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Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

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Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#61

Post by marssaxman »

flukus wrote: post #55
MichaelGG wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't require an IRC client, looks slick, has rich text, and integrations with other platforms. Biggest thing is that it doesn't need an IRC server. It could have been made with IRC underneath, but you'd want an intermediate layer to retain messages and so on.

There are web based IRC clients. IRC can integrate with other platforms pretty easily. IRC doesn't require setting up your own server. Being able to setup your own server is a benefit, not a negative. Much like twitter it seems to be another regressions from an open internet to corporate control. The only positive I can see is rich text, but that has extremely limited value in a chat program. History is nice too but…

Rich text is a pretty strong negative, for me!

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#62

Post by nitwit005 »

xenadu02 wrote: post #15
marssaxman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the "code of conduct" fad/trend, I don't understand where it came from or what problem it's trying to solve. I suspect that I might be sympathetic to their goals, if the "code of conduct" people did a better job of explaining them, but they just seem to take the necessity of this practice for granted. I therefore assume that the cultural conversation which produced the idea must have taken place in some ven…

Are you serious or arguing insincerely? I can't tell. Codes of conduct are a direct response to ongoing harassment and stalking against various contributors of various open-source projects, followed by inaction on the part of the project maintainers or the excuse of "that just can't handle criticism". What is so offensive about saying "make it about the code, not about the person" and "don't stalk, dox, or harass peo…

I can't help but notice that no matter how often this comes up, no one ever points to an incident of a code of conduct fixing something.

I do see a lot of complaints about heated arguments about having a code of conduct, and plenty of evidence of those arguments existing.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#63

Post by MichaelGG »

flukus wrote: post #55
MichaelGG wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't require an IRC client, looks slick, has rich text, and integrations with other platforms. Biggest thing is that it doesn't need an IRC server. It could have been made with IRC underneath, but you'd want an intermediate layer to retain messages and so on.

There are web based IRC clients. IRC can integrate with other platforms pretty easily. IRC doesn't require setting up your own server. Being able to setup your own server is a benefit, not a negative. Much like twitter it seems to be another regressions from an open internet to corporate control. The only positive I can see is rich text, but that has extremely limited value in a chat program. History is nice too but…

I'd love to agree. But with IRC you've no guarantee, for instance, that an offline user will receive notifications when they sign in (plus multi client handling).

Slack has search for history, which is huge. No more "eh we talked about it".

Onprem is great. But it's a hindrance for quick adoption.

I'd love if an open system would win. I've no love for Slack and don't use it. (Have used hipchat; what a UI mess like all of their products.) But I guess no one stepped up with an IRC-based platform that could compete.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#64

Post by falcolas »

sanswork wrote: post #53
falcolas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to rely on a CoC to get your contributors to not "be jerks" and "be professional", you have other issues with your community which really need to be addressed first. No CoC is ever going to stop a jerk from being a jerk. It will just prompt the jerks to work around it and cause even more headaches for the contributors. Worse, it brings about those who only want to criticize the CoC, either because it's to…

>No CoC is ever going to stop a jerk from being a jerk. Right but it will remove the jerks from the community. >It will just prompt the jerks to work around it and cause even more headaches for the contributors. How do you imagine this happening? >Taking the time to address critiques on a CoC is time taken away from actually developing on a project and building a community who cares about the project, not the CoC. Sp…

> Right but it will remove the jerks from the community.

How, exactly? The CoC does nothing but codify someone's values for a community. It doesn't actually do anything, other than state a set of unacceptable behaviors and potential solutions to those behaviors. It's still up to the contributors to actually act, and if your community is good in the first place, they won't need the prompting of a CoC to act against jerks.

> How do you imagine this happening?

Easily - a CoC leaves a lot of grey areas, which provide plenty of room for griefing and harassment which isn't technically against the CoC. And if an action falls within that grey area, someone, or several someones, has to take time and not just say "this is bad", they have to tie that judgement back into the CoC somehow. It's even worse when there are consequences in the CoC for "lack of enforcement of the CoC" - being perceived as doing nothing can remove someone as a contributor. It's worth remembering, we're (mostly) developers, not lawyers.

> Except the people doing it are complaining about not being allowed to be jerks.

Are most of the people in this thread of comments complaining about not being able to harass or abuse other people? Or are they raising concerns about the ambiguous nature of these CoCs, and the perceived unnecessity? More specifically, how much time did Matz have to take out of his development schedule just to address the complaints against Ruby's CoC?

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#65

Post by moosingin3space »

ciupicri wrote: post #43
xenadu02 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious or arguing insincerely? I can't tell. Codes of conduct are a direct response to ongoing harassment and stalking against various contributors of various open-source projects, followed by inaction on the part of the project maintainers or the excuse of "that just can't handle criticism". What is so offensive about saying "make it about the code, not about the person" and "don't stalk, dox, or harass peo…

What's so bad about a code reviewer which starts sending you dick pics compared to a code reviewer which starts sending you cat pics? They're both a waste of time.

Dick pics fall into the category of "unwanted sexual advances", which is a form of harassment.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#66

Post by MichaelGG »

jcoffland wrote: post #46
MichaelGG wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub code of conduct actually is in favor of racism, if you're in the wrong group. Ditto for sexism. "We will not act on complaints regarding ‘reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’" That they even use the term "reverse racism" is telling. This is from a company that, in internal training, has anti-white material. "This is not work for white people", "biggest barriers to progress are white wo…

Those quotes are inexcusable but are from a talk given by the presenter prior to her working with Github.

Ah my mistake. It wasn't at GitHub then? I guess it fit the narrative so I didn't verify. OTOH if they hired such a person for a related position, that speaks a lot. (If it was a technical hire, less so.)

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#67

Post by sanswork »

nitwit005 wrote: post #62
xenadu02 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious or arguing insincerely? I can't tell. Codes of conduct are a direct response to ongoing harassment and stalking against various contributors of various open-source projects, followed by inaction on the part of the project maintainers or the excuse of "that just can't handle criticism". What is so offensive about saying "make it about the code, not about the person" and "don't stalk, dox, or harass peo…

I can't help but notice that no matter how often this comes up, no one ever points to an incident of a code of conduct fixing something. I do see a lot of complaints about heated arguments about having a code of conduct, and plenty of evidence of those arguments existing.

There is one from the Rust team below.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#68

Post by sanswork »

falcolas wrote: post #64
sanswork wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No CoC is ever going to stop a jerk from being a jerk. Right but it will remove the jerks from the community. >It will just prompt the jerks to work around it and cause even more headaches for the contributors. How do you imagine this happening? >Taking the time to address critiques on a CoC is time taken away from actually developing on a project and building a community who cares about the project, not the CoC. Sp…

> Right but it will remove the jerks from the community. How, exactly? The CoC does nothing but codify someone's values for a community. It doesn't actually do anything, other than state a set of unacceptable behaviors and potential solutions to those behaviors. It's still up to the contributors to actually act, and if your community is good in the first place, they won't need the prompting of a CoC to act against je…

>How, exactly?

By giving members of the community a place to point to which explains why exactly they are excluding someone and a set of reasons why they will exclude others in the future.

>Easily - a CoC leaves a lot of grey areas, which provide plenty of room for griefing and harassment which isn't technically against the CoC.

Like what? Saying it could happen then when asked for examples replying with "it could happen" isn't exactly convincing for it being possible.

>Are most of the people in this thread of comments complaining about not being able to harass or abuse other people?

Well I see a few complaining that they don't feel comfortable in a space where one exists so for those people it probably is though I doubt they'd use those words to explain their actions. I see others complaining about their existence but not really providing any arguments against them other than "they aren't needed" or "they don't work".

I mean your whole argument here is that it should just happen as the CoC outlines. But history isn't on your side as open source in general has been historically full of harassment both sexual and non-sexual and various levels of abuse. To the point that it's actually celebrated from some of the bigger names in the space.

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#69

Post by ciupicri »

sanswork wrote: post #53
falcolas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to rely on a CoC to get your contributors to not "be jerks" and "be professional", you have other issues with your community which really need to be addressed first. No CoC is ever going to stop a jerk from being a jerk. It will just prompt the jerks to work around it and cause even more headaches for the contributors. Worse, it brings about those who only want to criticize the CoC, either because it's to…

>No CoC is ever going to stop a jerk from being a jerk. Right but it will remove the jerks from the community. >It will just prompt the jerks to work around it and cause even more headaches for the contributors. How do you imagine this happening? >Taking the time to address critiques on a CoC is time taken away from actually developing on a project and building a community who cares about the project, not the CoC. Sp…

> Right but it will remove the jerks from the community.

As if the maintainers/leaders can't remove someone from the community if they wish to, without the need of codes.

P.S. By the way, the Rust Code of Conduct [1] states:

> Remarks that moderators find inappropriate, whether listed in the code of conduct or not, are also not allowed.

[1]: https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html

Re: Open Letter to the Emacs Maintainers

#70

Post by sanswork »

ciupicri wrote: post #69
sanswork wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No CoC is ever going to stop a jerk from being a jerk. Right but it will remove the jerks from the community. >It will just prompt the jerks to work around it and cause even more headaches for the contributors. How do you imagine this happening? >Taking the time to address critiques on a CoC is time taken away from actually developing on a project and building a community who cares about the project, not the CoC. Sp…

> Right but it will remove the jerks from the community. As if the maintainers/leaders can't remove someone from the community if they wish to, without the need of codes. P.S. By the way, the Rust Code of Conduct [1] states: > Remarks that moderators find inappropriate, whether listed in the code of conduct or not , are also not allowed. [1]: https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html

They can but it is a lot easier to remove someone from the community when you can point to actual rules of the community they've broken besides just "we don't like you".

I honestly can't see peoples objections to CoC. If as you say it doesn't actually change anything why do you object?

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