Re: 2nd draft (was: Re: Revising the Code of Conduct)
Greetings.
Wouter (and all other contributors): thank you very much for working on a Code
of Conduct. This really matters.
Further comments below.
On Wednesday, May 22, 2013 04:52:42, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
...
> New draft:
>
> ---
> # Debian mailing list Code of Conduct
>
> The Debian mailing lists exist to foster the development and use of
> Debian. This Code of Conduct exists to help towards that goal.
>
> Participants in discussions on Debian mailing lists should follow
> these rules:
>
> 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.
I'd like this to be more global in coverage, and not just focus on the mailing
lists. In this draft of the Code of Conduct, 8 out of the 9 rules are about
email, so it feels more like a "mailing list CoC" right now than a "CoC". ;-)
> 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.
To me this sounds a bit too soft.
Everyone /deserves/ respect as a baseline, and so I don't see any reason why
we couldn't push hard for this. I've seen disrespectful communications from
Debian Developers on the mailing lists, IRC, BTS reports, external blogs with
Debian derivatives, and so forth. There are lots of rules for Debian
Develoeprs concerning how to do Debian packaging, but virtually none
concerning respectful communication, and it's important.
Every large project or mailing list ends up needing such rules of conduct, and
I'd like to see Debian armed with the same to be able to tackle this problem
too.
For reference, the Ubuntu Code of Conduct v2.0 has more broad coverage and
some language concerning respectfulness that is a bit more firm (but yet not
"law") which I think is worth a look. In addition there's a "responsibility"
section which I also think helps respectfulness as a byproduct.
http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct
Everything else in this draft feels "on the right track" to me.
-- Chris
--
Chris Knadle
Chris.Knadle@coredump.us
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