Hi Brett, +10 for the code of conduct, first step to help people to improve their behaviour themselves. Maybe the situation might be the result that Python is more and more mainstream: like a start-up that grows too much to integrate correctly new people hired, we might face to the same issue, without the money incentive to motivate people to work together. I've no magic suggestion to improve the situation, it's the responsibility of each participant to do an introspection about his own behaviour. My personal tip to have a better public behaviour on mailing-lists: When I feel to have internal emotions about a discussion, I try now to wait at least one day to answer, to sleep before to reread and to send my response. It isn't a silver bullet, especially with a provocative discussion, but, at least, I've the feeling that it's better for everybody, including me, to reduce the escalation effect. I don't know you, but I hope the situation will be better for you in the future, each person in the community is important. Have a nice week. -- Ludovic Gasc (GMLudo) http://www.gmludo.eu/ 2016-10-17 20:29 GMT+02:00 Brett Cannon :

Based on some emails I read in the " unpacking generalisations for list comprehension", I feel like I need to address this entire list about its general behaviour.

If you don't follow me on Twitter you may not be aware that I am taking the entire month of October off from volunteering any personal time on Python for my personal well-being (this reply is being done on work time for instance). This stems from my wife pointing out that I had been rather stressed in July and August outside of work in relation to my Python volunteering (having your weekends ruined is never fun). That stress stemmed primarily from two rather bad interactions I had to contend with on the issue track in July and August ... and this mailing list.

When I have talked to people about this mailing list it's often referred to by others as the "wild west" of Python development discussions (if you're not familiar with US culture, that turn of phrase basically means "anything goes"). To me that is not a compliment. When I created this list with Titus the goal was to provide a safe place where people could bring up ideas for Python where people could quickly provide basic feedback so people could know whether there was any chance that python-dev would consider the proposal. This was meant to be a win for proposers by not feeling like they were wasting python-dev's time and a win for python-dev by keeping that list focused on the development of Python and not fielding every idea that people want to propose.

And while this list has definitely helped with the cognitive load on python-dev, it has not always provided a safe place for people to express ideas. I have seen people completely dismiss people's expertise and opinion. There has been name calling and yelling at people (which is always unnecessary). There have been threads that have completely derailed itself and gone entirely off-topic. IOW I would not hold this mailing list up as an example of the general discourse that I experience elsewhere within the community.

Now I realize that we are all human beings coming from different cultural backgrounds and lives. We all have bad days and may not take the time to stop and think about what we are typing before sending it, leading to emails that are worded in a way that can be hurtful to others. It's also easy to forget that various cultures views things differently and so that can lead to people "reading between the lines" a lot and picking up things that were never intended. There are 1,031 people on this mailing list from around the world and it's easy to forget that e.g. Canadian humour may not translate well to Ukrainian culture (or something). What this means is it's okay to *nicely* say that something bothered you, but also try to give people the benefit of the doubt as you don't know what their day had been like before they wrote that email (I personally don't like the "just mute the thread" approach to dealing with bad actors when the muting is silent as that doesn't help new people who join this mailing list and the first email they see is someone being rude that everyone else didn't see because they muted the thread days ago).

As for the off-topic threads, please remember there are 1,031 people on this mailing list (this doesn't count people reading through gmane or Google Groups). Being extremely generous and assuming every person on this list only spends 10 seconds deciding if they care about your email, that's still nearly 3 hours of cumulative time spent on your email. So please be cognisant when you reply, and if you want to have an off-topic conversation, please take it off-list.

And finally, as one of the list administrators I am in a position of power when it comes to the rules of this list and the CoC. While I'm one of the judges on when someone has violated the CoC, I purposefully try not to play the role of police to avoid bias and abuse of power. What that means is that I never personally lodge a CoC complaint against anyone. That means that if you feel someone is being abusive here you cannot rely on list admins noticing and doing something about it. If you feel someone has continuously been abusive on this list and violating the CoC then you must email the list admins about it if you wish to see action taken (all communications are kept private among the admins). Now I'm not asking people to email us on every small infraction (as I said above, try to give everyone a break knowing we all have bad days), but if you notice a pattern then you need to speak up if you would like to see something change.

When I started my month off I thought that maybe if I only read this mailing list once a week that the frequency would be low enough that I could handle the stress of being both a participant and admin who is ultimately responsible for the behaviour here, but I'm afraid that isn't going to cut it. What I don't think people realize is that I don't take my responsibility as admin lightly; any time anyone acts rudely I take it personally like I somehow failed by letting the atmosphere and discourse on this list become what it is. Because of this I'm afraid I need to mute this mailing list for the rest of my vacation from volunteering in the Python community after I send this email. I personally hope people do take the time to read this email and reflect upon how they conduct themselves on this mailing list -- and maybe on other lists as well -- so that when I attempt to come back in November I don't have to permanent stop being a participant on this list and simply become an admin for this list to prevent complete burn-out for me in the Python community (and I know this last sentence sounds dramatic, but I'm being serious; the irony of receiving the Frank Willison award the same year I'm having to contemplate fundamentally shifting how I engage with the community to not burn out is not lost on me).

-Brett

_______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

+1. I read many disagreements, and people being rude and unprofessional on occasions, but nothing that would make me have a bad day, even when I was the target of it. I feel like people are really getting hyper sensitive about communications. While I do prefer talking to calm rational people with a friendly tone, I acknowledge this is not always the case and it's ok if somebody go overboard from time to time. We are not living in a perfect world, and spending a lot of effort trying to smooth everything out seems overkill to me. Le 18/10/2016 à 01:10, Rene Nejsum a écrit :

Dear Brett/

I have been reading the python-idea archive from time to time over the past years and I joined the list about a month ago to promote my “crazy” async object idea. I did fear the response to a newcomer with an unlikely idea, but I must say the *everyone* has been extremely nice, writing often long answer to discussions and trying to understand where I’m coming from with this idea. And it definitely made me try to think a little extra before sending responses …

I did also raise an eye-brow when reading some of the comments in the thread you mentioned, they seam a little out of touch with my experience on other threads here.

Hope some time off will do you good, my best advice to you and others is something that have helped me, in similar situations is the old saying “Other peoples opinion of you, are none of your business” :-) It took me some years to get it, but now it helps me every time i get worked up about something another person says to me or about me.

best /Rene

...

On 17 Oct 2016, at 20:29, Brett Cannon mailto:brett@python.org> wrote:

Based on some emails I read in the " unpacking generalisations for list comprehension", I feel like I need to address this entire list about its general behaviour.

If you don't follow me on Twitter you may not be aware that I am taking the entire month of October off from volunteering any personal time on Python for my personal well-being (this reply is being done on work time for instance). This stems from my wife pointing out that I had been rather stressed in July and August outside of work in relation to my Python volunteering (having your weekends ruined is never fun). That stress stemmed primarily from two rather bad interactions I had to contend with on the issue track in July and August ... and this mailing list.

When I have talked to people about this mailing list it's often referred to by others as the "wild west" of Python development discussions (if you're not familiar with US culture, that turn of phrase basically means "anything goes"). To me that is not a compliment. When I created this list with Titus the goal was to provide a safe place where people could bring up ideas for Python where people could quickly provide basic feedback so people could know whether there was any chance that python-dev would consider the proposal. This was meant to be a win for proposers by not feeling like they were wasting python-dev's time and a win for python-dev by keeping that list focused on the development of Python and not fielding every idea that people want to propose.

And while this list has definitely helped with the cognitive load on python-dev, it has not always provided a safe place for people to express ideas. I have seen people completely dismiss people's expertise and opinion. There has been name calling and yelling at people (which is always unnecessary). There have been threads that have completely derailed itself and gone entirely off-topic. IOW I would not hold this mailing list up as an example of the general discourse that I experience elsewhere within the community.

Now I realize that we are all human beings coming from different cultural backgrounds and lives. We all have bad days and may not take the time to stop and think about what we are typing before sending it, leading to emails that are worded in a way that can be hurtful to others. It's also easy to forget that various cultures views things differently and so that can lead to people "reading between the lines" a lot and picking up things that were never intended. There are 1,031 people on this mailing list from around the world and it's easy to forget that e.g. Canadian humour may not translate well to Ukrainian culture (or something). What this means is it's okay to *nicely* say that something bothered you, but also try to give people the benefit of the doubt as you don't know what their day had been like before they wrote that email (I personally don't like the "just mute the thread" approach to dealing with bad actors when the muting is silent as that doesn't help new people who join this mailing list and the first email they see is someone being rude that everyone else didn't see because they muted the thread days ago).

As for the off-topic threads, please remember there are 1,031 people on this mailing list (this doesn't count people reading through gmane or Google Groups). Being extremely generous and assuming every person on this list only spends 10 seconds deciding if they care about your email, that's still nearly 3 hours of cumulative time spent on your email. So please be cognisant when you reply, and if you want to have an off-topic conversation, please take it off-list.

And finally, as one of the list administrators I am in a position of power when it comes to the rules of this list and the CoC. While I'm one of the judges on when someone has violated the CoC, I purposefully try not to play the role of police to avoid bias and abuse of power. What that means is that I never personally lodge a CoC complaint against anyone. That means that if you feel someone is being abusive here you cannot rely on list admins noticing and doing something about it. If you feel someone has continuously been abusive on this list and violating the CoC then you must email the list admins about it if you wish to see action taken (all communications are kept private among the admins). Now I'm not asking people to email us on every small infraction (as I said above, try to give everyone a break knowing we all have bad days), but if you notice a pattern then you need to speak up if you would like to see something change.

When I started my month off I thought that maybe if I only read this mailing list once a week that the frequency would be low enough that I could handle the stress of being both a participant and admin who is ultimately responsible for the behaviour here, but I'm afraid that isn't going to cut it. What I don't think people realize is that I don't take my responsibility as admin lightly; any time anyone acts rudely I take it personally like I somehow failed by letting the atmosphere and discourse on this list become what it is. Because of this I'm afraid I need to mute this mailing list for the rest of my vacation from volunteering in the Python community after I send this email. I personally hope people do take the time to read this email and reflect upon how they conduct themselves on this mailing list -- and maybe on other lists as well -- so that when I attempt to come back in November I don't have to permanent stop being a participant on this list and simply become an admin for this list to prevent complete burn-out for me in the Python community (and I know this last sentence sounds dramatic, but I'm being serious; the irony of receiving the Frank Willison award the same year I'm having to contemplate fundamentally shifting how I engage with the community to not burn out is not lost on me).

-Brett _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org mailto:Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

_______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

On 19 October 2016 at 21:29, Michel Desmoulin wrote:

+1.

I read many disagreements, and people being rude and unprofessional on occasions, but nothing that would make me have a bad day, even when I was the target of it.

I feel like people are really getting hyper sensitive about communications.

As Paul says, assuming good intent is highly desirable, but at the same time, we need to fully appreciate as post authors that python-ideas is a shared communications channel where hundreds of other people are offering us their time and attention for the shared purpose of attempting to ensure that future versions of Python offer an even better programming environment for all kinds of programmers. Respecting that means learning to somehow balance the interests of kids taking their first steps into programming with MicroPython on the micro:bit, adults picking up Python as a possible first step in pursuing a career change, professional web service developers wringing every last ounce of performance out of PyPy that they can, scientists & analysts trying to make sense of their data sets in CPython, system administrators and infrastructure engineers automating their daily activities, etc, etc. Sure, many of us are mainly here because we'd like to make future versions of Python better for ourselves as individuals, but the sheer scope of Python's existing adoption means we're all operating under the basic constraint that even unambiguously positive changes impose non-trivial costs on the rest of the ecosystem, as other implementations need to be updated, books, course notes, and other educational materials require changes, and every current Pythonista gains a new thing to keep in mind where they're wondering which features they can and can't rely on when targeting particular versions. Even the consequences for future Pythonistas aren't unambiguously good, as they'll not only gain a new capability that they'll learn in newer versions, and then have to unlearn when maintaining software written to also run on older versions, but will also often receive confusing advice from folks that first learned an earlier version of Python, and may not have kept up with all of the changes in more recent versions. This constraint is exacerbated by the fact that we're still in the midst of the Python 3 migration, where many of our current users still have software compatibility hurdles between them and their ability to benefit from the work being done on the Python 3 series. This all means that with "post your language design ideas for collaborative critique" being an inherently conflict prone activity, and with "No, that's not a good fit for Python" being such a common answer, it takes a lot of collective effort for us to ensure that this remains a primarily positive and rewarding experience both for folks posting suggestions for change, and for folks reviewing and commenting on those suggestions. In practice, this mainly boils down to attempting to follow the guidelines: - Don't make people regret posting their idea (however much we personally dislike it) - Be willing to graciously accept 'No' for an answer when posting a suggestion for change - Remember that fixing problems just for ourselves and folks that choose to adopt our solution is a perfectly fine option - we don't necessarily have to change the default characteristics of the entire language ecosystem - Remember that even if something we vehemently consider "wrong" makes it into the reference implementation, the language does have a design policy that allows us to correct design mistakes after a suitable deprecation period, and we also each personally have the option of advocating for updates to the coding styles on the projects we participate in to prohibit use of the features we consider problematic Cheers, Nick. P.S. Given the existence of the constraints discussed above, folks may then be curious as to why we have a brainstorming list at all, given that the default answer is almost always going to be "No", with folks being encouraged to instead find a way to use the existing flexibility in the language and interpreter design to solve the problem to their own satisfaction in a 3rd party module or even a language variant (with MacroPy and Hylang being a couple of significant examples of folks taking that path for ideas that would never be accepted into the default implementation). The reason it's useful to have a brainstorming list where folks may be told "That's a bad idea for Python", but should never be told "You shouldn't have suggested that", is that sometimes someone will challenge a longstanding assumption that isn't actually true anymore, or an accident of implementation that imposes an unnecessary stumbling block for new users. In those cases, the net future benefit to the overall ecosystem may be judged significant enough to be worth the costs of adjusting to it. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

On 22 October 2016 at 01:07, Paul Moore wrote:

I wonder. Would there be value in adding a sign-up email to the list (supported by a posting of that email to the list, to catch existing contributors) that set out some of the basic principles of how changes are judged for inclusion in Python? We could cover things like:

* The fact that the default answer is typically "no", along with an overview of the reasons *why* the status quo wins by default. * Some of the simple "rules of thumb" like "not every 2-line function should be a builtin. * Basic reminders that Python is used by a very diverse set of users, and proposals that are only beneficial for a limited group need to be weighed against the disruption to the majority who get no benefit. * The above comment, that we welcome ideas because it's important that we don't stagnate and having assumptions challenged is valuable, even if the bar for getting such ideas accepted is (necessarily) high.

Maybe even make it a regular informational posting, if it seems that a reminder would be useful.

It's possible that this would come across as too bureaucratic for new users, though, so I'm not sure...

We have a bit of that kind of content in the developer guide (although I don't think we have anything written down anywhere regarding "Usage scenarios to keep in mind"): * https://docs.python.org/devguide/langchanges.html#langchanges * https://docs.python.org/devguide/faq.html#suggesting-changes Those could potentially be linked from the python-ideas list overview at https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas for folks that hit the mailing list sign-up page directly, rather than encountering the Developer Guide first. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

I wanted to give people an update on civility on this mailing list. First, one person has received a Code of Conduct violation warning and another has received a general warning that their conduct has worn out any leniency about future conduct that we generally try to give people (think of it as a pre-warning warning). On this list you get one warning for your first CoC violation, and on the second you receive a one year banishment. The admins do take into consideration people's behaviour after a warning and how long it has been since the warning so a single warning won't hover over you until the end of time (i.e. there's a decay factor on warnings, but it's at the discretion of the admins). IOW I want everyone to realize we do take how people act on this list seriously (and for people who don't know or remember, we do already have one permanent banishment on this list). Two, taking something off-list does not get you out from underneath the CoC. If you decide to only reply to someone who posts to this list while leaving the list out of it you are still expected to act as if you posted publicly. We don't care if the discussion was private because you chose to stem your bad behaviour based on something you read on this list. If you can't abide by the CoC when dealing with content on this list then you will simply lose your privileges to be on this list and access its content directly. Three, we have seen at least one instance where someone claimed that what they said was not their fault because they were quoting someone. That's patently false and anything you say is your responsibility. If you don't quote someone then the list would never had known, and thus you reiterating what someone said for this list makes you responsible for it. In philosophy it's called *intentionality:* since you intended for that information to reach the list then you are held responsible for it no matter who originally said it (we are not journalists so there's no real need to quote someone just to report it). If you really need to report what someone said that is going to be hurtful you can summarize it and leave the hurtful part out. Otherwise I just wanted to thank the people who came forward after this initial email saying that they have found the mailing list in general pleasant to be on (notwithstanding the incidents leading to the warnings). I also want to thank the people who did step forward to file their complaints as I know that's a very difficult thing to do. On Mon, 17 Oct 2016 at 11:29 Brett Cannon wrote:

Based on some emails I read in the " unpacking generalisations for list comprehension", I feel like I need to address this entire list about its general behaviour.

If you don't follow me on Twitter you may not be aware that I am taking the entire month of October off from volunteering any personal time on Python for my personal well-being (this reply is being done on work time for instance). This stems from my wife pointing out that I had been rather stressed in July and August outside of work in relation to my Python volunteering (having your weekends ruined is never fun). That stress stemmed primarily from two rather bad interactions I had to contend with on the issue track in July and August ... and this mailing list.

When I have talked to people about this mailing list it's often referred to by others as the "wild west" of Python development discussions (if you're not familiar with US culture, that turn of phrase basically means "anything goes"). To me that is not a compliment. When I created this list with Titus the goal was to provide a safe place where people could bring up ideas for Python where people could quickly provide basic feedback so people could know whether there was any chance that python-dev would consider the proposal. This was meant to be a win for proposers by not feeling like they were wasting python-dev's time and a win for python-dev by keeping that list focused on the development of Python and not fielding every idea that people want to propose.

And while this list has definitely helped with the cognitive load on python-dev, it has not always provided a safe place for people to express ideas. I have seen people completely dismiss people's expertise and opinion. There has been name calling and yelling at people (which is always unnecessary). There have been threads that have completely derailed itself and gone entirely off-topic. IOW I would not hold this mailing list up as an example of the general discourse that I experience elsewhere within the community.

Now I realize that we are all human beings coming from different cultural backgrounds and lives. We all have bad days and may not take the time to stop and think about what we are typing before sending it, leading to emails that are worded in a way that can be hurtful to others. It's also easy to forget that various cultures views things differently and so that can lead to people "reading between the lines" a lot and picking up things that were never intended. There are 1,031 people on this mailing list from around the world and it's easy to forget that e.g. Canadian humour may not translate well to Ukrainian culture (or something). What this means is it's okay to *nicely* say that something bothered you, but also try to give people the benefit of the doubt as you don't know what their day had been like before they wrote that email (I personally don't like the "just mute the thread" approach to dealing with bad actors when the muting is silent as that doesn't help new people who join this mailing list and the first email they see is someone being rude that everyone else didn't see because they muted the thread days ago).

As for the off-topic threads, please remember there are 1,031 people on this mailing list (this doesn't count people reading through gmane or Google Groups). Being extremely generous and assuming every person on this list only spends 10 seconds deciding if they care about your email, that's still nearly 3 hours of cumulative time spent on your email. So please be cognisant when you reply, and if you want to have an off-topic conversation, please take it off-list.

And finally, as one of the list administrators I am in a position of power when it comes to the rules of this list and the CoC. While I'm one of the judges on when someone has violated the CoC, I purposefully try not to play the role of police to avoid bias and abuse of power. What that means is that I never personally lodge a CoC complaint against anyone. That means that if you feel someone is being abusive here you cannot rely on list admins noticing and doing something about it. If you feel someone has continuously been abusive on this list and violating the CoC then you must email the list admins about it if you wish to see action taken (all communications are kept private among the admins). Now I'm not asking people to email us on every small infraction (as I said above, try to give everyone a break knowing we all have bad days), but if you notice a pattern then you need to speak up if you would like to see something change.

When I started my month off I thought that maybe if I only read this mailing list once a week that the frequency would be low enough that I could handle the stress of being both a participant and admin who is ultimately responsible for the behaviour here, but I'm afraid that isn't going to cut it. What I don't think people realize is that I don't take my responsibility as admin lightly; any time anyone acts rudely I take it personally like I somehow failed by letting the atmosphere and discourse on this list become what it is. Because of this I'm afraid I need to mute this mailing list for the rest of my vacation from volunteering in the Python community after I send this email. I personally hope people do take the time to read this email and reflect upon how they conduct themselves on this mailing list -- and maybe on other lists as well -- so that when I attempt to come back in November I don't have to permanent stop being a participant on this list and simply become an admin for this list to prevent complete burn-out for me in the Python community (and I know this last sentence sounds dramatic, but I'm being serious; the irony of receiving the Frank Willison award the same year I'm having to contemplate fundamentally shifting how I engage with the community to not burn out is not lost on me).

-Brett