[SciPy-Dev] establishing a Code of Conduct for SciPy

[Ralf Gommers]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 12:12 AM, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 11:39 AM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 12:08 PM, Stefan van der Walt <
> stefanv at berkeley.edu>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017, at 14:08, Pauli Virtanen wrote:
> >> > It can of course be useful to think about writing such things down
> >> > explicitly to produce a document explaining (1), and I think the
> Apache
> >> > one gives good hints for keeping things productive. But it is less
> >> > clear to me this is something for which formal moderator action would
> >> > be necessary.
> >> >
> >> > However, if I understand correctly, the reason why people want these
> >> > things is more about (2). Indeed, this is standard stuff in the
> >> > workplace and in moderation of internet forums (usually in "Rules" in
> >> > the latter).
> >
> >
> > Agreed that many people want it for (2). There's an important difference
> > though. Forum rules and workplace policies are usually not very visible,
> > while with a CoC for an open source project one wants it to be quite
> > visible. Therefore the importance of it having a positive tone and
> > statements about what we value is a lot more important than for something
> > like a workplace policy.
>
> Yes - I agree strongly.  I think this does do dual service as a
> statement of values as well as well as a threat of enforcement.
>
> >> It seems a good idea to structure this part so that it
> >> > does not fail if someone acts in bad faith, and so that the moderation
> >> > plan is reasonable to the reader and possible to implement.
> >>
> >> I feel it is important to mix in a bit of (1) with (2), the reason being
> >> that almost every person reading the CoC will not ever act in bad faith.
> >>  You'd think that those people could simply ignore language related to
> >> enforcement, but in previous discussions (e.g., around the Jupyter CoC)
> >> that turned out not to be the case: it is all too easy to frighten
> >> people into not speaking up.
> >>
> >> So, I'd recommend focusing on a description of the kind of community we
> >> want, instead of what we're trying to avoid; and postponing the
> >> enforcement language until later in the document, making it clear that
> >> enforcement only comes through (somewhat wide) deliberation of trusted
> >> community members (and, preferably, also after engagement with the
> >> offending party).
> >>
> >> This way, we can hopefully instill trust in our CoC as a process, rather
> >> than a set of rules.
> >
> >
> > That sounds quite good to me. The process at a high level (for all but
> the
> > most severe cases) should be something like:
> >
> >   1. complaint
> >   2. reasonable discussion/feedback
> >   3. mediation (if feedback didn't help)
> >   4. enforcement via transparent decision by CoC committee (if mediation
> > failed)
>
> Yes, I like that list a lot.  Although, I was proposing in the Jupyter
> discussion, that informal mediation be triggered really early, to help
> people get over the feeling of being isolated, that can easily arise
> in on-line communication - see :
> https://github.com/jupyter/governance/pull/23#issuecomment-269352416 .
> This was partly based on my reading of [1] (see quote), which
> suggested that one reason that women can find online forums
> intimidating is the lack of a mentor to guide them through the
> thickets of unfamiliar jargon, habits, and cliques.  And partly
> because, having read that, I realized I felt the same way.
>
> > And not what some people may be afraid of, and sometimes actually
> happens in
> > practice:
> >   1. complaint
> >   2. enforcement
> >
> > For a new CoC draft, taking most of the Apache doc and tacking the more
> > rules/enforcement oriented content of the Contributor Covenant onto the
> end
> > seems like a good starting point.
>
> Yes, I agree with that too ... :)
>

Hi all, here is a new version of the CoC taking this approach:
https://github.com/scipy/scipy/pull/7963

Please have a look and comment. Higher level discussion better on this
list, detailed textual comments on the PR itself.

Cheers,
Ralf




> Cheers,
>
> Matthew
>
> [1] https://suegardner.org/2011/02/19/nine-reasons-why-women-
> dont-edit-wikipedia-in-their-own-words
>
> """
> The few times I’ve touched wikipedia, I’ve been struck by how
> isolating it can feel. It’s a very fend for yourself kind of place for
> me. Anywhere else online, my first impulse is to put out feelers. I
> make friends, ask for links to FAQs and guides, and inevitably someone
> takes me under their wing and shows me the ropes of whatever niche
> culture I’m obsessed with that month.
> """
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