> good to always aspire to better ourselves. Some of the Sage developers who
> are better with words than me went ahead and stole a lot more, mostly from
> Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct) and Django
> (https://www.djangoproject.com/conduct), to formulate a "Code of Conduct"
> for the Sage project. I'm happy to present it here, and welcome everyone to
> vote on it.
For concreteness:
[X] This looks good, but it would be better if... (insert suggestions).
Bullying can get so bad that the teachers need to step in and enact the correct punishment.
[ ] No, I greatly value the freedom to spout offensive profanity, and
will fork Sage in frustration if there is such a code.
(We really do
want to know if there are any developers who would quit working on
Sage if we have this Code of Conduct;
I just want
people to think -- having a code of conduct isn't _obviously_ the
right thing to do.)
As it has been said by (IIRC) Jan, it is important that authorities set
a good example.
[...] which is why I am
strongly against a code of conduct that has the status of enforceable law
within our community.
Code of conduct should be understood akin to code of honor or code of ethics.
Am Freitag, 14. November 2014 11:52:03 UTC+1 schrieb Volker Braun:Code of conduct should be understood akin to code of honor or code of ethics.
"a code without consequences strikes me as worse than no code at all."
If person A verbally attacks person B, I still think it does not help to
show a *disapproving* reaction towards person A, because then A may feel
attacked, which may make his/her behaviour even worse, and which
wouldn't help B at all. Instead, I suggest to show a *supporting* reaction
towards person B, in order to make B stronger and prevent damage.
I think you misunderstand the motivation for not wanting any published code of conduct. I do *not* want to have an official code of conduct, because I *do* want to have civilised manners in our community.
So, I encourage all of us: If an offence happens, then please please take care of the person who is offended, but greatly ignore the offender. [my emphasis] If ignoring the offender has no effect, then we are likely in a situation where "real" law applies. But then it's the department of public prosecution.
If person A verbally attacks person B, I still think it does not help to
show a *disapproving* reaction towards person A, because then A may feel
attacked, which may make his/her behaviour even worse, and which
wouldn't help B at all. Instead, I suggest to show a *supporting* reaction
towards person B, in order to make B stronger and prevent damage.
Yes, that is correct. Especially in the highly fragmented and open-to-misinterpretation text-only domain we live in.> Is this a well-known negative of open source development (resolving> disputes?) Has it been explored in journals? (I'm not well-read on whatever> literature there is on open source pro/con recently.)> RJFrjf, I (once again) *highly* recommend Steven Weber's http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018587 "The Success of Open Source", in particular the chapters on self-governance in open source, as a place to start reading about this.
There are also numerous articles in various collections on this issue, but somewhat surprisingly there is a lot of repetition - the researchers on this seem to focus on motivation and economic success, or other socio-economic issues, and less on the socio-political aspect which is just as important. There are also several mildly scholarly histories of e.g. Linux that go in far too much detail about the damage (and the good) that Torvald's personality does there. But there is certainly an abundance of anecdotal stuff regarding this out there, just not often well-organized - it comes in the midst of other discussions.
And someone asked about RTM style comments - yes, we do get those, more's the pity, though Sage is pretty good about such things, largely thanks to the tone William set very early on. But there is still some of it, which is why at least having a non-penalty-based 'honor code' sort of "out there" could be useful as a place to gently remind people that we're not just working for the 20-odd people replying to this thread, but for hundreds or thousands watching.
- kcrisman
Plus it feels weird to have another "rule" without a clearly defined sanction.
Understand, there are also consequences to not having some sort of
successful code of conduct. These include:
1. Continuing to lose talented Sage developers specifically because
they do not feel comfortable with the tone of the lists, and
+1 This is a HUGE problem and you're definitely not the first to complain to me about it.
Was this mentioned when the speaker was publicly speaking?
On 11/15/14 11:47 AM, mmarco wrote:
> I am afraid i would need more information to make a decission about this. I wasn't aware of the existence of the problems you mention. Without knowing what happened in those cases, i cannot say if the
> proposed code of conduct would have been a good idea to prevent them or not.
Here are some links to discussions that look to me have gone astray. Also, as you might notice
that some of the participants in these discussions have since ceased to post on the public
mailing lists, even though they were active contributors/developers before:
So, about the code of conduct, it sounds like a nice set of guidelines. But, do we really need it? I mean, has it been some hard conflict that i have not been aware of? I know that we have some trolling and flaming going on every once in a while, but it doesn't seem to have been harmful so far. In general, the discussion here is very respectfull (I haven't seen any RTFM answer to people asling for help, for instance). My impression is that the Sage community is nice for newcommers. We have done quite well so far without a code of conduct.
[X ] Yes, this is a great idea. About time!
>> 1. Continuing to lose talented Sage developers specifically because
>> they do not feel comfortable with the tone of the lists, and
>
>
> Can you give an example of this, even if vaguely? I don't read every
> conversation on the lists, but in my personal experience, the community has
> been very supportive, even when I'm an idiot. (Sometimes you have been
> supportive *especially* when I'm an idiot.) I do see a lot of
>> rjf, I (once again) *highly* recommend Steven Weber's
>> http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018587 "The Success of
>> Open Source", in particular the chapters on self-governance in open source,
>> as a place to start reading about this.
>>
>
> Ironically, Weber's book is itself not free, but is sold for $24.50.
> Maybe his belief in open whatever does not
> extend to the intellectual property that he himself produces..
Maybe you are confusing scientific literature (published by a
traditional publisher) with religious one?
> Can you provide a link to an open discussion of this matter?
> (while I could perhaps borrow a copy from a library, there are people who
> might not
> have access to a library copy. etc.)
>
What if instead of a "code of conduct" there was a "community expectations" SHORT document that just say what we expect?
Yes. Typically, they ban the user for a period of time. The violations are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It seems quite a few requests (code of conduct violations, and otherwise) have piled up in http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-28820.html !
Here is I think a concrete, apolitical proposal.
On 18 Nov 2014 18:36, "William Stein" <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> the top 12 all time list of contributors to Sage, in order, are:
>
> - William Stein
> - Mike Hansen
> - Volker Braun
> - Jereon Demeyer
> - Nathann Cohen
> - Robert Bradshaw
> - Robert Miller
> - Simon King
> - John Palmieri
> - Jason Grout
> - Nicholas Thiery
> - David Kirkby
> We could:
>
> 1. Create a private mailing list called sage-abuse with these people
> as members.
I don't know if I am the only one of the top 12 contributors who doesn't want to be in the sage-abuse list, but count me out.
I don't feel qualified to do such a task. In fact, I think I have been accused of being abusive before. Without naming any names, I can think of at least two others in that list which would be inappropriate people.
I think the who idea is quite flawed to be honest. Maybe the whole thread should go to sage-flame, which I don't subscribe to.
David Kirkby.
> the top 12 all time list of contributors to Sage, in order, are:
>
> [a list of 12 dudes]
>
In the event of a gender-polarizing conflict, this committee will not
be seen as unbiased. In order to increase minority representation, I
Just a big shout out here to the hard work of All Deines and Jen Balakrishnan and others for organizing at least five women encouraging sage days workshops, and to Microsoft Research and Beatrice York fund for fully funding all of them. And there will be many more to come!
On Nov 19, 2014 8:30 AM, "mmarco" <mma...@unizar.es> wrote:
>
> I really like the idea of moving threads to sage-flame when they start to go out of hand. What was the criterion to do so until now?
>
> Also, from an ownership point of view, the right to move discussions between google groups belongs to google, and google's rules state that they would do so when the person that opened the group decides (correct me if i am wrong). That would mean that it is William's decission (again, correct me if i am wrong).
>
> I have no complain with the criterion followed until now to move flames to sage-flame.
>
There was a recent discussion that I strongly felt should be on sage-flame at the time (as I felt attacked). I posted regularly in the thread "I think this thread should be moved to sage-flame" but people ignored my pleas or disagreed with me (perhaps rightly so, in retrospect).
Based on that experience, I do think moving threads to sage-flame should involve a (quick) but formalized process.
By moving them I do not me anything technical. I just mean opening a new thread there with the same subject.
William
not a "code of conduct", each expressing his own voice and mixing it
with the others'... really have no communication problem :-P
-Mike
In my mind, "moving a conversation to sage-flame" is a constructive,
if imperfect way to handle conversations that are going off the deep
end. It's a way that we can flag a conversation as being
inappropriate for the tone of sage-devel without pointing fingers. If
somebody doesn't want to continue, they can just stop participating at
that point. Badgering such a person, either through repeated posts to
sage-flame or through personal email, would be inappropriate.
The truth is that I have no idea how to say gender-neutral sentences
in english without making my sentences non-deterministic, i.e. "a
bunch of 20 [guys|girls] .* each expressing [his|her] own voice". And
I hate non-determinism.
Don't worry, native English speakers have no idea, either. I read the sage-sexist remark as a joke, but after Mike's followup, maybe not. In my experience, >95% of the
English-speakers address each other informally as "guys", including females addressing mixed groups. (I personally hate the term, but that's beside the point.)
About the larger question: suppose (as William points out) someone(s) ignore(s) a request to move something(s) to sage-flame. An alternate approach to banning might be a policy of, "si salvi chi può": simply start a new thread. In my limited experience, those engaged in verbal combat stick it out in the particular thread where lies the matter they can't let lie.
Can somebody help me count the votes? I made pass through this long
and complicated thread, and here's what I seem to have got:
FOR a code of conduct, possibly suitably word-smithed (7):
Jan Groenewald
Travis Scrimshaw
Anne Schilling
Mike Zabrocki
Andrew Mathas
Ben Salisbury
Viviane Pons
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Which kind of rule would you see in a code of conduct that would make messages like those you cited (not all were pointing at you, by the way) illegal ?
[1] Please don't accuse me of sexism again. Girls can come and insult us too if they like, and we will hate them for it, like anybody else.