[Numpy-discussion] Adoption of a Code of Conduct

[Robert Kern]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 8:35 PM Ryan May <rmay31 at gmail.com> wrote:

> When experts say that something is a bad idea, and when the people who
>> a CoC is supposed to protect says it makes them feel unsafe, I feel
>> like we should listen to that.
>>
>> I also thought that the points made in the Jupyter discussion thread
>> made a lot of sense: of course it's possible for people to start
>> harassing each other over any excuse, and a CoC can, should, and does
>> make clear that that's not OK. But if you specifically *call out*
>> political affiliation as a protected class, at a time when lots of the
>> people who the CoC is trying to protect are facing governmental
>> harassment justified as "mere political disagreement", then it really
>> sends the wrong message.
>>
>> Besides, uh... isn't the whole definition of politics that it's topics
>> where there is active debate? Not really sure why it's even in that
>> list to start with.
>>
>
> So I hear all the arguments about people feeling unsafe due to some truly
> despicable, discriminatory behavior, and I want absolutely no parts of
> protecting that. However, I also recognize that we in the U.S. are in a
> particularly divisive atmosphere, and people of varied political
> persuasions want absolutely nothing to do with those who share differing
> views. So, as a concrete example, if someone were to show up at a NumPy
> developer summit with a MAGA ("Make America Great Again") hat, or talks
> about their support for the president in non-numpy channels, WITHOUT
> expressing anything discriminatory or support for such views, if "political
> beliefs" is not in the CoC, is this person welcome? I'm not worried about
> my own views, but I have friends of widely varying views, and I truly
> wonder if they would be welcome. With differing "political beliefs" listed
> as something welcomed, I feel ok for them; if this language is removed, I'm
> much less certain.
>
> IMO, "political beliefs" encompasses so much more things than a handful of
> very specific, hateful views. People can disagree about a wide array of
> "political beliefs" and it is important that we as a community welcome a
> wide array of such views. If the CoC needs to protect against the wide
> array of discriminatory views and behavior that make up U.S. politics right
> now, how about specifically calling those behaviors out as not-welcome,
> rather than completely ignoring the fact that 99% of "political beliefs"
> are perfectly welcome within the community?
>
> The CoC is about spelling out the community norms--how about just spelling
> out that we welcome everyone, but, in the words of Will Wheaton, "Don't be
> a dick"?
>

I agree that it's worth clarifying in the text what this clause is intended
to do. I think it has been misinterpreted as defining a legalistic set of
protected classes along the lines of anti-discrimination laws and can be
interpreted by itself outside of the context of the CoC as a whole. But
it's not that. It's an aspirational statement, and a high one, at that, if
we interpret it at its broadest. We will fail to meet it, in its entirety,
and that's *okay* if the spirit of the CoC is being defended. I am
perfectly happy to keep "political beliefs" explicit in the CoC and still
boot the neo-feudalist for making the project's/conference's environment
unwelcoming for a more vulnerable group of people, even if just by their
presence. I *am* sensitive to how nominally well-intentioned "viewpoint
diversity" efforts get hijacked by regressives looking to (re)assert their
traditional power. But that problem is mostly confined to conferences who
need to seek speakers and has less relevance to numpy, which largely
doesn't run much except sprints. I think we can resolve that elsewhere, if
not another document, then at least another clause. A CoC has to pull a
kind of double duty: be friendly enough to digest for a newcomer and also
be helpful to project organizers to make tough balancing decisions. We
don't have to expect each sentence to pull that double duty on its own. I
don't quite know what the phrasing would be (because, again, we don't run
conferences), but I think we could make a statement that explicitly
disclaims that we will be using "viewpoint diversity" to provide a platform
for viewpoints antithetical to the CoC.

None of these categorizations listed should be interpreted as
get-out-of-jail-free cards for otherwise unwelcoming behavior, and I think
maybe we should be explicit about that. Our diversity statement is an
aspiration, not a suicide pact. Religion, neurotype, national origin, and
subculture (4chan is a subculture, God help us), at minimum, are all items
on that list that I have personally seen used to justify shitty behavior.
Political belief is far from unique (nor the most common excuse, in my
experience) in that list. But they all deserve to be on that list. I want
the somewhat fringy progressive hacktivist to feel comfortable here as well
as people more mainstream.

-- 
Robert Kern
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