Hi Solveig, > I think if you do something, do it right. Lots of feminists, who work on > these questions since years, collectively, and are concerned by the > problem, have documented not only *why* have a CoC, but also *how* - not > following their advice is silly and wrong. IMHO you are conflagrating two distinct reasons why people want, or need, a CoC. One is for armchair lawyers. If Mr.Insensitive is at a conference and has bought a ticket, you need a list of Bad Things he has agreed not to do as a condition for attendance; if you don't, you basically have no cause if you need to ban him, as long as he is not disruptifve to the assembly at large. "Be nice" will not work for these guys, as they're bound to think that all they've been doing is to nicely compliment a woman about her boobs - and what can possibly wrong with that? :-/ The other is for online communities where participation is a privilege, not a right. If the Debian mailing list admin kicks Mr.I off the list for being a dick, he can fork Debian -- and that's it. The CoC's goal is to tell people not that they're bad, but to get them to consider for themselves how they can be better -- so that any harrassment or crude jokes or what- ever don't even enter the picture. Ideally. > So, what's their advice, and what's missing? > Umm, no. Ubuntu's CoC worked very well when it was written (specifically because of the absymal mode of "discussion" on our mailing lists at the time) and it did not enumerate bad behavior either. > There should be a way to report abusive or inadequate behaviour without > starting a quest to find somebody interested, maybe have > conduct@debian.org where people can redirect you to the right place AND > keep trace, so that inadequate behaviour cannot continue on a different > forum. Or maybe see if https://wiki.debian.org/AntiHarassment can be > extended? > That's a good suggestion. > In general, this Code of Conduct seems to be more afraid to bruise > offender's ego than to assure contributor's well-being. I don't read it that way, frankly. This CoC doesn't talk to the offenders. They won't listen anyway. This CoC asks the rest of us to be more mindful so that we don't become, or support (if only by inaction), offenders. -- -- Matthias Urlichs
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