When/by who/how was the "code of conduct" initiated ?

[Nathann Cohen]

Hello everybody,

I created this thread because this question was asked several times, that I am sure everybody saw it, and that it still did not get any answer.

Thus I am asking again, and politely despite my finding very disrespectful to have a legitimate question ignored: who was on the short list to write what is now our code of conduct, when was it initiated and in which conditions ? (yes, there are three parts to the question)

If, as it is very likely, the question is ignored again, I will simply have to point to this thread whenever I need in the future to give my opinion on what democracy has become here.

Thanks,

Nathann

[kcrisman]

I created this thread because this question was asked several times, that I am sure everybody saw it, and that it still did not get any answer.

Thus I am asking again, and politely despite my finding very disrespectful to have a legitimate question ignored: who was on the short list to write what is now our code of conduct, when was it initiated and in which conditions ? (yes, there are three parts to the question)

Please let's have someone knowledgeable answer this.  There should be nothing sinister going on.   If person X, Y, Z suggested it, great.

 

If, as it is very likely, the question is ignored again, I will simply have to point to this thread whenever I need in the future to give my opinion on what democracy has become here.

Open source is not exactly a democracy.  Even a fork is not the same.  However, ideally it is *transparent*, yes.

[David Roe]

I think that most people are ignoring the question because they don't
know the answer. The only person who can say for sure would be
Volker, and I don't know why he hasn't responded.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just Volker, not a
larger group of people. I don't think there's a large group at work,
and I don't think it was meant to be presented to the community as
fiat accompli.
David

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[John H Palmieri]

I have to say, I really like the phrase "fiat accompl".

  John

[David Roe]

On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 7:33 PM, John H Palmieri <jhpalm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to say, I really like the phrase "fiat accompl".

Hah. I thought that's how the phrase "fait accompli" was spelled, but
google proves me wrong. I always thought there was a connection to
the word fiat....
David

[Francois Bissey]

> On 26/11/2014, at 16:43, David Roe <roed...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 7:33 PM, John H Palmieri <jhpalm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have to say, I really like the phrase "fiat accompl".
>
> Hah. I thought that's how the phrase "fait accompli" was spelled, but
> google proves me wrong. I always thought there was a connection to
> the word fiat....

It certainly feels fitting ;) but you are not supposed to mix French and Latin :)

François

[Volker Braun]

Sorry if I didn't respond fast enough, I'm teaching this semester (check out http://vbraun.cc/qft, also includes some Sage numerical experiments)

Why is it so important? If it makes you feel better to personally insult somebody then PM me, I can take it. But I'm pretty sure that the authors would be less happy to be called "big-dicked" than me.

If you are interested in gender roles then I'm happy to report that persons of both genders contributed to it. I was not personally involved (in my negative spare time), but I was asked whether I agree. I did and I posted it. 

Frankly, having a code of conduct akin to Fedora/Django isn't a big conspiracy. I haven't seen any argument that Fedora/Django should not have a code of conduct, and if you want to argue against one in general then your argument should cover that. Unless you think that being a mathematician makes your inter-personal behavior superior to that of a non-mathematician. But I think the recent thread is ample evidence that talking to mathematicians about ethics is perhaps even more hopeless than to talk to a moral philosopher about mathematics.

[Tom Boothby]

Ya know... Nathann. Buddy. Calling out people who may have had
complaints that could trigger a discussion about a code of conduct is
a bully move. Please avoid doing this in the future. If you want to
vent your spleen, you're welcome to do it on sage-flame.

On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 6:37 PM, Nathann Cohen <nathan...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Simon King]

Hi,

On 2014-11-26, Tom Boothby <tomas....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ya know... Nathann. Buddy. Calling out people who may have had
> complaints that could trigger a discussion about a code of conduct is
> a bully move. Please avoid doing this in the future. If you want to
> vent your spleen, you're welcome to do it on sage-flame.

If I understand correctly, Nathann did not ask for the people whose
complaints triggered the creation of a code of conduct, but he asked for
the people who participated in the formulation of the code of conduct.
And I don't think that the latter is a bully move.

It seems that some of the recent posts in this thread, including the
post to which I am answering, are a lot more heated then they should be.
Hopefully we don't see the effect that I predicted in earlier posts: It
could be that the mere existence of a code of conduct can have a negative
effect on the behaviour in discussions, simply because some may feel
entitled to bash people by reference to the code's authority.

Best regards,
Simon

[Andrew]

Hi Nathan,

I participated in the initial drafting of the code. Our draft closely follows, and was stolen from, similar codes of conduct from other projects. Ultimately all that it  asks is that people be polite and respectful towards others. I don't think that this very onerous.

Rather than being put forward as a fait accompli (or even a fiat accompli:) Volker's initial post asked everyone to (discuss and) vote on whether we should adopt the code. That is, from the onset people were asked for their opinion. If you reread the thread, when the discussion started becoming heated William tried to close it. When that failed, he asked everyone to vote on it. This looks quite democratic to me. This said, since the vote was so close, and seemingly so contentious, I'm not sure we should adopt it. Personally I would prefer to see it, or some variation of it, adopted as guidelines -- having to "enforce" a code is contrary to the underlying principle of being polite.

The motivation for suggesting the code was that quite a few people were unhappy with repeated negative comments that appeared in a long series of posts. I had tried talking off-list with the person making these to try and explain to them why their comments were not helpful. Later I learned that several other people had, independently, talked to this person as well. (Incidentally, the poster is a valued developer, which makes them much harder to ignore than some one like rjf.) Speaking for myself, if one person tells me I'm being rude I'll probably take notice, but perhaps I'd shrug them off. If four people tell me I'm being rude then I change my behaviour. Unfortunately, nothing changed.

A number of people have stopped contributing to sage because of these interactions, and there is a danger that others will stop. I don't want that. As nothing else had worked I was in favour of proposing some guidelines to the community in the hope that this would help. I'm still a little baffled as to why the suggestion that we try to be nice to each other is causing such a commotion.

Andrew

[Viviane Pons]

Rather than being put forward as a fait accompli (or even a fiat accompli:) Volker's initial post asked everyone to (discuss and) vote on whether we should adopt the code. That is, from the onset people were asked for their opinion. If you reread the thread, when the discussion started becoming heated William tried to close it. When that failed, he asked everyone to vote on it. This looks quite democratic to me. This said, since the vote was so close, and seemingly so contentious, I'm not sure we should adopt it. Personally I would prefer to see it, or some variation of it, adopted as guidelines -- having to "enforce" a code is contrary to the underlying principle of being polite.

I would be in favour of this: having "guidelines" and not an enforced code. The sage-abuse could still be there, as I see it, it could be a place to say "Hey, I didn't feel this conversation was aright and I was affected by such or such behaviour", a way to ask support from the community, also to point out when there is some really big abuse we think something should be done (I hope this never happens). Not the same as sage-flame which is to discuss subject that we know could be heated and we raise a "warning" flag for other participants.

 

The motivation for suggesting the code was that quite a few people were unhappy with repeated negative comments that appeared in a long series of posts. I had tried talking off-list with the person making these to try and explain to them why their comments were not helpful. Later I learned that several other people had, independently, talked to this person as well. (Incidentally, the poster is a valued developer, which makes them much harder to ignore than some one like rjf.) Speaking for myself, if one person tells me I'm being rude I'll probably take notice, but perhaps I'd shrug them off. If four people tell me I'm being rude then change my behaviour. Unfortunately, nothing changed.

A number of people have stopped contributing to sage because of such interactions, and there is a danger that others will stop. I don't want that. As nothing else had worked I thought that it was worth proposing some guidelines in the hope that this might help. I'm still a little baffled as to why the suggestion that we try to being nice to each other  is causing such a commotion.

Andrew

--

[Jeroen Demeyer]

On 2014-11-26 14:22, Andrew wrote:
> I'm still a little
> baffled as to why the suggestion that we try to being nice to each
> other is causing such a commotion.

You're confusing the "Code of Conduct" with "the suggestion that we try
to being nice to each other". The former is what causing commotion.

[Thierry]

Hi,

On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 12:45:49AM -0800, Volker Braun wrote:
> Sorry if I didn't respond fast enough, I'm teaching this semester (check
> out http://vbraun.cc/qft, also includes some Sage numerical experiments)

You make a point about votes with short deadlines. Hovewer, the vote seems
still considered as legitimate by some.

> Why is it so important? If it makes you feel better to personally insult
> somebody then PM me, I can take it.

I am not sure people asking for transparency aim at insulting anybody.

> But I'm pretty sure that the authors would be less happy to be called
> "big-dicked" than me.

This is out of context. This bad sarcasm was not about people (not even
yourself) but about establishing a ranking within Sage community, even
more a ranking based on quantitative criteria such as number of commits,
which i still find patriarchal and unfair to the Sage community.

> If you are interested in gender roles then I'm happy to report that persons
> of both genders contributed to it. I was not personally involved (in my
> negative spare time), but I was asked whether I agree. I did and I posted
> it.
>
> Frankly, having a code of conduct akin to Fedora/Django isn't a big
> conspiracy. I haven't seen any argument that Fedora/Django should not have
> a code of conduct, and if you want to argue against one in general then
> your argument should cover that. Unless you think that being a
> mathematician makes your inter-personal behavior superior to that of a
> non-mathematician. But I think the recent thread is ample evidence that
> talking to mathematicians about ethics is perhaps even more hopeless than
> to talk to a moral philosopher about mathematics.

The problem is precisely here : requiring ethics from the other in an
unethical way hurts. The problem is not only about the content of the
text, but about the way it was enforced, written by a hidden group, voted
without possible modification, and so on (i will not repeat all arguments
here).

Ciao,
Thierry

[Vincent Delecroix]

Hello,

From Volker:

> Why is it so important? If it makes you feel better to personally insult

> somebody then PM me, I can take it. But I'm pretty sure that the authors

> would be less happy to be called "big-dicked" than me.

I feel hurt by Volker's answer... should I report on sage-abuse?
Nathann called nobody big as far as I can remember. At least you agree
that it is a conspiracy.

From Andrew:

> Hi Nathan,
>
> I participated in the initial drafting of the code. Our draft closely
> follows, and was stolen from, similar codes of conduct from other projects.

The main question of Nathann, which is really fundamental is: "why was
it redacted by a small group of people and immediately proposed as a
vote (and not as an open discussion)?". This is really what happend:
the first message of the thread is the proposal of the code of honnor
(by Volker) and the second is the proposal to vote about it (by
William).

You are right that there was a communication problem. But this was not
presented in this way!

> Ultimately all that it asks is that people be polite and respectful
> towards others. I don't think that this very onerous.

This has been discussed and I do not agree. The code of honor is not
at all welcoming. I would have started any official text by "Anybody
is welcome to contribute" or something like that. It looks much more:
like if you do not agree with somebody then do not say it too loudly.

> Volker's initial post asked everyone to (discuss and) vote on whether we
> should adopt the code. That is, from the onset people were asked for their
> opinion. If you reread the thread, when the discussion started becoming
> heated William tried to close it. When that failed, he asked everyone to
> vote on it. This looks quite democratic to me.

Two questions: democracy is good ? I thought we were open to everyone,
not only to the majority... this vote is democratic ? a yes/no vote
that we have to do in two days on a text prepared in advance by a
small group of people is not democratic. Even Volker was not able to
vote because of his teaching.

> This said, since the vote
> was so close, and seemingly so contentious, I'm not sure we should adopt
> it. Personally I would prefer to see it, or some variation of it, adopted
> as guidelines -- having to "enforce" a code is contrary to the underlying
> principle of being polite.

+1
Let me say again on the list that I am in favor of having a text that
define what is the sage community. And this has to be agreed by
everyone and modified until a common consensus. A wiki page is open:
http://wiki.sagemath.org/SageCommunityProposal

> The motivation for suggesting the code was that quite a few people were
> unhappy with repeated negative comments that appeared in a long series of
> posts. I had tried talking off-list with the person making these to try and

I really think that this should have been said before. This is really
important to mention that some people were hurt. Anne Schilling
mentioned some of it but it was never really discussed. It seems that
it is the "hidden" subject of that proposal. And it is shameful that
it ends with the creation of a police.
> guidelines in the hope that this might help. I'm still a little baffled as

> to why the suggestion that we try to being nice to each other is causing
> such a commotion.

You can not state "be nice" as an order. The only thing which makes
sense is to say "welcome".

Vincent

[Simon King]

Hi,

On 2014-11-26, Thierry <sage-goo...@lma.metelu.net> wrote:
> The problem is precisely here : requiring ethics from the other in an
> unethical way hurts.

Exactly. And it seems to me that these consequences became visible in
this discussion already.

Cheers,
Simon

[Viviane Pons]

From Andrew:
> Hi Nathan,
>
> I participated in the initial drafting of the code. Our draft closely
> follows, and was stolen from, similar codes of conduct from other projects.

The main question of Nathann, which is really fundamental is: "why was
it redacted by a small group of people and immediately proposed as a
vote (and not as an open discussion)?". This is really what happend:
the first message of the thread is the proposal of the code of honnor
(by Volker) and the second is the proposal to vote about it (by
William).

You're not being completely fair on this. There was a lot of discussions going on on the first thread before the vote was proposed. Most of the discussion was about having a code of conduct or not having one, but people could also have suggested changes in the text itself.

I don't know why people wrote the text before, probably it didn't strike them as being a problem as they mostly adapted other texts from similar groups. Anyway, I don't see anything weird here. Sometimes, we do the same with code: someone just does the job and propose an implementation and then ask the community what they think. It does not mean the text cannot be changed,

 

You are right that there was a communication problem. But this was not
presented in this way!

> Ultimately all that it  asks is that people be polite and respectful
> towards others. I don't think that this very onerous.

This has been discussed and I do not agree. The code of honor is not
at all welcoming. I would have started any official text by "Anybody
is welcome to contribute" or something like that. It looks much more:
like if you do not agree with somebody then do not say it too loudly.

Once again, the text can be changed, you can make such a proposition... Also it is not a question of not being loudly, but of being respectful when disagreeing, which was not always the case in sage-devel.

 

+1
Let me say again on the list that I am in favor of having a text that
define what is the sage community. And this has to be agreed by
everyone and modified until a common consensus. A wiki page is open:
http://wiki.sagemath.org/SageCommunityProposal

That seems like interesting project but it's quite a different one and a much bigger one. In my opinion, the actual "Code of conduct" has no ambition to define the Sage community, I really understand it as some basic guidelines to behave towards each other...

 

> The motivation for suggesting the code was that quite a few people were
> unhappy with repeated negative comments that appeared in a long series of
> posts. I had tried talking off-list with the person making these to try and

I really think that this should have been said before. This is really
important to mention that some people were hurt. Anne Schilling
mentioned some of it but it was never really discussed. It seems that
it is the "hidden" subject of that proposal. And it is shameful that
it ends with the creation of a police.

Once again, I don't see where there is a police. No one has been given any power over anyone else, there is no sanction mentioned, or anything like this.

 

> guidelines in the hope that this might help. I'm still a little baffled as
> to why the suggestion that we try to being nice to each other  is causing
> such a commotion.

You can not state "be nice" as an order. The only thing which makes
sense is to say "welcome".

I disagree with that. You can say "welcome" and "be nice" (or something more specific like "be respectful"), I don't see why not.

 

Vincent

[Volker Braun]

On Wednesday, November 26, 2014 2:41:32 PM UTC, vdelecroix wrote:

I would have started any official text by "Anybody
is welcome to contribute" or something like that.

That sounds like a mission statement, not like a code of conduct. 

Really, much of the 2-week discussion was just cultural confusion about what a code of conduct is. Mostly from the non-Americans who have never seen such a thing. And I understand your culture shock in that regard. On the other side were people that are quite familiar with codes of conducts in other organizations and were just as rightfully confused that we can't even agree on being nice to each other.

Also, during the lengthy discussion there were very few concrete actionable suggestions for changes. You were one of the few honorable exceptions when you put the text on the wiki to make changes. But so far there has only been one edit by yourself, so I think its fair to say that this did not gather much momentum. Still I would be happy if people can come up with relevant changes, but please keep it on the topic of a code of conduct.

 Even Volker was not able to
vote because of his teaching.

I could have voted, but I didn't. Mostly because I think that the whole discussion was more useful than a text tucked away on the web page when it comes to reminding everyone to stay civil. So I would have counted either outcome as a win...

You can not state "be nice" as an order. The only thing which makes
sense is to say "welcome". 

Then why is it called Kant's categorial imperative, should we rephrase it as Kant's categorial suggestion?  Its just an English language thing. If you want to argue about it please include other codes of conduct and explain why they are wrong, too.

 

[Jakob Kroeker]

Am Mittwoch, 26. November 2014 14:47:29 UTC+1 schrieb Viviane Pons:

I would be in favour of this: having "guidelines" and not an enforced code.

++ 

...that would require another voting which invalidates the previous one...


Jakob

[Viviane Pons]

Probably, but let's not rush into anything!! We've seen the consequence of that. I agree that the vote was a bit early but I guess William just did as he thought was best, he wasn't trying to enforce anything but maybe just to settle the point. He could not predict the direction of the vote, it was a close call.

 

Jakob

[Travis Scrimshaw]

It wouldn't invalidate it, it would be a vote for an amendment. This follows the legislative process.

Also, we're never going to get *everyone* to agree, that's why we take either a majority or super-majority (67%) opinion. However we haven't decided as a community what deserves a majority or super-majority vote.

Best,

Travis

[William Stein]

On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Viviane Pons <vivia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 2014-11-26 16:29 GMT+01:00 Jakob Kroeker <kro...@uni-math.gwdg.de>:
>>
>>
>> Am Mittwoch, 26. November 2014 14:47:29 UTC+1 schrieb Viviane Pons:
>>
>>
>>> I would be in favour of this: having "guidelines" and not an enforced
>>> code.
>>
>>
>> ++
>>
>> ...that would require another voting which invalidates the previous one...
>>
>>
> Probably, but let's not rush into anything!! We've seen the consequence of
> that. I agree that the vote was a bit early but I guess William just did as
> he thought was best, he wasn't trying to enforce anything but maybe just to
> settle the point. He could not predict the direction of the vote, it was a
> close call.

So you don't have to guess, I agree with the above "guesses" about
what I thought. I also agree with Volker's statement: "I could have

voted, but I didn't. Mostly because I think that the whole discussion
was more useful than a text tucked away on the web page when it comes
to reminding everyone to stay civil. So I would have counted either
outcome as a win..."

William


--
William Stein
Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org

[Nathann Cohen]

Hello everybody,

The reason why I felt that Thierry's question was legitimate, and the reason why I renewed it repeatedly, is that I do not like to think that anybody here has so much disrespect for our community that they believe possible to write its laws in secret [1] and have them proposed for vote while hiding behind the release manager (whose opinions, because of his status, have more weight for the community). We cannot accept our new legislative system to be closed-source.

Secondly, a vote does not make a democracy: the simple fact that the authors had all the time to agree on the text means that they were much more prepared than the 'no'-voters at the critical time. We had to build our argumentation on-the-fly, while everything was being done. This is not equally fair on both sides. Thus I do not believe that this was democratic.

Volker, Tom:

Please consider the tone of my first email, and the tone of your answers. Please consider the "code of conduct" that was just voted. Can you see why I may feel that you broke it clearly and cleanly at my expense ? If those rules are not only meant to apply to me, do you think the community should react to that ?

Andrew:

"if one person tells me I'm being rude I'll probably take notice [...]. If four people tell me I'm being rude then I change my behaviour"

The book I read these days is entitled "Nonviolent communication: a language of life". Because of the way I talk, many persons stop at the words and stop caring about the meaning. It does harm to my professional life and in my private life too. You would be wrong to believe that I do not care.

Some opinions, however, are hard to defend. "Against a code saying 'be nice'". As Jeroen said: not because of 'be nice', but because it is a code. Some are hard to defend, because 10 persons agree and you are the only one to disagree. It is so easy for them to disregard your opinion: they litterally do not have to care: they are sufficiently many to do what they wish whatever you think. Yet you believe that there is truth in what you say.

Please note, however, that in this thread you do not have to complain about my behaviour as much as I could complain about others'. So, somehow. There are changes.

Finally:

I do not forget why I created this thread, and the list of original authors still has not been made public. We deserve this much respect.

Nathann

P.S.: Five interesting pages that a friend sent me:
      http://users.ox.ac.uk/~corp1468/Welcome_files/Srinivasan_In%20Defence%20of%20Anger.pdf

[1] No public announcements; Private exchanges; Hidden list of participants: this is what 'in secret' means.

[Simon King]

Hi Volker,

On 2014-11-26, Volker Braun <vbrau...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Really, much of the 2-week discussion was just cultural confusion about
> what a code of conduct is. Mostly from the non-Americans who have never
> seen such a thing. And I understand your culture shock in that regard. On
> the other side were people that are quite familiar with codes of conducts
> in other organizations and were just as rightfully confused that we can't
> even agree on being nice to each other.

What you seem to not understand, Volker, is that Sage has grown far
beyond a US project. So, "a code of conduct is an American thing" is not a
good argument for having a code of conduct.

And to repeat it since you seem to ignore it: Some people (I think I have
not been the only one) see the clear possibility that in future we will
behave less nicely towards each other *because* of a code of conduct.

I did not want a code of conduct *because* I want a civilised atmosphere
in the Sage community.

And you may notice that some of the recent posts here already went into
the direction of instrumenting the questionable authority of a code of
conduct in order to bash people, assuming that people have bad intentions
when they just did an awkward translation.

That's a very bad symptom, IMHO!

> Also, during the lengthy discussion there were very few concrete actionable
> suggestions for changes.

Yes there was. The suggestion to delete the code of conduct was very
concrete.

Best regards,
Simon

[Simon King]

Hi Nathann,

On 2014-11-26, Nathann Cohen <nathan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Volker, Tom:
>
> Please consider the tone of my first email, and the tone of your answers.
> Please consider the "code of conduct" that was just voted. Can you see why
> I may feel that you broke it clearly and cleanly at my expense ? If those
> rules are not only meant to apply to me, do you think the community should
> react to that ?

I think I did react to that. If I didn't then I hope you accept my
apology.

Best regards,
Simon

[Viviane Pons]

I feel this is going nowhere...

We should start with the assumption we all agree on something: we want the sage mailing list to be place where no one is bullied and where we can express our different point of views safely and with respect. I think we all want that whether we voted yes or no to the code of conduct itself. It is a sensitive matter because if we don't feel we have this, then it can affect our involvement into the project itself.

I think everyone's actions so far toward the code of conduct has been motivated by this goal, on both side.

I don't know who wrote the code of conduct that was proposed and, honestly, I don't really care. It was maybe a mistake to do it this way and I agree that Vincent's proposal to work on it on a wiki is better. But I don't think they did it with bad intentions. And seeing how things are now, I understand they don't want to say anything and to defend themselves against being a conspiracy, a secret police or something.

Rather than pointing fingers on how things should have been done, and why were they done this way... I think we should try to find a solution to our problem which is the goal I stated: the sage mailing list to be place where no one is bullied and where we can express our different point of views safely and with respect. (Of course, this will never be perfect, the idea is to make our best)

Some of us thought a code of conduct will help to reach this goal and there was a big debate on the first thread about this very question. There was a vote and even though the legitimacy of the vote is contested, it still says something: there are a quite a bunch of people (a majority of the voters) who think things are not good enough the way they are and wanted a code of conduct.

So now, in the spirit of a consensus, what should we do? Keeping the code of conduct as it is is not good, it divides the community and some people feel excluded and disagree with the process. Leaving things as they were is not good either, as some people expressed in a vote that they wanted a change and they might complain if the vote is ignored (and once again, it's because they feel sage would be a better and safer place with the code). For the same reason, voting again on the same question is not good, as whatever the result is, some people will feel excluded.

Is it possible to find a compromise on which people are mostly ok? For example, I proposed to have some "guidelines" instead of an actual code. And Vincent proposed to work on a wiki to make a better text.

Also, the process itself was an issue. To those who contest the vote: in what condition would you accept whatever the result is? What would you propose to do?

I hope this helps, and please remind again that we all want the same thing.

Cheers

Viviane

PS: to answer to Nathann specifically, your tone was indeed completely ok and you were answered with some contempt.

[Tom Boothby]

Indeed, on a second reading, my post was an overreaction. I apologize
for that. I don't see where I "broke it clearly and cleanly at [your]
expense." If you'd like to tell me publicly or privately where I've
misstepped, I'm not going to put up a fight.

[Dima Pasechnik]

On 2014-11-26, Volker Braun <vbrau...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ------=_Part_1461_774968532.1417015681893
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="----=_Part_1462_407798269.1417015681894"
>
> ------=_Part_1462_407798269.1417015681894
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>
> On Wednesday, November 26, 2014 2:41:32 PM UTC, vdelecroix wrote:
>>
>> I would have started any official text by "Anybody
>> is welcome to contribute" or something like that.
>
>
> That sounds like a mission statement, not like a code of conduct.
>
> Really, much of the 2-week discussion was just cultural confusion about
> what a code of conduct is. Mostly from the non-Americans who have never
> seen such a thing.

To the contary, I have seen way too much of this shit in my youth, FYI.
"Laws of the pioneers of the Soviet Union",
"Moral codex of a young builder of Communism",
etc etc ad nauseum...

> And I understand your culture shock in that regard.

I have had very unhappy memories vividly recalled by this thread.
I have better things to do than to manage this, really...

[Sébastien Labbé]

Hi,

On Wednesday, November 26, 2014 8:28:33 AM UTC-5, Andrew wrote:

> ...

> The motivation for suggesting the code was that quite a few people were
> unhappy with repeated negative comments that appeared in a long series of posts.

> ...

> A number of people have stopped contributing to sage because of these interactions,
> and there is a danger that others will stop.

Discussions on sage-devel should not be demotivating for a developper/user but I wonder if the code of conduct is the way to make sure this principle is respected. It feels like the code of conduct is aiming at that (group of) person(s) and the meaning of adopting it goes beyond the text it contains. I feel like we should have that real open discussion instead and postpone the adoption of any code to a future moment when real discussions will be made.

I have seen and read hard comments on the past on sage-devel, but since I had the occasion of meeting and discussing with many of the Sage developpers before, I was always able to, how to say, relativize the hardness knowing the people involved. This might be harder to do when we don't know the people involved or when the comment is directed to ourself...

Sébastien

[Dima Pasechnik]

Indeed. I can also add that I feel bullied by things called "code of
conduct" - probably it is my personal problem (originating from where
I came from), but it is also so for
people who feel bullied by criticism of their work.

Such problems are not solved by "codes of conduct", unfortunately.

Dima
>
> Cheers,
> Simon
>

[Nicolas M. Thiery]

Dear Nathann,

On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 06:37:58PM -0800, Nathann Cohen wrote:
> Thus I am asking again, and politely despite my finding very
> disrespectful to have a legitimate question ignored: who was on the
> short list to write what is now our code of conduct, when was it
> initiated and in which conditions ? (yes, there are three parts to the
> question)
> If, as it is very likely, the question is ignored again, I will simply
> have to point to this thread whenever I need in the future to give my
> opinion on what democracy has become here.

I agree, it's a legitimate question. Don't interpret too much the
delay though: for example, in my case, it's simply that, with 16 hours
of teaching per week those last weeks, even keeping up with the
discussion is tricky :-)

I was involved early on in the original private discussion. It grew
out of a few people chatting together (you know the kind of ranting we
could have had around a tea if we had been in the same spot). That was
roughly one month ago. We were worried about discussions on the
mailing lists occasionally hurting feelings, and how this was turning
some people away, and on occasions ruining the productivity. We
started to wonder what we could do about it, besides having private
discussions with the persons involved to cool things down as we had
tried. We then got in touch with a few others to see if it was just
us, or whether this was a more general feeling. We then became
convinced that there really was some issue that deserved a discussion
on sage-devel.

But for such an open discussion to be productive, we believed it was
best to have a concrete basis to build on. So we started by looking
around to see how this kind of situations was handled in other
communities. It appeared that the most common approach was to design a
"Code of Conduct". So we prepared a draft thereof, as an open-minded
starting point for discussions.

Of course I can't easily prove it; but I can assure you that this was
all done in good faith and with good intentions. We could possibly
have done a better job: calling for a vote later, making the call for
amending the text more explicit, guessing that people would interpret
"code" as "law", which was certainly not the intention.

Well, that's all easy to say in retrospect, but really it's hard to
organize such discussions.

And unpleasant to be called various names when trying, maybe clumsily
but honestly, to make our community a better place.

Lastly: I believe nobody in those who originated the discussion cares
about the specific wording. I also assume most don't really care
whether it's a "code of conduct" or a "guidelines" or something
similar. I for example voluntarily did not vote, as none of the two
options reflected my current point of view which I stated earlier.

Cheers,
Nicolas

PS: I used "we" above. I indeed have supported the process from start
to end. On the other hand, I would not want to take undue credit: the
bulk of the work (looking around, writing a draft, ...) was actually
achieved by others, and one person in particular that can be proud of
it. This was a tricky and time consuming chore which I do see as a
caring gift to the community.

I obviously won't give myself the names of the other participants
of the private discussion. It's their decision to step out, or not.

--
Nicolas M. Thiéry "Isil" <nth...@users.sf.net>
http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/

[Nathann Cohen]

Hello,

> I agree, it's a legitimate question. Don't interpret too much the
> delay though: for example, in my case, it's simply that, with 16 hours
> of teaching per week those last weeks, even keeping up with the
> discussion is tricky :-)

I understand. Actually, some persons raised the very same objection to the vote which just took place over two days, a short time indeed. Would you agree to say that its result should not be interpreted for this reason ?

I also understand that nobody in your short-list could feel entitled to give the others' name, but this can be solved easily: would you be willing to send them an email and ask whether they object to this request ? Somebody could then answer this question, or tell us that some members do not want to reveal their identity.

You told us about how you wanted to do avoid hurt feelings, turning some people away and ruining the productivity. Indeed, what has been happening since this code of conduct was first mentionned should be avoided. You are probably right also when you say that it was useful to speak about it among yourselves in order to give us something solid to build upon. But what was your aim by sending it first to Volker, to have him forward it to sage-devel ? This, I do not understand.

It is not so bad as it can still be done now: Vincent showed the way by creating a wiki page that anybody can edit, and we sure can debate all we want on sage-devel. This does not mean that your work has been pointless: you took the time to discuss between yourselves without having to fight off counter-arguments immediately, you built a logic. But not all were present, and by not giving others the time you had to discuss it, it can be received as imposed by a small group upon everybody.

Also, please consider that contributing something that big to Sage all of a sudden is like a patch bomb. You are always at risk of noticing some flaw during the review that may require to rewrite everything. In the present context, if nobody is exactly against the guidelines you designed, some oppose the principle of a code, of people denouncing others, or of "selected persons" having the final say.

Instead of writing a law meant to change the behaviour of people on sage-devel, what about writing some kind of "spoiler alert" to warn people about what they might see ?

---
Beware, for our developpers have very strong feelings about their work. It is important to them, and if they get loud remember that their eyes are stuck on the code, and that they want to build something they can be proud of. On sage-devel, we talk about code. Most of the time, you have no reason to take anything personally. At other times, trust your common sense. Answering a post tomorrow instead of right now often does the trick.
---

We can use somebody else's sense of humor as many here found mine lacking, but what about this principle ? No rules, no police, no mails sent to sage-abuse and no 'chosen people', but something to let new contributors know what to expect ?

As for the the problems met by the current developpers, Thierry is right to say that the way out is not to build a law that can be used to declare one as innocent and the other as guilty.

> Of course I can't easily prove it; but I can assure you that this was
> all done in good faith and with good intentions. We could possibly
> have done a better job: calling for a vote later, making the call for
> amending the text more explicit, guessing that people would interpret
> "code" as "law", which was certainly not the intention.

There is time to do it now if you like. We can have another vote to re-write this code (now adopted) as a community, or possibly the 'yes'-voters could be convinced that it is the best way to handle this as a community. But we have all the time in the world to do this again if we feel the need to.

> And unpleasant to be called various names when trying, maybe clumsily
> but honestly, to make our community a better place.

I know exactly how you feel. I have been trying to remind peole for two years of wrong results returned by Sage, I tried to fix it myself many many times only to find out I was not competent on this part of the code. I also tried to say that the way findstat was implemented in Sage could be less intrusive, and there were others examples. And yet I took this code of conduct to be against me even though I tried, clumsily and honestly, to make our code a better code.

Nathann

[Robert Bradshaw]

+1 for focusing on what to do in the future, rather than mistakes made
in the past.

> Is it possible to find a compromise on which people are mostly ok? For
> example, I proposed to have some "guidelines" instead of an actual code.

I, personally, would be in favor of this, which wasn't really an
option in the vote (which felt like a false dilemma between accept the
status quo and accept that code).

> And Vincent proposed to work on a wiki to make a better text.
>
> Also, the process itself was an issue. To those who contest the vote: in
> what condition would you accept whatever the result is? What would you
> propose to do?

Consensus is better than voting, but is sometimes hard to find when
there is a bimodal (or more) distribution of opinions. I'd take the
time to craft a better text, then put it up for another vote. (Despite
the fact that open source projects are not democracies, it's hard to
assign weights...so I don't know any better).

[Robert Bradshaw]

http://wiki.sagemath.org/CodeOfConduct

[Andrew]

On Thursday, 27 November 2014 17:18:07 UTC+11, Nathann Cohen wrote:

Beware, for our developpers have very strong feelings about their work. It is important to them, and if they get loud remember that their eyes are stuck on the code, and that they want to build something they can be proud of. On sage-devel, we talk about code. Most of the time, you have no reason to take anything personally. At other times, trust your common sense. Answering a post tomorrow instead of right now often does the trick.

Speaking only for myself, it is exactly this sort of post that I would like to avoid. Why can't the person who gets "loud" taker a breather, calm down and post something more sensible tomorrow? I think it is hypocritical to say that it is OK for some one to write "loud" posts and then to ask anyone who gets put off by this to take a break. If the loud person was considerate from the start none of this would be necessary.

Andrew

[Nathann Cohen]

Hello !

> Speaking only for myself, it is exactly this sort of post that I would like to avoid. Why can't the person who gets "loud" taker a breather, calm down and post something more sensible tomorrow? I think it is hypocritical to say that it is OK for some one to write "loud" posts and then to ask anyone who gets put off by this to take a break. If the loud person was considerate from the start none of this would be necessary.

True, but if your only way to enforce that is to create laws, judges
and sanctions then it may be even worse (that happens right now). What
you can do at zero cost is say to everybody how to interpret what is
happening. Also, what is felt as "loud" by one is not "loud" for
another, so you cannot just hit everybody whenever that happens.
Different cultures.. We certainly saw that in the recent posts.

Nathann

[Simon King]

Hi Andrew,

On 2014-11-27, Andrew <andrew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking only for myself, it is exactly this sort of post that I would like
> to avoid. Why can't the person who gets "loud" taker a breather, calm down
> and post something more sensible tomorrow?

Because s/he is, for whatever reason, not able to. S/he is doing a
mistake. But this can not be an excuse for people to commit the same
mistake, even though they would be able to avoid it.

> I think it is hypocritical to
> say that it is OK for some one to write "loud" posts and then to ask anyone
> who gets put off by this to take a break. If the loud person was
> considerate from the start none of this would be necessary.

I think it is hypocritical to say that it is OK for anyone to become
loud and inconsiderate if one other person was.

Cheers,
Simon

[Simon King]

Hi,

On 2014-11-27, Nathann Cohen <nathan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, what is felt as "loud" by one is not "loud" for
> another, so you cannot just hit everybody whenever that happens.
> Different cultures.. We certainly saw that in the recent posts.

+1

In another post, someone referred to a code of conduct as an "objective"
set of rules to adhere to.

My answer was that social rules aren't objective.

To slightly elaborate on it: Assume that the rule "Don't exclude people
based on gender or cultural background" was part of the code. Well,
sounds reasonable and objective, right? All very fine. But as soon as
person B wants to APPLY the "objective" rule to a concrete situation in
order to decide whether person A has violated the rule, person B needs
to *interprete* person A's statements; s/he needs to make more or less
educated guesses on the motivation behind A's statements; and so on.

And this whole interpretation process is not objective at all. This, in
particular, holds in a pluralistic society such as the one formed by
Sage developers. Based on different cultural backgrounds, B may wrongly
assume a bad motivation/intention of A's statements. Hence, as soon as B
starts to publicly blame A based on his/her wrong assumptions, s/he is
in fact violating the very same rule that s/he pretends to use against
A.

Put differently: The attempt to enforce the code of conduct will sooner
or later constitute a violation of the code of conduct. And in fact, it
has already happened in this thread---sooner than I thought.

Best regards,
Simon

[Andrew]

On Thursday, 27 November 2014 18:45:44 UTC+11, Simon King wrote:

Hi Andrew,

On 2014-11-27, Andrew <andrew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking only for myself, it is exactly this sort of post that I would like
> to avoid. Why can't the person who gets "loud" taker a breather, calm down
> and post something more sensible tomorrow?

Because s/he is, for whatever reason, not able to. S/he is doing a
mistake. But this can not be an excuse for people to commit the same
mistake, even though they would be able to avoid it.

Hi Simon, You seem to be saying that if, for some reason, person A can't help it then it's OK but person B should not respond in the same way. Whilst I agree that this can happen, what if Person B is unable, for whatever reason, to contain themselves? Then, in response, Person A is again unable to contain themselves, for whatever reason, ... Where does it stop? Wouldn't it be better if Person A just learned, for whatever reason, to contain themselves?

> I think it is hypocritical to
> say that it is OK for some one to write "loud" posts and then to ask anyone
> who gets put off by this to take a break. If the loud person was
> considerate from the start none of this would be necessary.

I think it is hypocritical to say that it is OK for anyone to become
loud and inconsiderate if one other person was.

 
I agree entirely.

Andrew

[Simon King]

Hi Andrew,

On 2014-11-27, Andrew <andrew...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Because s/he is, for whatever reason, not able to. S/he is doing a
>> mistake. But this can not be an excuse for people to commit the same
>> mistake, even though they would be able to avoid it.
>>
>
> Hi Simon, You seem to be saying that if, for some reason, person A can't
> help it then it's OK but person B should not respond in the same way.
> Whilst I agree that this can happen, what if Person B is unable, for
> whatever reason, to contain themselves? Then, in response, Person A is
> again unable to contain themselves, for whatever reason, ... Where does it
> stop?

You seem to be saying that a substantial part of the members of our
society shows anti-social behaviour.

I do not share that rather pessimistic point of view.

Anyway, if we really were in the situation that you seem to assume, then
of course it won't stop. The society would be doomed. And a code of conduct
couldn't change it, IMHO.

> Wouldn't it be better if Person A just learned, for whatever reason,
> to contain themselves?

Yes, it would. But a code of conduct is likely to not achieve it. To the
contrary, the fake authority of a code of conduct could lead some people
to engage in anti-social behaviour, since they can instrument the code of
conduct to bash or bully other members of the society.

This is not just a theory. Dima has mentioned that the situation reminds
him what he has experienced in soviet union. And early in this thread, I
have mentioned that it reminds me what is happening in far too many
German schools.

Astoundingly, some people here seem to say that a code of conduct is a very
American thing, while others seem to say that a code of conduct is a very
stalinist instrument...

Best regards,
Simon

[Volker Braun]

On Wednesday, November 26, 2014 8:53:39 PM UTC, Dima Pasechnik wrote:

To the contary, I have seen way too much of this shit in my youth, FYI.
"Laws of the pioneers of the Soviet Union",
"Moral codex of a young builder of Communism",

Funny that you mention it, but I always noticed many parallels between Russia and the US. They even both get quite mad real soon if you compare them to the other side. 

In any case, that is just another example of cultural baggage. Which is neither good nor bad, its just how things are. But we are using English to communicate, so we have to use the existing concepts in the English language to communicate. And its known as a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct, trying to invent another name for it just means that the majority will misunderstand your intentions.

Definition from wikipedia/IFAC: "Principles, values, standards, or rules of behavior that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of an organization in a way that (a) contributes to the welfare of its key stakeholders, and (b) respects the rights of all constituents affected by its operations."

[Dima Pasechnik]

On 2014-11-27, Volker Braun <vbrau...@gmail.com> wrote:
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>
> On Wednesday, November 26, 2014 8:53:39 PM UTC, Dima Pasechnik wrote:
>>
>> To the contary, I have seen way too much of this shit in my youth, FYI.
>> "Laws of the pioneers of the Soviet Union",
>> "Moral codex of a young builder of Communism",
>>
>
> Funny that you mention it, but I always noticed many parallels between
> Russia and the US. They even both get quite mad real soon if you compare
> them to the other side.

I don't know, I lived in SU, and I lived in a country called Russia for
about 3 months or so. I don't relate to them much any more.

> In any case, that is just another example of cultural baggage. Which is
> neither good nor bad, its just how things are.

Rather, it's another example of psychological trauma. It has little to do
with culture (well, a lot with lack of culture).

> But we are using English to
> communicate, so we have to use the existing concepts in the English
> language to communicate.

I don't see how language is relevant here. These issues are
language-agnostic, IMHO.

> And its known as
> a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct, trying to invent another
> name for it just means that the majority will misunderstand your intentions.
>
> Definition from wikipedia/IFAC: "Principles, values, standards, or rules of
> behavior that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of an
> organization in a way that (a) contributes to the welfare of its key
> stakeholders, and (b) respects the rights of all constituents affected by
> its operations."

The following fits quite well here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Code_of_the_Builder_of_Communism

[Volker Braun]

On Thursday, November 27, 2014 12:25:52 PM UTC, Dima Pasechnik wrote:

> In any case, that is just another example of cultural baggage. Which is
> neither good nor bad, its just how things are.
Rather, it's another example of psychological trauma. It has little to do
with culture (well, a lot with lack of culture).

There are multiple meanings to "culture", I meant the anthropological sense. Not: Theater and opera. 

I don't see how language is relevant here. These issues are
language-agnostic, IMHO.

How is it language-agnostic, we had two weeks that were mostly discussion about language. It should/should not be called "code", phrased differently, imperative vs. voluntary, written or unwritten. None of these change anything in the message, surely we agree on being nice to each other.

> Definition from wikipedia/IFAC: "Principles, values, standards, or rules [...]

The following fits quite well here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Code_of_the_Builder_of_Communism

Sure, principles can be good or bad. We all have (written or unwritten) principles, values, standards, and rules. Whats your point?

From the organizational perspective, it makes it very hard to argue (in writing / on a mailing list) about anything that is unwritten/implicit and/or that does not use standard terminology. Sure there are a bunch of fine points in the English language that might cause misunderstandings (especially if you are not a native English speaker), starting with what a "code of conduct" is and is not. But that really applies to any concept.

[Simon King]

Hi Volker,

On 2014-11-27, Volker Braun <vbrau...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Definition from wikipedia/IFAC: "Principles, values, standards, or rules of
> behavior that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of an
> organization in a way that (a) contributes to the welfare of its key
> stakeholders, and (b) respects the rights of all constituents affected by
> its operations."

Would the official stalinist definition of a code of conduct be any different?

Cheers,
Simon

[Volker Braun]

On Wednesday, November 26, 2014 5:28:28 PM UTC, Simon King wrote:

What you seem to not understand, Volker, is that Sage has grown far
beyond a US project. So, "a code of conduct is an American thing" is not a
good argument for having a code of conduct.

But we do communicate in English, so we can't really avoid using anglosaxon organizational concepts.

> Also, during the lengthy discussion there were very few concrete actionable
> suggestions for changes.
Yes there was. The suggestion to delete the code of conduct was very
concrete.

And that was one of the options in the vote.

 

[Simon King]

Hi Volker,

On 2014-11-27, Volker Braun <vbrau...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sure, principles can be good or bad. We all have (written or unwritten)
> principles, values, standards, and rules. Whats your point?

I guess that's *not* the point.

I didn't have time to read the page on the communist code, but I suppose
that the principles there are more or less sound. The problems arise as
soon as someone applies the abstract principles to real life, and does
so with bad intention.

So, it is not the principles that are good or bad. It is the application
of these principles which is good or bad. The application can be
codified (by laws which can be good or bad) or habitual. And I suppose
we all know that the same principles can be interpreted in largely
different ways.

In any case, I know from experience at various schools that the
deliberate use of a code of conduct as a weapon can nuke a society.
Anti-social behaviour that can base itself on "fake objectivity" (aka
code of conduct) is worse than plain anti-social behaviour, IMHO.

Cheers,
Simon

[Simon King]

Hi Dima,

On 2014-11-27, Dima Pasechnik <dim...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The following fits quite well here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Code_of_the_Builder_of_Communism

Thank you for the link. It indeed has a considerable overlap with other
codes of conduct.

Cheers,
Simon

[Simon King]

Hi Volker,

On 2014-11-27, Volker Braun <vbrau...@gmail.com> wrote:

> But we do communicate in English, so we can't really avoid using anglosaxon
> organizational concepts.

I refuse the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Moreover, we do not communicate in
English as native speakers. So, I absolutely see no reason why our
Lingua Franca should influence our mindset or our organisational structure.

Cheers,
Simon

[Volker Braun]

On Thursday, November 27, 2014 1:50:06 PM UTC, Simon King wrote:

I refuse the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Please define which version you are talking about.

Nobody takes linguistic determinism serious nowadays. But linguistic and cultural relativism are a thing whether you like it or not.

[Nathann Cohen]

>> But we do communicate in English, so we can't really avoid using anglosaxon
>> organizational concepts.

I am in India right now. Here, indians often speak english with each
other as it is often their only common language.

Of course, they drive on the left. But I expect that you would find
quite some differences between London and New Delhi.

I believe that it disproves your claim:

1) India exists
2) They are not bound to english/american concepts because they use the language

Nathann

P.S. : If many people agree that the language of sage-devel
determinates our organisation, we must have a vote to decide which
language we should use here.

[Simon King]

On 2014-11-27, Volker Braun <vbrau...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Nobody takes linguistic determinism serious nowadays. But linguistic and
> cultural relativism are a thing whether you like it or not.

AFAIK the relativism only (or at least: mainly) holds for native speakers. So,
you have not answered to my argument that using a Lingua Franca is
absolutely no reason to adopt organisational principles that seem
fashionable to native speakers of that language.

Cheers,
Simon

[Volker Braun]

On Thursday, November 27, 2014 2:10:59 PM UTC, Simon King wrote:

AFAIK the relativism only (or at least: mainly) holds for native speakers. So,
you have not answered to my argument that using a Lingua Franca is
absolutely no reason to adopt organisational principles that seem
fashionable to native speakers of that language.

That is precisely my point, you see no reason because you are a native German speaker and draw from a different cultural background. The relativism always applies, it just applies relative to a different point of reference.

Again, thats not necessarily good or bad. What matters is what will be understood by most, and at least the vote gives you one data point.

 

[Simon King]

Hi Volker,

Am Donnerstag, 27. November 2014 15:28:38 UTC+1 schrieb Volker Braun:

On Thursday, November 27, 2014 2:10:59 PM UTC, Simon King wrote:

AFAIK the relativism only (or at least: mainly) holds for native speakers. So,
you have not answered to my argument that using a Lingua Franca is
absolutely no reason to adopt organisational principles that seem
fashionable to native speakers of that language.

That is precisely my point, you see no reason because you are a native German speaker

Wrong. Even as a native English speaker, I think I would be able to understand that the conclusion "English language => adopting certain organisational principles without being susceptible for stalinism" is incorrect.
 

Again, thats not necessarily good or bad. What matters is what will be understood by most, and at least the vote gives you one data point.

 That's fine, as long as you are just trying to explain the outcome of the vote to me (no need to do so, I fully understand the influence of personal experiences and cultural background on the voting).

However, if you claim that the fact that a majority of Sage devs is English native speakers implies that there will be no strong minority abusing a code of conduct in a stalinistic way, then I am rather not convinced.

Cheers,
Simon

[Anne Schilling]

http://wiki.sagemath.org/CodeOfConduct

It is funny: someone called it the "Code of Contact" on this link (I changed it since it referred to the original)! Since so many people are discussing the name and the oppressive meaning it has for them, we could indeed do a play on words!

 Also, Simon, in your way of doing things, in my experience if one does not respond to an inappropriate message, then others will and discussions go in all sorts of directions. So if a discussion was kind of shut down by a "rude" post, how should one proceed? I would like to try that experiment!

[Nathann Cohen]

>  Also, Simon, in your way of doing things, in my experience if one does not respond to an inappropriate message, then others will and discussions go in all sorts of directions. So if a discussion was kind of shut down by a "rude" post, how should one proceed? I would like to try that experiment!

It is not always so black and white, I believe. You can try to extract the technical information from the rude post, if there is any, and answer to that. But I don't think that you often have a peaceful discussion and, all of a sudden, 'a rude post'. Usually the tension grows progressively (with a dark music in the background) on both sides for a while before that happens. Well. Methinks.

Nathann

[Viviane Pons]

2014-11-27 18:08 GMT+01:00 Nathann Cohen <nathan...@gmail.com>:

>  Also, Simon, in your way of doing things, in my experience if one does not respond to an inappropriate message, then others will and discussions go in all sorts of directions. So if a discussion was kind of shut down by a "rude" post, how should one proceed? I would like to try that experiment!

It is not always so black and white, I believe. You can try to extract the technical information from the rude post, if there is any, and answer to that. But I don't think that you often have a peaceful discussion and, all of a sudden, 'a rude post'. Usually the tension grows progressively (with a dark music in the background) on both sides for a while before that happens. Well. Methinks.

I think we can discuss code and ideas without being rude. If I receive a rude comment, I have neither the energy nor the time to find the ideas in it, and I shouldn't have to do it (and neither should you).

The point of the code of conduct is not to make us change our general behaviour. I think, most of time, we're doing ok. Even in this post, it's not that bad. Just it happens that, sometimes, someone crosses the line and I find it good that we write down what being respectful means to us, that's all.

I feel that it is not something so uncommon. As Volker said, many other communities have some thing like this and they are still able to communicate and exchange ideas and point of views. They didn't turn into dictatorship...

 

Nathann

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[Nathann Cohen]

Yooooooo !

> I think we can discuss code and ideas without being rude. If I receive a rude comment, I have neither the energy nor the time to find the ideas in it, and I shouldn't have to do it (and neither should you).

Well, rudeness happen because of misunderstandings. Of course we can discuss code without being rude, but sometimes it is also different standards, that's all. Look at the 0-based Permutation thing: you have your standard, I have mine. I will never find that yours makes sense, you will never find that mine makes sense. But one of us will always have to use the other's standard. There is nothing fair in that, and it will not be fair whatever the choice. Plus there is no exchange possible, it's not like we can make deals over that.

Dictators are cool for this kind of things :-P

> The point of the code of conduct is not to make us change our general behaviour. I think, most of time, we're doing ok. Even in this post, it's not that bad. Just it happens that, sometimes, someone crosses the line and I find it good that we write down what being respectful means to us, that's all.

Yeah, but it's like building guns. Eventually, somebody will point it at someone. And then it will not be about "being friendly", it will be about "the rules that are written". Personally, this is the only thing I want to avoid. Nobody here ever meant to claim that it was not right to be friendly and patient.

Nathann

[Emmanuel Charpentier]

Alternative : make the majestuous Latin of Leonard Euler the lingua franca of sage- lists/groups. That would give us the added benefit  of having grammatically well-built posts much more frequently...

(I'd also propose French (but I'm highly biased :-] and that requires non-ASCII characters), German (also needs non-ASCII characters) or (classical) Greek (ditto, plus it's murderously difficult to get it right : in France, old Classicists used to tell that one has to forget greek seven times before getting a grasp of it...). So Latin, which has been proved for a long time to be a serviceable lingua franca for mathematics, would probably be the"least bad" solution if we really wanted to enforce civility through linguistic tools).

Hoping (but not really expecting) this helps,

--
Emmanuel Charpentier

Cheers,
Simon

[Volker Braun]

On Thursday, November 27, 2014 7:20:42 PM UTC, Emmanuel Charpentier wrote:

Alternative : make the majestuous Latin of Leonard Euler the lingua franca of sage- lists/groups. That would give us the added benefit  of having grammatically well-built posts much more frequently...

Quick, lets vote on it since it is only today that there are no Americans on sage-devel ;-) 

[Peter Bruin]

Lectoribus salutem!

Emmanuel Charpentier scripsit:

Alternative : make the majestuous Latin of Leonard Euler the lingua franca of sage- lists/groups. That would give us the added benefit  of having grammatically well-built posts much more frequently...

Haec propositio approbationem meam habet.  (Aut, sicut hodie dicetur: plus unum!)

Ceterum censeo codicem morum delendum esse.

Petrus

[Emmanuel Charpentier]

7 Frimaire an 223 de la Révolution die, scribit Volker Braun :

On Thursday, November 27, 2014 7:20:42 PM UTC, Emmanuel Charpentier wrote:

Alternative : make the majestuous Latin of Leonard Euler the lingua franca of sage- lists/groups. That would give us the added benefit  of having grammatically well-built posts much more frequently...

Quick, lets vote on it since it is only today that there are no Americans on sage-devel ;-) 

Placet. Sic fiat.

[Peter Bruin]

die XXVII mensis Novembris anni MMDCCLXVII ab urbe condita Emmanuel Charpentier scripsit:

Placet mihi quoque.

[Viviane Pons]

2014-11-27 18:41 GMT+01:00 Nathann Cohen <nathan...@gmail.com>:

Yooooooo !

> I think we can discuss code and ideas without being rude. If I receive a rude comment, I have neither the energy nor the time to find the ideas in it, and I shouldn't have to do it (and neither should you).

Well, rudeness happen because of misunderstandings. Of course we can discuss code without being rude, but sometimes it is also different standards, that's all. Look at the 0-based Permutation thing: you have your standard, I have mine. I will never find that yours makes sense, you will never find that mine makes sense. But one of us will always have to use the other's standard. There is nothing fair in that, and it will not be fair whatever the choice. Plus there is no exchange possible, it's not like we can make deals over that.

Dictators are cool for this kind of things :-P

Well, conversations such as the one we had on permutations are fine. We both have a point of view and we just argued to defend it. I see no problem in that! The problem comes where instead, this goes out of hand with personal attacks, demeaning comments or things like that.

> The point of the code of conduct is not to make us change our general behaviour. I think, most of time, we're doing ok. Even in this post, it's not that bad. Just it happens that, sometimes, someone crosses the line and I find it good that we write down what being respectful means to us, that's all.

Yeah, but it's like building guns. Eventually, somebody will point it at someone. And then it will not be about "being friendly", it will be about "the rules that are written". Personally, this is the only thing I want to avoid. Nobody here ever meant to claim that it was not right to be friendly and patient.

I understand your fear. That's why I'm really ready to put effort into *not* making it a gun. None of us want a gun, what we want is a safety nest, no shooting!! On the other hand, you guys have to acknowledge the fact that some of us need this safety nest even if you don't see the point... That's the very reason people proposed a code of conduct at the first place.

 Cheers

Viviane

[Simon King]

Hi Viviane,

On 2014-11-27, Viviane Pons <vivia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think we can discuss code and ideas without being rude. If I receive a
> rude comment, I have neither the energy nor the time to find the ideas in
> it, and I shouldn't have to do it (and neither should you).

Why not? I didn't edit the code of conduct on the wiki page yet, but that's
certainly something I'd like to add to it.

A code of conduct should not only give advises how to avoid the creation
of a conflict, but also how to settle a conflict.

> I feel that it is not something so uncommon. As Volker said, many other

> communities have some thing like this ...

... pirates had it, too.

But seriously: So far my experience with codes of conducts has been at
various German school. In *all* cases, the teachers instrumented
it to bully pupils they didn't like and then blamed these pupils for the
resulting destruction of the community. So, if someone suggests creating
a code of conduct, I can't help it: I must think of it as a weapon.

Best regards,
Simon

[Andrew]

I think we can discuss code and ideas without being rude. If I receive a rude comment, I have neither the energy nor the time to find the ideas in it, and I shouldn't have to do it (and neither should you).

+1
 

A.

[Travis Scrimshaw]

> I feel that it is not something so uncommon. As Volker said, many other
> communities have some thing like this ...

... pirates had it, too.

'the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules' - Captain Barbossa

[Simon King]

Hi!

Am Freitag, 28. November 2014 04:26:44 UTC+1 schrieb Andrew:

I think we can discuss code and ideas without being rude. If I receive a rude comment, I have neither the energy nor the time to find the ideas in it, and I shouldn't have to do it (and neither should you).

+1

If a substantial part of our community would share that attitude, we'd be in serious trouble, I am afraid.

For creating a conflict, it is in some cases sufficient to have a single person who had have a bad day or didn't sleep enough, causing a temporary misjudgement.

However, for keeping a conflict boiling, it is in all cases necessary to have several people who are committing continued misjudgements. And that's what the mentioned attitude achieves.

And unfortunately, a code of conduct can not prevent a temporary misjudgement, but it may encourage the mentioned attitude, making conflicts a lot more violent.

In other words, if you are able to see a legitimate request behind a wall of behaviour that seems inappropriate to you, then you should answer that request. It is fine if you are not able to, but then please don't answer at all.

Best regards,
Simon

[Nicolas M. Thiery]

On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 11:48:01AM +0530, Nathann Cohen wrote:
> I understand.

:-)

> I also understand that nobody in your short-list could feel entitled to
> give the others' name, but this can be solved easily: would you be
> willing to send them an email and ask whether they object to this
> request ? Somebody could then answer this question, or tell us that
> some members do not want to reveal their identity.

They are grown up and read sage-devel :-) I'll just add that this was
a diverse smallish group of people from three different continents.

> ... about how this was run ...

As I said: I certainly agree, in retrospect, that things could have
been done better. But I see it as rather pointless to discuss further
the how and why given that nothing irreversible was decided: William
explicitly left the door open. And even if he had not, we, as a
community, rule.

Now what we need to do is to build a 2.0. We all agree that
"friendliness" can't be imposed by law. Whatever document is up at the
end will be effective if and only if the community, as a whole,
adheres to it. So yeah, let's build this consensus. And since some
people voiced strong opinions on how this shall be done, I am very
happy letting them take the lead :-)


> I know exactly how you feel. I have been trying to remind peole for
> two years of wrong results returned by Sage, I tried to fix it
> myself many many times only to find out I was not competent on this
> part of the code. I also tried to say that the way findstat was
> implemented in Sage could be less intrusive, and there were others
> examples. And yet I took this code of conduct to be against me even
> though I tried, clumsily and honestly, to make our code a better
> code.

Thanks for sharing!

I (and everybody else I believe) very much appreciate your hard work
toward making Sage more robust. There are indeed crappy things that
are horribly lagging behind (permutations, integerlistlex, ... ). I
know how frustrating it is when things don't move and we don't have
leverage. It's good to have someone pushing toward their
resolution. The question is only about the most effective way to
achieve this. I believe what people have been reacting against was
someone trying to impose them an agenda by leaning on their
guiltiness.

For findstat there was a lot of rambling around; but in practice the
reaching of a consensus and its implementation was a matter of a
couple hours. For the specific thing you have in mind, remember that
we don't agree on whether it was a bug or a missing feature. And we
don't have to agree, especially since the issue is now resolved
(thanks Anne! thanks Travis!).

In short: this was never meant against you as a person. But rather as
an attempt to foster the improvement of certain actions of you, among
others, and in fact of everybody, me first.

Cheers,
Nicolas

PS: I don't know whether this is related in anyway to that attempt;
and don't really care either. But your reading of that "Non Violent
Communication" book, and its immediate put to good use in your recent
e-mails, are a blessing. This is in fact the nicest gift I received in
a while :-)

--
Nicolas M. Thiéry "Isil" <nth...@users.sf.net>
http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/

[Nicolas M. Thiery]

On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 12:40:42AM -0800, Travis Scrimshaw wrote:
> ... pirates had it, too.
>
> 'the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules' -
> Captain Barbossa

ROTFL :-)

Welcome aboard the Black Sage!

Nicolas

[Anne Schilling]

Hi Simon and all,

> If a substantial part of our community would share that attitude, we'd be in serious trouble, I am afraid.
>
> For creating a conflict, it is in some cases sufficient to have a single person who had have a bad day or didn't sleep enough, causing a temporary misjudgement.
>
> However, for keeping a conflict boiling, it is in all cases necessary to have several people who are committing continued misjudgements. And that's what the mentioned attitude achieves.
>
> And unfortunately, a code of conduct can not prevent a temporary misjudgement, but it may encourage the mentioned attitude, making conflicts a lot more violent.
>
> In other words, if you are able to see a legitimate request behind a wall of behaviour that seems inappropriate to you, then you should answer that request. It is fine if you are not able to, but then
> please don't answer at all.

I think the whole conundrum is not about one person having a bad day, but repeated behaviors that many different people perceive as offensive and are turned away by. That, to a community of
volunteers, is dangerous! It is counter productive and takes a lot of positive energy away.

Viviane mentioned already once the situation where someone opens a thread to discuss something, but then gets attacked and/or the discussion disintegrates. Then what do you do if you still want to
discuss these issues? Since you seem to have very strong opinions how things should be done and I am in such a situation, I would like to know how should this be handled?

Best,

Anne