[Python-ideas] Civility on this mailing list

[Brett Cannon]

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 <brett at 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
>
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