncomfortable hearing an opposite opinion… Don’t you see how insane is this?

I think this is an inappropriate way to express dissatisfaction with the
proposed change, and I feel that it goes against the spirit of camaraderie
that should be expected on Alpine communication platforms.  I will address
it anyhow, however:

A CoC doesn't, and shouldn't need to, cover every conceivable way in which
an individual can be hostile to others.  The original mention of init
system preference was probably intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek,
which in my opinion is perfectly fine.  Specifically including programming
languages is a bit much, I think, but I am neutral on including it.  I
think other parts of the CoC handle hostility towards others just fine,
though.

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 6:47 PM Jakub Jirutka <[email-masked]> wrote:

> section as well.  It’s sometimes scary to be a Python developer in
> Oh, maybe also explicitly call out discrimination based on political
> views, favourite brand of a beer, tabs/spaces preference, relation to Star
> Wars and Star Trek, …, and gazillion of other things some people may feel
> uncomfortable hearing an opposite opinion… Don’t you see how insane is this?
>
-- Kiyoshi Aman

---

From: "A. Wilcox" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2017 19:21:28 -0500

On 05/10/17 18:46, Jakub Jirutka wrote:
>> Not sure if you want to explicitly call out discrimination based
>> on programming language preference in the explicitly disallowed 
>> conduct section as well.  It’s sometimes scary to be a Python 
>> developer in #alpine-devel, and I really feel for the Go 
>> programmers as well.
> 
> 
> Oh, maybe also explicitly call out discrimination based on
> political views, favourite brand of a beer, tabs/spaces preference,
> relation to Star Wars and Star Trek, …, and gazillion of other
> things some people may feel uncomfortable hearing an opposite
> opinion… Don’t you see how insane is this?

If you read closer, I said discrimination.  I did not say one cannot
say $lang is bad or tabs/spaces are better than the other.  In fact
trying to stop civil discussion or disclosure of opinions can have a
very chilling effect on a community.  I only said that one should not
/discriminate against someone else/ based on their opinions or
expressions related to such.

This is actually made abundantly clear in the Adélie CoC:

[ begin excerpt ]

We are all professionals here, and the atmosphere must reflect that at
all times.  There is no room to attack anyone on a personal level, or
for holding an opinion, even if it is one that offends you greatly.
This includes, but is not exclusive to, opinions on:

* Politics
* Religion
* Sexuality
* Init systems
* Editors
* OSes
* Linux distributions
* BSD flavours
* Virtualisation technologies
* Smartphones
* CPU architectures
* Shells (zsh, ksh, tcsh, dash, execline, bash, BusyBox...)
* Programming languages
* Programming paradigms (procedural, functional, OO, literate,
relativistic...)
* Television shows
* Which kind of M&Ms is the best

All of us hold opinions on at least most of the above.  To participate
in the Adélie Linux community, you *must* accept that:

not everyone will agree with you;
a dissonance of opinion is not equivalent to a personal attack on you;
a personal attack based on someone else's opinion is never acceptable.

[ end excerpt ]

> Maybe I should also advocate for adding explicit disapproval of 
> public accusation without any real evidence…

If matters are handled in the open, then all evidence is available for
everyone to view, and public accusations either hold no weight ("this
obviously did not happen, there is no evidence") or are already
completely obvious ("proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidence is
right there").

Based on what William said:

> 6. While conflict is inevitable, please work through the conflict
> in a transparent manner, so that all participants understand the 
> resolution.

this is already considered.

Best,
- --arw

- -- 
A. Wilcox (awilfox)

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From: William Pitcock <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2017 19:37:58 -0500

Hello,

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 5:11 PM, A. Wilcox <[email-masked]> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>

Neutrality is the primary reason why the final proposal will designate
a moderation team.

> #alpine-devel, and I really feel for the Go programmers as well.

I haven't seen anything too bad since we have stepped up moderation
efforts in IRC and on the lists.  I don't think it is a good idea to
stir the nest if previous problems are already resolving themselves.
The only thing that will be risked is progress in that area.

As always, please bring up any sort of incident that would make a
group such as "Python developers" uncomfortable and we/future
moderation team will try to deal with it, but I don't think we need to
explicitly acknowledge previous transgressions that happened from time
to time.  This is more about setting an editorial tone instead of
being a device to be used like a sledgehammer.

William

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 15:47:28 +0200

On Thu, 5 Oct 2017 19:37:58 -0500
William Pitcock <[email-masked]> wrote:

> This is more about setting an editorial tone instead of

+1

-nc

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 15:43:42 +0200

On Thu, 5 Oct 2017 17:11:30 -0500

> #alpine-devel, and I really feel for the Go programmers as well.

I don't think that is necessary. The sentence quoted below should cover
that:

> Our goal is to maintain a safe, helpful and friendly Alpine community
> for everyone

-nc

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 15:36:44 +0200

Hi,

Thank you for working on this!

I want the Alpine community to be a friendly and welcoming community
and I want that people who read the CoC should sense that. So I don't
want that people should read the CoC as "IF YOU DON'T BEHAVE WE WILL
KICK OUT!", but at the same time we need to communicate what we expect
from participants.

It is a bit like dresscode. If you are invited to a dinner or event you
may wonder how you should dress. If you read "If you don't come with
this and this color and wear a tie we will kick you out!", then I'd
think "oh boy... whats this?"

I think the proposed CoC is good in that sense. It is presented
friendly but at the same time make it clear what is expected.

I wouldn't mind if we added "Be forgiving".

Other than that, good job!  I'm glad that someone who native English
speaking does this and I'm glad that you are taking the previous
proposals in consideration.

Thanks!

-nc

On Thu, 5 Oct 2017 03:14:00 -0500

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From: Jean-Louis Fuchs <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 13:03:05 +0200

Hi

On Thu, Oct 05, 2017 at 03:14:00AM -0500, William Pitcock wrote:

I like it for it is short, yet clear.

>    disability, init system preference, body type or size is not
>    allowed.

init system preference, feels to me like an metaphor for technological
preferences. So I would write "technological preferences for example
init systems" or just "technological preferences". But I also have to
say that "init systems" alone was totally clear to me, at least if it
meant technological preferences.

If you are very enthusiastic about a thing, the best way to meet to
people who hate it, is to post in a public channel, forum or
mailinglist. That is something we all have to live with and is also

> 3. Do not make things personal and do not take things personally.

Best,
    Jean-Louis

---

From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 15:57:23 +0200

On Fri, 6 Oct 2017 13:03:05 +0200

+1

I would like to have it shorter, but I doubt we can shorten it more
without being less clear?

This list is partially mentioned twice:

> ... regardless of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual
> orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race,
> ethnicity, age, religion, nationality or any other protected
> categories under applicable law.

> >    disability, init system preference, body type or size is not

Maybe we could combine that somehow to avoid duplication?

> meant technological preferences.

"Technological preferences" should also cover "programming language
preference". I support this change.

-nc

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 16:41:31 +0200

> Conduct, in the spirit of previous proposals.

I took a closer look at previous proposals and one thing I am missing
compared to previous proposal is "respectful".

...

> 2. Be civil and tolerant towards others.

Maybe we could add "respectful" here?

-nc

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From: William Pitcock <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2017 13:25:23 -0500

Hello,

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who contributed
constructive feedback to the proposed CoC.
This has been helpful for us and has allowed for us to quickly release
an improved version based on the feedback.

A rendered version of the new version, including a diff against the
previous version is available at:
https://gist.github.com/kaniini/e062de5de06a2e45ba0d0d0bcb893e4b

A copy of the new draft is also below:

======

Our goal is to maintain a safe, helpful and friendly Alpine community for
everyone, regardless of individuality such as experience, gender identity
and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body
size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality or any other protected
categories under applicable law.

Community Guidelines
--------------------

2. Be respectful, tolerant and forgiving towards others.

1. Discrimination based on, but not limited to, individuality or
   technological preference is not allowed.

Influences
----------

* The [Docker Code of

* The [FreeBSD Code of

William

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