Re: Revising the Code of Conduct
Wouter Verhelst <w@uter.be> proposed:
> The Debian mailinglists exist to foster the development and use of
> Debian. This Code of Conduct exists to help towards that goal.
>
> In particular, the following rules should be adhered to by participants
> to discussion on Debian mailinglists:
That second paragraph looks like it should get complaints from
debian-l10n-english, so let's rephrase:
Participants in discussions on Debian mailing lists should follow these
rules:
> 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or
> disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere
> in Debian. That type of behaviour is not constructive and can quickly
> lead to a degradation of the quality of a discussion.
I feel it would be nicer to open with a positive point rather than a
big "DO NOT". I'd rephrase even "do not flame" as a positive
instruction, so I'd reorder/rewrite the first three items like so:
1. You're welcome to use our mailing lists to ask questions, but
please use the most appropriate list you can see. If you are
unsure, use debian-user for support-related questions, or
debian-mentors for development-related questions. Be prepared to
ask your question on a different list if told to do so, and
mention that it is a resent question.
2. Avoid flaming, cursing and other abusive or disrespectful
behaviour as much as you can. That usually distracts from the
real discussion and is not constructive.
3. Use the correct language when sending mails to our lists. This is
usually English, unless otherwise noted in the description of the
mailing list in question.
I think "mailing list" is still usually two words, so I'd change that
throughout.
Oh and I added mentioning that a question has been resent, as it can
be annoying to find half a discussion months later.
> [...] You should preferably also use a
> mailer which respects the Mail-Followup-To: header, or make a
> best-effort attempt at respecting it manually if you don't.
Yeah, I hope there's significant opposition to this change! I think
it's a great shame that Mail-Followup-To is still stumbling around, 15
years after its fatal wounding in IETF DRUMS. It still doesn't work
and last I knew, mutt implemented it a different way to djb's spec and
some other clients, which complicates its use. For one typical
discussion, see http://www.imc.org/ietf-822/mail-archive/msg05692.html
In short, I'd prefer the code of conduct to encourage people to take
control rather than recommend rejected / divergently-implemented headers:
You should check whether to reply to the List-Post address only,
or whether the original author would like to be a Cc recipient.
This may be indicated in the non-standard Mail-Followup-To header.
> Repeated offenders may be temporarily of permanently banned from posting
s/ of / or /
Other than that, I think it's pretty unobjectionable, as far as I could tell.
Hope that helps,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct
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