Re: Revising the Code of Conduct

[Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>]

Hi Wouter,

many thanks for this initiative !

Here are some comments.

 - I think that we shoud encourage more private replies.  For instance,
   "If you want to complain to someone who sent you a carbon copy when
   you did not ask for it, do it privately" (from the current CoC), but also
   for +1 messages, etc.  To balance this, we may mention that people starting
   and fuelling a long thread would be very welcome to post a summary at
   the end.

 - I think that in typical threads where the number of messages is expected to
   be large (perhaps this one for instance), people should really do their best
   to limit the number of messages they post.  If others agree, I recommend
   to add this to the CoC.

 - How about recommending to let a discussion start before answering to an
   email ?  Here is one interesting extract from another CoC:

    When responding to a very simple question, use the following algorithm:

     - compose your response
     - type 4*runif(1) at the R prompt, and wait this many hours
     - check for new posts to R-help; if no similar suggestion, post your response

      (This is partly in jest, but if you know immediately why it is suggested, you
      probably should use it! Also, it's a nice idea to replace 4 by the number of
      years you have been using R or S-plus.)

      http://www.r-project.org/posting-guide.html

 - How about separating the technical and social aspects ?  I feel that comments
   about Cc headers, length of lines or presence of HTML tags tend to inflate
   tensions, rather than helping others to optimise their communication.  For instance I
   find some recommendations against to posting borderline insulting.

Hopefully, this will be my only message in this tread.

Cheers,

-- 
Charles