Misc #12004: Code of Conduct

• Status: Closed
• Assignee: matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

I am the creator of the Contributor Covenant, a code of conduct for Open Source projects. At last count there are over 13,000 projects on Github that have adopted it. This past year saw adoption of Contributor Covenant by a lot of very large, very visible projects, including Rails, Github's Atom text editor, Angular JS, bundler, curl, diaspora, discourse, Eclipse, rspec, shoes, and rvm. The bundler team made code of conduct integration an option in the gem creation workflow, putting it on par with license selection. Many open source language communities have already adopted the code of conduct, including Elixir, Mono, the .NET foundation, F#, and Apple's Swift. RubyTogether also adopted a policy to only fund Ruby projects that had a solid code of conduct in place.

Right now in the PHP community there is a healthy debate about adopting the Contributor Covenant. Since it came from and has been so widely adopted by the Ruby community at large, I think it's time that we consider adopting it for the core Ruby language as well.

Our community prides itself on niceness. What a code of conduct does is define what we mean by nice. It states clearly that we value openness, courtesy, and compassion. That we care about and want contributions from people who may be different from us. That we pledge to respect all contributors regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other factors. And it makes it clear that we are prepared to follow through on these values with action when and if an incident arises.

I'm asking that we join with the larger Ruby community in supporting the adoption of the Contributor Covenant for the Ruby language. I think that this will be an important step forward and will ensure the continued welcoming and supportive environment around Ruby. You can read the full text of the Contributor Covenant at http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/3/0/ and learn more at http://contributor-covenant.org/.

Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[tenderlovemaking (Aaron Patterson)]

If this makes people feel more comfortable to contribute to Ruby, then I am positive on it. I think we basically do this already, it's just not explicitly stated.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

We (the vcr, hamster, and rubygems repositories) have a Contributor Covenant-based Code of Conduct for our repositories and I absolutely back this being added.

[indirect (André Arko)]

This is probably already clear since Bundler adopted the Contributor Convenant for both the Bundler project and Bundler's gem generator, but I'd like to make it official: I'm in favor of this.

[strand (Strand McCutchen)]

I strongly support adopting a code of conduct to signal to newcomers that Ruby is a welcoming and inclusive community.

[hsbt (Hiroshi SHIBATA)]

• Tracker changed from Bug to Misc
• Status changed from Open to Assigned
• Assignee set to matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)

[spatulasnout (B Kelly)]

Please, no.

I'm utterly opposed to this sort of policing of language. (Apart from the anti-doxxing
prohibition, which I'd support.)

I don't think noises made by the perpetually offended should warrant special consideration
(rather more the opposite.)

For a glimpse at the motives behind the seemingly innocuous Contributor Covenant, notice
how its author attempts to censure a developer on an open source project, for the
thoughtcrime of having an opinion on twitter, completely unrelated to the project:

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

The following interview contains some thoughts by Eric S. Raymond and Meredith Patterson
on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI53yys3dbA&feature=youtu.be&t=538

Given a choice between only two extremes, I'd far rather have Linus Torvalds telling me
I'm an idiot and my code is shit, then exist in an offense-taking culture where various
forms of criticism are re-branded as "harassment."

Finally, in purely pragmatic terms regarding Ruby development: Why fix what isn't broken?

Thanks for your consideration,

Bill

[normalperson (Eric Wong)]

[e-mail] wrote:

I'm asking that we join with the larger Ruby community in supporting
the adoption of the Contributor Covenant for the Ruby language.

I am against this, we don't have this problem in Ruby itself.
And the Code of Conduct language is too easily twisted for personal
vendettas.

For example, I only use Free Software and was groomed to distrust
centralization and monopolies from an early age.
So, I've felt threatened and offended when people expect me to:

• run anything I can't reasonably audit (e.g. JavaScript or GUI stack)
• agree to a Terms-of-Service

Maybe I could invoke a Code of Conduct to force maintainers of
Ruby projects to stop requesting contributions via GitHub
(because it requires JS + ToS which I find offensive).

Of course, I won't do that.

Instead, I tell people straight up what I won't do. Often they'll
accept my contributions via email because they want my help;
otherwise I ignore them.

On the flip side; I am labeled as "unprofessional" for sticking to my
beliefs when I refuse to buckle.

I think that this will be an important step forward and will ensure the
continued welcoming and supportive environment around Ruby.

I've never once felt my beliefs were welcome around Ruby; maybe barely
tolerated, but never welcome. But I'm here anyways (several years, now)
with no plans to leave.

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[vo.x (Vit Ondruch)]

I believe Ruby has code of conduct for ages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINASWAN

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

I believe Ruby has code of conduct for ages:

That is not a code of conduct, it's a motto. It says so directly in the linked article.

[bascule (Tony Arcieri)]

The Celluloid projects have adopted the Contributor Convenant. I would be in favor of Ruby adopting it.

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

I'm against adding policies and rules such as this. It's good to ask people to love and respect each other, but to try and enforce such laws within an evolving language is the opposite of providing freedoms and liberties.

The Ruby community is a great community. Lead by example and lets not become a government of enforcement.

The "rights" the CoC "provides" is not its to give. People already have their own rights so stating that one may refuse something is a given.

Another problem with CoC is word "definitions". People disagree on meanings of words often so this will most likely produce many arguments of meanings and acceptability.

Summary

Things are good as they are. Creating "Laws" requires judgement, clarification, rulings, and enforcement. Love and respect are great without rules.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

I hope this is not the kind of professionalism we aspire to:

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues?q=is%3Aissue+conduct+is%3Aclosed

Please, let's keep personal conflicts out of this space, schoolyard bullying and witch hunts really don't belong here. It just makes everyone look foolish and only leads to more accusations, divisions, and drama in the community.

A policy by itself may seem harmless on the surface, but what does it actually help? Can anyone point to an instance where this has been applicable and helpful for resolving a conflict, within this community or any other?

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Since people are repeatedly bringing up Opal as a reason not to adopt a code of conduct, I'd like to point to a blog post giving my perspective on what happened. It includes a quote by the project owner, Adam Beynon: "Your efforts are very much appreciated and needed, and I still think you did the right thing in speaking out where you saw discriminatory comments."

http://where.coraline.codes/blog/on-opalgate/

[bitboxer (Bodo Tasche)]

Please add a Code of Conduct. It will not harm the people who think they don't need it. But there are lots of people who don't feel save in communities. And the code of conduct tries to protect those.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

In the end Adam Beynon accepted a pull request from Github user Strand McCutchen to add version 1.0 of the Contributor Covenant to the project. It's important to note that unlike version 1.3, the latest incarnation of the code, this early version does not include provisions that affect behavior outside of an official project space.

What does "provisions that affect behavior outside of an official project space" cover? Respectfully, that just sounds like a blanket policy for overreach.

[AstonJ (Aston J)]

Personally I feel that Aaron, DHH or in fact any other prominent and respected member of the community is more than capable of writing a Ruby Mission Statement that better reflects Matz's intentions. The COC in question for instance, does nothing to remind us that sometimes people have points of view that are a bit behind the times and they need just as much understanding than those who they are sometimes (perhaps unwillingly or misguidedly) offending or upsetting.

I think MetaRuby's mission statement is a good example of this and I am happy for the Ruby community to use it as a starting point to create one for Ruby that is as unique and considered as Ruby itself.

http://metaruby.com/t/metaruby-mission-statement/179

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

I am the creator of the Contributor Covenant

Yes, we know who you are. (c Doctor Who)

To everyone reading this thread, please take time to read the following by ESR (Eric Raymond).
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918 (Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs)

You now have the basic information behind why people are attempting to wedge in CoCs. People contributing to projects which better the world shouldn't be by run by political correctness, but should be run by meritocratic methods which will allow the project to accelerate. All of us ranging from scientists to engineers love the Ruby community and want everyone to prosper. We as as community have never cared for the color of someone's skin, where they come from or their sexuality. I bring up the case of _why, he was weird, and you know what? We loved him to pieces.

If any sort of CoC is adopted, let's adopt one like the "Code of Merit" where people who do great work are the ones working up the chain with the purpose of being a leader in the community.

https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

@AstonJ (Aston J):

Personally I feel that Aaron, DHH or in fact any other prominent and respected member of the community is more than capable of writing a Ruby Mission Statement that better reflects Matz's intentions.

https://github.com/rails/rails.github.com/blob/master/conduct/index.html

Rails decided to use the same code of conduct as described in this issue.

[AstonJ (Aston J)]

Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:

@AstonJ (Aston J):

Personally I feel that Aaron, DHH or in fact any other prominent and respected member of the community is more than capable of writing a Ruby Mission Statement that better reflects Matz's intentions.

https://github.com/rails/rails.github.com/blob/master/conduct/index.html

Rails decided to use the same code of conduct as described in this issue.

Yes I am aware they have accepted the PR. That doesn't mean it should be used for Ruby or that it is a good reflection of Matz's wishes on how he'd like the Ruby community to conduct matters. (I think MetaRuby's Mission Statement MUCH better reflects that - and I think one written for Ruby would be an even better fit, because it would be written specifically with Matz and Ruby in mind.)

[pat (Pat Allan)]

I think MetaRuby's mission statement is a good example of this and I am happy for the Ruby community to use it as a starting point to create one for Ruby that is as unique and considered as Ruby itself.

As nice as MetaRuby's mission statement is, it is mostly about what we like to see in the community. The Code of Conduct suggested by Coraline is important because it also outlines not only what we don't like, but how these situations are handled. It's good to be clear about these things so people can have clear expectations of what happens if they raise an issue - it holds both project maintainers and community participants to account.

Why fix what isn't broken?

It may not be broken for you - does that mean it's not broken for others?

Can anyone point to an instance where this has been applicable and helpful for resolving a conflict, within this community or any other?

The New Zealand Ruby community have a code of conduct and an active public Slack channel. Recently they had to eject someone for behaving inappropriately in their Slack channel. They'd given this person warnings and tried to educate them on why the behaviour was not acceptable, but found that there was no change, and so they made the decision. They were also aware that they'd lost other community members from the Slack channel because of this one person's behaviour. Their statement and corresponding discussion (which I think is only in their Slack channel, so I can't link to it) made it quite clear that it was not a decision made lightly, but their Code of Conduct provided very useful, solid grounding.

Love and respect are great without rules.

And if someone isn't respectful? Do we just shrug and hope it won't happen again? Or do we actually address the problems that are raised?

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

On the 'Opalgate' account (#13) there are two longer comments worth taking in:

https://medium.com/@pop_gapon/first-of-all-the-guy-you-slammed-is-italian-and-doesn-t-seem-to-be-too-good-in-english-so-check-b69fb8584c56#.85jdvamef

https://medium.com/@mail.southport/except-that-none-of-that-is-true-5d2535a9b8bb#.3bvwpir06

As the URL suggests the second one begins "Except that none of that is true." I think that's fair.

I didn't follow the controversy closely but I was concerned that once I asked two open questions on Twitter of people who were demanding Elia should be ejected from Opal I myself was verbally assaulted and blocked. Just for asking. That made me take a closer look for the first time at the ideology of the radical end of trans activism, including the doctrine that even when a man was playing professional tennis as a man (as he was being called, without complaint, at the time) she was in fact a woman, if she declared so later. This I felt (in my very 'behind the times' way) was debatable. So, I learned, did many (cis-)women, including a number of veteran feminists with previously impeccable credentials.

By this time I felt that the CoC was in fact being used as a cover to insert the highly debatable as morally unassailable fact into naive software communities with no axes to grind - Elia continually saying to Coraline and all that he'd be very happy to work with anyone, LGBTetc. So I regret Rails has taken the route it has, though I respect the motivations. In my view Ruby definitely shouldn't.

[theotherzach (Zach Briggs)]

I'm a developer who writes Ruby and I'd like to see the Contributor Covenant adopted to ensure that people feel welcome and safe when contributing to Ruby.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

At last count there are over 13,000 projects on Github that have adopted it. This past year saw adoption of Contributor Covenant by a lot of very large, very visible projects, including Rails, Github's Atom text editor, Angular JS, bundler, curl, diaspora, discourse, Eclipse, rspec, shoes, and rvm. The bundler team made code of conduct integration an option in the gem creation workflow, putting it on par with license selection. Many open source language communities have already adopted the code of conduct, including Elixir, Mono, the .NET foundation, F#, and Apple's Swift. RubyTogether also adopted a policy to only fund Ruby projects that had a solid code of conduct in place.

If there was any actual downside to adopting this Code of Conduct, we would have seen a significant number of projects abandon it by now.

[spatulasnout (B Kelly)]

[e-mail] wrote:

Why fix what isn't broken?

It may not be broken for you - does that mean it's not broken for others?

That's not how the burden of proof works, is it?

As a decade-long reader of ruby-core, I'd be interested to see examples of
said brokenness within the post archives.

Thanks,

Bill

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[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Zach Briggs wrote:

I'm a developer who writes Ruby and I'd like to see the Contributor Covenant adopted to ensure that people feel welcome and safe when contributing to Ruby.

If there was any actual downside to adopting this Code of Conduct, we would have seen a significant number of projects abandon it by now.

If 10k people jumped off a bridge would you do it too?

If any CoC is adopted, one should use one not based on SJW values but those which reflect the purpose of the community. Take PostgreSQL for instance, they're openly discussing and coming up with their own, fully educated on OP's forceful stance.

http://www.spinics.net/lists/pgsql/msg165105.html

[jcoglan (James Coglan)]

As the maintainer of the Faye project (faye, faye-websocket, websocket-driver, permessage-deflate), I have adopted the Contributor Covenant, and would be very pleased to see Ruby follow suit.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

Hi,

I agree with the spirit of anti harassment. I hope the community being free from any personal attacks nor trolling.
But I have a few concern about the wording in the proposed Code of Conduct, for example:

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove...

or

...permanently removed from the project team

PostgreSQL CoC is far better fit to my intention.

Matz.

[kain (Claudio Poli)]

No, thanks.

http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/6214

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Several comments:

1. It's a pity that this proposal didn't come in a day or two earlier. This would have made it possible to discuss it at the recent developers' meeting (see https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/projects/ruby/wiki/DevelopersMeeting20160118Japan). The next such meeting is in about a month (see https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/projects/ruby/wiki/DevelopersMeeting20160216Japan). I don't want to imply that we have to wait that long before moving forward (which may include deciding that we don't need any explicit code of conduct, as some contributors have already suggested), but for issues like this, some face-to-face discussion may help a lot.)

2. As most of you know, the Ruby language has its origin in Japan, and many of the development activities (including meetings such as the above) continue to be centered in Japan. This raises a number of issues:

2.1) The proposed code of conduct is available in quite a few languages, but not in Japanese.

2.2) The proposed code of conduct mentions religion and nationality, but not culture and language. Those seem important to me both because they are important aspects of diversity, and also because they are important sources of misunderstandings.

2.2) The proposed code of conduct, in the second-to-last paragraph, has some clear requirements on what it calls 'project maintainers'. In Ruby, we have 'branch maintainers'. We are very grateful for all the hard work that they are doing as volunteers, but they may not have the time or willingness to take on yet another responsibility, in particular one which some of them may not feel very confident with. We would have to figure out who might be willing to serve as the 'project maintainers' in the sense of the code of conduct, i.e. who would get the mails sent to the email address that we would have to set up.

3. RubyKaigi (http://rubykaigi.org) has a code of conduct (see http://rubykaigi.org/2015/code-of-conduct), both in English and in Japanese. Although some changes would be needed, it may be possible to leverage that document, and the experience around it.

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

Final point of the PostgreSQL CoC:

The CoC is only about interaction with the PostgreSQL community. Your private and public lives outside of the PostgreSQL community are your own.

This would have prevented the stupidity in the Opal case in July, where

1. a tweeted comment by the second most regular contributor
2. in a context quite outside that community
3. was interpreted in the most negative way possible
4. with only one person interested in what had been meant (my first question)
5. the accusing being done by people the vast majority of whom had never contributed
6. leading to widespread demands for Elia's expulsion and other personal attacks on him.

A bad introduction for me and others to one kind of CoC applied to FOSS projects.

The PostgreSQL approach would have nipped all of this in the bud.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

2.1) The proposed code of conduct is available in quite a few languages, but not in Japanese.

The Japanese translation is being edited right now.

2.2) The proposed code of conduct mentions religion and nationality, but not culture and language. Those seem important to me both because they are important aspects of diversity, and also because they are important sources of misunderstandings.

CC is open to PRs.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

PostgreSQL CoC is far better fit to my intention.

My suggestion to adopt the Contributor Covenant was a first step. Ideally each community starts with something like this and evolves and shapes it to suit their particular needs. What's important in this process however is that people who might otherwise feel excluded from certain open source communities be involved in shaping the final code of conduct. It's a tricky problem and there are easy ways to mess this up. Existing codes of conduct are built on the real-world experiences of marginalized people and are battle-tested for those sorts of situations. It's important not to neglect those experiences and attempt to reinvent a code of conduct from thin air.

[shugo (Shugo Maeda)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

I agree with the spirit of anti harassment. I hope the community being free from any personal attacks nor trolling.

I also agree with the spirit of anti harassment, but I don't understand the need of CoC.

However, if CoC expresses your intention, and if contributors don't feel uncomfortable about it,
I'm not against introducing it.

Currently you're doing fine without CoC, but it may be good to clarify your definition of niceness
aside from whether it should be called the Code of Conduct.

But I have a few concern about the wording in the proposed Code of Conduct, for example:

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove...

or

...permanently removed from the project team

Agreed.

[AstonJ (Aston J)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Hi,

I agree with the spirit of anti harassment. I hope the community being free from any personal attacks nor trolling.
But I have a few concern about the wording in the proposed Code of Conduct, for example:

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove...

or

...permanently removed from the project team

PostgreSQL CoC is far better fit to my intention.

Matz.

Thanks for your input Matz.

I hope everyone will respect your wishes and continue this discussion with your comments in mind (that is, that you would prefer something more in line with what PostgreSQL are doing).

[pmjones (Paul Jones)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Right now in the PHP community there is a healthy debate about adopting the Contributor Covenant.

It's more like a debate about "rejecting" the Contributor Covenant. Indeed, the original proposer has withdrawn from the debate due to pushback against the Contributor Covenant. (I am a participant in the debate, there and elsewhere, on the "opposed" side.)

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

I sincerely hope the community consider the following before deciding:

1. Is there any evidence to suggest that we (or any other software community) need a CoC ?

2. Do we need a CoC created by people who have a track record of harassing and trying to exclude people who have different opinions? (examples at http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/6214)

3. In most projects where this CoC has been introduced, it has caused division, hate, fear and exclusivity, PHP being the latest example. Far from "a healthy debate".

4. How many people will be marginalised and excluded by the introduction of this CoC vs how many people are marginalised and excluded by it's ommittance. In other words, has anyone ever said "I feel fearful / uncomfortable contributing to Ruby because it doesn't have a CoC" ?

I love Ruby and I find its community to be a very warm, safe and welcoming one. Please help keep it that way by keeping authoritarian, self-promoting, sinister social engineering out of it. Thank you.

[shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)]

I wrote the Japanese version code of conduct that Martin mentioned in #28. Let me leave few thoughts. Sorry in advance for my bad English in this nuanced context.

It's definitely good to ask people respect each other. But how about banning others? It's debatable. Remember jruby author has already been purged from rubinius this year. If I read correctly the proposed Contributor Covenant makes it possible to even ban Matz from this project. That isn't that unrealistic than it sounds under the covenant. Is this really what we want?

It seems Coraline's goal is not to enforce a one-size-fit-all solution to every projects that exist today. Maybe we need our own version of code of conduct based on it. The Contributor Covenant is a great starting point for a brand-new project but we are a 20+ year community who have a rich tradition of being nice already.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Fred Heath wrote:

1. Is there any evidence to suggest that we (or any other software community) need a CoC ?

We could just look at historical discussions (mailing list/redmine) to see how often a conduct issue has come up in the past.

4. How many people will be marginalised and excluded by the introduction of this CoC vs how many people are marginalised and excluded by it's ommittance. In other words, has anyone ever said "I feel fearful / uncomfortable contributing to Ruby because it doesn't have a CoC" ?

We could just look at Github projects and determine if the number of unique contributors has increased since the date they added a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file.

Then it's based on facts and not just some people's political opinions.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Andrew Vit wrote:

1. Is there any evidence to suggest that we (or any other software community) need a CoC ?

We could just look at historical discussions (mailing list/redmine) to see how often a conduct issue has come up in the past.

That alone isn't enough. We need evidence as to whether these issues would have been either avoided or better handled by the existence of a CoC.

4. How many people will be marginalised and excluded by the introduction of this CoC vs how many people are marginalised and excluded by it's ommittance. In other words, has anyone ever said "I feel fearful / uncomfortable contributing to Ruby because it doesn't have a CoC" ?

We could just look at Github projects and determine if the number of unique contributors has increased since the date they added a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file.

As evidence that would be purely circumstantial. We need evidence of how many potential contributors have been put off by the lack of a CoC. Against how many will be put off by the existence of such a CoC.

Then it's based on facts and not just some people's political opinions.

My point exactly.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Laws is born to solve the real problem.
So laws shall be designed to solve the real problem.

I know CoC is born because of real problems.
And it seems trying to solve some problems with some preconditions.

As far as I understand, it solves harassments under projects whose privilege is distributed.
Under such projects issues around membership is tough issue.
I can imagine predefined blacklist of actions helps to make a consensus.

On the other hand, Ruby is generally the honest dictator model.
The source of all privilege is derived of the creator, Matz.
Ideally he doesn't need a consensus (but he is enough honest to respect a consensus).
So I don't understand why CoC is required for Ruby.

I know sometimes written list of rights and responsibility is important like Bill of Rights.
But you intend to limit Matz' right?

As far as I remember Matz did his best for at least 16 years (I use Ruby 16 years; I don't know before that at real time).
I believe Matz to handle his ability better than written text.

Anyway keeping more options is good habit.
People can fork Ruby with 2-clause BSDL, which is considered to be compatible with MIT License.
(The license change is proposed because of GPLv3 compatibility but I proposed more flexible license instead of Ruby's, GPLv2, and GPLv3 triple license)
People sometimes really forked Ruby.
Some committers including me seem to have the option to get a better programing language if it is required.

About the CoC text, he definition of "Project maintainers" is not clear in the Ruby project yet.
Some people may think committer is them. (As above I personally think the Maintainer of Ruby is Matz)
If so, I can't understand committers who agree this CoC without acquiring privilege to achieve those responsibilities.
I believe laws must work well, and people under a law must work to keep the law works well.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

About the CoC text, he definition of "Project maintainers" is not clear in the Ruby project yet.
Some people may think committer is them. (As above I personally think the Maintainer of Ruby is Matz)
If so, I can't understand committers who agree this CoC without acquiring privilege to achieve those responsibilities.
I believe laws must work well, and people under a law must work to keep the law works well.

Fair point.
Ruby committer doesn't have a power doing the following.

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions

And yes yes, Banning Batz is no realistic option.

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[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Fred Heath wrote:

That alone isn't enough. We need evidence as to whether these issues would have been either avoided or better handled by the existence of a CoC.

As evidence that would be purely circumstantial. We need evidence of how many potential contributors have been put off by the lack of a CoC. Against how many will be put off by the existence of such a CoC.

To be clear, I was not suggesting that there's an exact measurement for human factors. But, is there any data that might show a correlation between CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md and greater diversity? When I just say it that way, the idea by itself sounds ridiculous, but maybe I'm wrong.

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

Yui NARUSE said:

The source of all privilege is derived of the creator, Matz.

Well said! :-) As Matz is the author this is very much his. CoC has no power to give (anything), it may only take away. We can choose to love and respect people and that is our gift to give. Love and respect should be encouraged. They are not, nor can they ever be, a result of policy rules.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

I see few people who don't understand what a code of conduct does and don't like the idea they've conjured up.

A code of conduct is as necessary as a test suite. You can run a project without tests, even successfully. You can be bug free without tests or worse you can just deal with the pain of each bug without breaking a sweat.

But the reality is a good test suite avoids regressions, it avoids confusion to intent, and keeps people aware of how things are supposed to be run.

If you like having a test suite then you should naturally understand the need for a code of conduct.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Pat Allan wrote:

The New Zealand Ruby community have a code of conduct and an active public Slack channel. Recently they had to eject someone for behaving inappropriately in their Slack channel.

I am the individual ejected and, in contrast to Pat's summation (of which he only has the committee's version), my experience is exactly why all efforts should be made to prevent the adoption of a CoC; your community will end up policing so-called harassments that no reasonable person would ever consider to be one.

The matter is currently with my lawyers. I'll make further comments when I'm able.

[austin (Austin Ziegler)]

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On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 11:45 AM, [e-mail] wrote:

Issue #12004 has been updated by Fred Heath.

I sincerely hope the community consider the following before deciding:

1. Is there any evidence to suggest that we (or any other software
   community) need a CoC ?

Yes. The very use of “SJWs” (as an insult) by some people on this thread
makes it very clear that there are people in the Ruby community who Don’t
Get It. (Others have asked for examples in the mailing lists that people
aren’t participating in the community because we don’t have some sort of
CoC. If people stay away because of bad examples by others…there is an
absence of evidence of their absence, but they are absent nonetheless.) (To
be very clear: the moment you use the term SJW as a negative term for
people who are insisting on fair, civil, and equal treatment, you have
aligned yourself with the worst harassers and doxxers of Gamer Gate and
4chan.)

2. Do we need a CoC created by people who have a track record of harassing
   and trying to exclude people who have different opinions? (examples at
   http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/6214)

I would argue that this referenced blog post is the best example that the
PHP community needs a CoC. No, Coraline’s approach was not the best
approach (and is problematic for the same reasons I find morality clauses
problematic in teacher contracts, for example), but the question raised
is in fact a good one. (To pull the question to the side a bit, there are
people who feel that Brendan Eich was treated unfairly as the CEO of
Mozilla because of his views on marriage equality. He was supposedly
representing a very diverse organization that already had positions in
favour of marriage equality. Therefore, it was completely legitimate to ask
whether he should be in charge of such an organization given that he had
opposing views to the stated organization views.)

3. In most projects where this CoC has been introduced, it has caused
   division, hate, fear and exclusivity, PHP being the latest example. Far
   from "a healthy debate".

Not to put too fine a point on it, but in general the people who are
against CoCs are those who are assumed to be “in the club” by default and
do not have to worry about being offended by sexist, racist, or other -ist
jokes “made in fun”. This is certainly true of Mr Jones, and why his blog
post about the PHP controversy is a good example for why PHP needs a proper
CoC. (And folks, think twice before citing ESR. He’s the open source Donald
Trump, the living Internet comments section.)

4. How many people will be marginalised and excluded by the introduction of

this CoC vs how many people are marginalised and excluded by it's
ommittance. In other words, has anyone ever said "I feel fearful /
uncomfortable contributing to Ruby because it doesn't have a CoC" ?

I love Ruby and I find its community to be a very warm, safe and welcoming
one. Please help keep it that way by keeping authoritarian, self-promoting,
sinister social engineering out of it. Thank you.

With your last question, you are asking to prove something which is often
more evident by its absence, but is not generally noticed by people who are
not marginalized by the nature of their gender and/or skin colour. Someone
who is marginalized won’t necessarily tell you that they won’t contribute,
they will just simply not contribute and move on—and we are the poorer
for their absence.

With respect to your comment “…find its community to be a very warm, safe,
and welcoming one.” This has not always been the case. For certain subsets
of the Ruby community, it has only gotten better because of the adoption
of CoCs by conferences and projects. The first RubyConf I went to in 2004
had no women in attendance. There were more in 2005 and more in 2006. The
number of women attending Ruby Conferences rose, but in 2009 there were six
women at a conference when a speaker chose to use inadvisable images and
language in a talk. Only in the aftermath of that (which was, IMO, deeply
embarrassing to the Ruby community inasmuch as there was a lot of defence
of this speaker’s talk) did Ruby conferences get serious about adopting
strong codes of conduct and enforcing them did the number of female
attendees substantially increase at Ruby conferences.

With respect to the Contributor Covenant suggested by Coraline, I do not
think that this is the best choice for Ruby, but think that something like
the TODO Open Code of Conduct (http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/)
would be better. There are organizations behind the development of Ruby,
and a very clear community. I use the Contributor Covenant on the repos
that I manage, but that is because I am managing them.

Yes, Ruby needs some sort of Code of Conduct—not because we, the users and
contributors of Ruby, are necessarily misbehaving. No, it needs it because
we want to signal to people that have been traditionally marginalized that
we, the users and contributors of Ruby, do not believe this to be a good
thing and will work to prevent it. We will make errors. We will not always
succeed. But we should make an effort to make Ruby actively welcoming
to the people who have traditionally been marginalized.

(And, because I know this will show up much later than Shyouhei Urabe’s
comment: if Matz started acting Not Nice, would it not possibly be time to
move Ruby beyond him? I know that none of us who have met him can really
imagine this from Matz.)

-a

Austin Ziegler • [e-mail] • [e-mail]
http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

Austin:

But we should make an effort to make Ruby actively welcoming to the people who have traditionally been marginalized.

You've drawn attention to SJW and ESR as terms you don't think are helpful. I deliberately avoided both in what I wrote above, so on that we may be in some agreement. The phrase of yours I question is 'people who have traditionally been marginalized'. The Dalits in India? The Tamils in Sri Lanka? The Karen in Burma? Yazidi women under ISIS? Japanese interned in the USA during WWII? Unborn children in the womb? (The last being the reason I made contact with Elia way before this explusion stuff blew up.)

We'll all have different ideas on who is most deserving. We can't expect to agree on that, at the particular time and place of world history in which we each find ourselves. That doesn't mean that increasing the number of women at RubyConf is not a good aim. I'd agree it is. But the wider picture is never going to be agreed. A CoC should be agreed facing that reality (to borrow another of Elia's phrases).

It is useless to argue on the factual grounds of this "code of conduct".
The purported niceness is the selling bit, but the clauses of exclusion of community members are the only actionable ones.
They are mostly illegal and can make some legal entity liable to damage caused to a specific individual.

What is talking place is an industry wide offensive, by people you will never convinced on the ground of necessity of such code or lack thereof.
They have identified programmers to be more well-off in life than the average, and less educated from a historical and philosophical point of view than the average.
This is what makes it a perfect ground for them to use their weapon, guilt, on defenseless individuals who tend to naturally rationalize things and are not naturally trained with other things.

Those who have already adopted a code would be all the more in favor of it that they are going through cognitive dissonance, a very real effect you can read about it in experimental psychology book.
But behind those second line you have professionals of code of conduct. you won't convince them with facts, that's what they sell. it is their job to convince you that you need their product.
This product is what they do for a living.

If you buy their product, it will be a good deed on the moment, as you'll make them feel good and you will provide them with some opportunity to continue.
But is the best gift you can give to them an encouragement to continue to be dependent on a fantasy world ?
It will be an invitation for more of the same kind to come and prey...

[acid (Daniel Schweighöfer)]

It's a real good thing to have an CoC because it protects people and enriches the community. And there are only people complaining who fear to lose their privilege of violating these social rules without consequences. Please add it and make ruby a better place for everyone!

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Austin Ziegler wrote:

Yes. The very use of “SJWs” (as an insult) by some people on this thread
makes it very clear that there are people in the Ruby community who Don’t
Get It. (Others have asked for examples in the mailing lists that people
aren’t participating in the community because we don’t have some sort of
CoC. If people stay away because of bad examples by others…there is an
absence of evidence of their absence, but they are absent nonetheless.) (To
be very clear: the moment you use the term SJW as a negative term for
people who are insisting on fair, civil, and equal treatment, you have
aligned yourself with the worst harassers and doxxers of Gamer Gate and
4chan.) -a

Austin Ziegler • [e-mail] • [e-mail]
http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue

I'm going to start off by saying I was the first one to mention SJW in this thread
and I do very much get it.

I grew up in the south as Hispanic, an ACTUAL people who was oppressed by the white
majority. I say this as someone in the LGBT community as I'm bisexual, though I've
never had issues for being bisexual, even from my "redneck" friends as even those
have looked up to me and asked for help.

What OP doesn't get, and maybe she will later in life, rules don't matter. What matters
is making a good impression on people, being friendly to the point where even those
with strict morals start to like you so much they want to be around you. Unfortunately OP
isn't currently like this and based on her history may never be.

Yes, I do get it. Clearly you don't.

[cremes (Chuck Remes)]

I am not in favor of the adoption of a CoC.

If this solved a real problem, I would consider it as would any reasonable person. However, no one in this thread has been able to point to any situations where a CoC (and specifically, this CoC) would have solved the problem. Instead they say that we can't know if there are problems because those marginalized people have avoided the community. Their claim is not falsifiable. To me that makes the claim absolutely worthless.

I do think we should learn a lesson from the Rubinius community (where I am an active contributor). Brian Shirai (brixen) recently banned Charles Nutter (headius) from the community. I have a real problem with this because I consider myself a friend of both men and it pains me to see this kind of rift. But we have clear evidence that a CoC can and will be used to ban someone for behavior and/or conduct outside of a project. In the aforementioned situation, Charlie was banned from the Rubinius project for participating in a thread ON TWITTER. He wasn't harassing Brian in a github issue, spamming a Rubinius mailing list, sending spurious PRs to the project, being a nuisance on IRC or gitter, or really doing anything related to the project other than commenting on a project's choice of release versioning. I think Brian's choice to ban him was unreasonable (and yes, I read his blog post explaining the action and the history leading to it).

I hate having to write this because I fear that it may sour my relationship with Brian. I don't want it to as I respect him as a developer and as a person. If you follow my twitter feed and his you'll see that we are unlikely to agree on a good number of political issues. :)

I haven't even brought up with topic with him (privately or otherwise) because of that fear of damaging our relationship. How would a CoC protect me? It wouldn't. In fact, it could be used to ban me too. I don't like having that kind of threat hanging over my head. Should I start censoring my political opinions on twitter now? Oh no, I'm considering a vote for Trump; is that actionable under a CoC?

I've broken my silence on this topic because I can't bear to see another project be poisoned by a CoC. Please Matz, use your powers of Benevolent Dictator for Life and reject this CoC.

Daniel Schweighöfer wrote:

It's a real good thing to have an CoC because it protects people and enriches the community. And there are only people complaining who fear to lose their privilege of violating these social rules without consequences. Please add it and make ruby a better place for everyone!

It's not nice to make fun of germans

[maciej.mensfeld (Maciej Mensfeld)]

Vit Ondruch wrote:

I believe Ruby has code of conduct for ages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINASWAN

Exactly. As far up until now it was more than enough. Adding more bureaucracy won't change anything.

[nateless (Nate Tuganov)]

I'm really against her CoC. I've seen on Twitter how she tried to extort various open source projects, threatened their owners to create a buzz about their decline to accept her CoC and made damage to projects. If Ruby community ever need it, we should write our own.

[schneems (Richard Schneeman)]

I'm in favor of the contributor covenant, a version of it was adopted by Rails. So far it has not produced any of the "bad" things that people have been concerned about. I feel more open instead of less. The same people that will use this type of document to attack someone are the same people who don't need a document to attack someone. Not having the document won't prevent people from making bold claims, personal attacks, or trying to get others kicked out of the project. However the flip side is not true, if you get attacked for your religious views, or some other reason specified in the contributor covenant you might not realize how great this community is and that there is a support network. I have met many Ruby core and find they are very nice and very respectful. I believe that for the most part the spirit of this covenant is already followed. I do not see the harm in making this implicit protection and support explicit via a document.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Nate Tuganov wrote:

If Ruby community ever need it, we should write our own.

I agree with the opinions of many folks in this thread that we do need a CoC. I think that others in this thread, those throwing terms like "SJWs" around, are unfortunate proof of that. But it is of course possible to write our own. The Contributor Covenant is not a hard stop, and it's not meant to be. It is simply meant to be a starting point that can be adjusted, tweaked, or rewritten as a community needs. But I think that we do need an anti-harassment measure such as this. If it makes it feel like a safer place for many contributors, it's a win.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

Nate Tuganov wrote:

If Ruby community ever need it, we should write our own.

I agree with the opinions of many folks in this thread that we do need a CoC. I think that others in this thread, those throwing terms like "SJWs" around, are unfortunate proof of that. But it is of course possible to write our own. The Contributor Covenant is not a hard stop, and it's not meant to be. It is simply meant to be a starting point that can be adjusted, tweaked, or rewritten as a community needs. But I think that we do need an anti-harassment measure such as this. If it makes it feel like a safer place for many contributors, it's a win.

As the first person to use SJW, I've recommended an alternative CoC which doesn't have an unfortunate political side but one which is a general CoC for people to "be nice." Unfortunately we have others who are blind or unwilling to listen and unfortunately there's proof of that.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

Nate Tuganov wrote:

If Ruby community ever need it, we should write our own.

I agree with the opinions of many folks in this thread that we do need a CoC. I think that others in this thread, those throwing terms like "SJWs" around, are unfortunate proof of that.

Also to re-iterate my previous statement.

I have:

• been oppressed more than OP based on my race
• succeeded in winning friends who would otherwise have harsh opinions based on my race or bisexual nature
• done all of this without being hostile

So, please do tell me, where is your proof? Or does this mean you'll only back white people who are transgender and say fuck everyone else's opinion even if they're an oppressed minority?

I should also note everything OP has basically stated elsewhere is a fucking slap in the face. She can change her appearance to look male or female. I wish I had the luxury of changing my skin color, it'd make evading oppression a whole lot easier.

[carlosjennings (Carlos Jennings)]

I worry about how evenly a CoC will be applied when "famous" Rubyists like Steve Klabnik has made a marginalised person cry in the past by publicly ridiculing her code: https://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/ Yet he is still obviously accepted by the community. How would a CoC have been applied in that situation? It seems the proposed CoC is worded vaguely enough that Steve Klabnik could have been banned from Ruby-core participation, even though it occurred outside Ruby-core development, based on that incident. But I have a feeling due to his membership in a certain ingroup who find his politics agreeable, that wouldn't have happened.

I worry about CoCs being used as an excuse to silence people who belong to certain outgroups based on pure politics, while people who belong to the ingroup get free passes (in other words, selective enforcement).

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Carlos Jennings wrote:

I worry about how evenly a CoC will be applied when "famous" Rubyists like Steve Klabnik has made a marginalised person cry in the past by publicly ridiculing her code: https://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/ Yet he is still obviously accepted by the community. How would a CoC have been applied in that situation? It seems the proposed CoC is worded vaguely enough that Steve Klabnik could have been banned from Ruby-core participation, even though it occurred outside Ruby-core development, based on that incident. But I have a feeling due to his membership in a certain ingroup who find his politics agreeable, that wouldn't have happened.

I worry about CoCs being used as an excuse to silence people who belong to certain outgroups based on pure politics, while people who belong to the ingroup get free passes (in other words, selective enforcement).

Heh... I remember seeing that and thought, "Those comments were on the line of Linus." If kernel-dev had a CoC Linus would've been banned... from the start of the project and we wouldn't have a fantastic kernel going in a good direction. This is an example of where CoCs in general may harm the purpose of the project. I'd rather have a "be nice and not a prick" type of CoC instead of one fueled by politics.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

David Celis wrote:

Nate Tuganov wrote:

If Ruby community ever need it, we should write our own.

I agree with the opinions of many folks in this thread that we do need a CoC. I think that others in this thread, those throwing terms like "SJWs" around, are unfortunate proof of that.

Also to re-iterate my previous statement.

I have:

• been oppressed more than OP based on my race

As a latino, ditto. I've been oppressed too. Being oppressed is awful, right? If only we could have a nice little document to help people get oppressed less and have documented methods to deal with oppressors.

• succeeded in winning friends who would otherwise have harsh opinions based on my race or bisexual nature

That is fantastic. It is really important to find accepting people to reinforce you for what you are: a human being! I'm happy that you were able to find that.

• done all of this without being hostile

This is where I start to think you're not being honest, and I base that on something you say next:

I should also note everything OP has basically stated elsewhere is a fucking slap in the face. She can change her appearance to look male or female. I wish I had the luxury of changing my skin color, it'd make evading oppression a whole lot easier.

That is just openly transphobic. Being transgendered, like being homosexual or heterosexual, or white, or black, or latino… That's not a choice. You're born transgendered and live for a long time in a body you don't identify with. Try to imagine being born biologically as a man but always feeling just… wrong about it. Being transgendered is the opposite of a luxury, and changing one's appearance and physical makeup to more identify with yourself is not a luxury either. It's a painful (both emotionally and physically) process that is taken as a drastic resort to be comfortable in one's own body.

So, please do tell me, where is your proof?

I think I'm comfortable with that as proof, as well as your derogatory use of "SJW". That's also decidedly hostile. If you wish to voice your opinions, we'll all listen. But stop being hostile about it.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

Ruby Dino wrote:

David Celis wrote:

Nate Tuganov wrote:

If Ruby community ever need it, we should write our own.

I agree with the opinions of many folks in this thread that we do need a CoC. I think that others in this thread, those throwing terms like "SJWs" around, are unfortunate proof of that.

Also to re-iterate my previous statement.

I have:

• been oppressed more than OP based on my race

As a latino, ditto. I've been oppressed too. Being oppressed is awful, right? If only we could have a nice little document to help people get oppressed less and have documented methods to deal with oppressors.

• succeeded in winning friends who would otherwise have harsh opinions based on my race or bisexual nature

That is fantastic. It is really important to find accepting people to reinforce you for what you are: a human being! I'm happy that you were able to find that.

• done all of this without being hostile

This is where I start to think you're not being honest, and I base that on something you say next:

I get a little touchy when people in the thread say I don't "Get it," I get especially touchy when a black person tells me I don't get it.

I should also note everything OP has basically stated elsewhere is a fucking slap in the face. She can change her appearance to look male or female. I wish I had the luxury of changing my skin color, it'd make evading oppression a whole lot easier.

That is just openly transphobic. Being transgendered, like being homosexual or heterosexual, or white, or black, or latino… That's not a choice. You're born transgendered and live for a long time in a body you don't identify with. Try to imagine being born biologically as a man but always feeling just… wrong about it. Being transgendered is the opposite of a luxury, and changing one's appearance and physical makeup to more identify with yourself is not a luxury either. It's a painful (both emotionally and physically) process that is taken as a drastic resort to be comfortable in one's own body.

It's not transphobic. There have been many women and men throughout history who have switched genders both by role and appearance, including the use of the third sex(which is for the most part in south Asia).

I've spoken on this topic with various psychiatrists of transgender and appearance, without SRS. One doesn't need to undergo SRS for transgender. Many people wouldn't know any better had they not known about transgender topics or been influenced there is something different/wrong/etc about them. I've also struggled with my submissive side decades ago when I had to think if I liked men or women, finding out I liked both.

People who are trangender can pull off either sex, much like someone who is ambiguous. As I said before they can hide in the closet and boost their careers, much like gay actors in Hollywood without issue.

You may see this as transphobic, but it's real life without one having to suffer the consequences of being "different.'

So, please do tell me, where is your proof?

I think I'm comfortable with that as proof, as well as your derogatory use of "SJW". That's also decidedly hostile. If you wish to voice your opinions, we'll all listen. But stop being hostile about it.

While I know SJW has evolved due to the online usage, I talk about purely the original term used for people who get overly hostile and/or "triggered" by a topic like CIS, privilege, male patriarchy, etc.

stop being hostile about it

It's hard to when OP is apart of the problem.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

My being transgender is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand and I can only construe your comments at best as tragically misinformed or at worse a personal attack. Please stay on topic.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

My being transgender is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand and I can only construe your comments at best as tragically misinformed or at worse a personal attack. Please stay on topic.

Quite does actually for anyone who has been on the Internet for the past 20 years and watched over the social development.

As stated in my earlier post, there are issues which occur here:
https://github.com/CoralineAda/contributor_covenant/commit/0e927bc01614d6b0de021a314dbe95e7dfcc7bb9

Let me quote:
"-

Part of this problem lies with the projects themselves. Insensitive language, thoughtless use of pronouns, projects with sexualized or culturally inappropriate names, and side effects of the pervasive cult of meritocracy make contributing to open source a daunting prospect for many people.

"

Let me start to say this is indicative of personality issues when one has to bash on merit based involvement, which I've seen quite a bit over the past decade from the transgender community. These sort of issues are not necessarily prevalent in the feminist community though does occur from time to time.

I couldn't give a shit what sex, gender identity or insert thing here. What I care about is if people can do the work, regardless if they're being paid perform work or not. The majority of people pride themselves on what they can do for a project and go up the ladder.

Let's have a hypothetical scenario here. If there was a job promotion and the selection was based on two candidates a person who is transgender individual and a person who is CIS male. The transgender individual doesn't push as much progress and abilities aren't as progressed as the CIS male. However due to politics regarding the attack of meritocracy, based on performance, the transgender individual is selected for a promotion instead of the person who is best suited for the job.

This is exactly what I'm against, even as a bisexual Hispanic. This is what the majority of people DO NOT want, even through you're pushing your political agenda on projects which will end up biting the core committers in the ass.

As a side note: the above situation is based on a real life incident which occurred where two people were available for promotion, one black and hispanic person. The black individual was selected for the managerial position because "their people was oppressed"(words from the supervisor) and the fact of Hispanics had hardships too were also brought up after the person was given the promotion. Yes real life shit like this does happen and exactly why having a meritocracy is important. You get promoted based on your skills, not because it's PC.

Also as an earlier re-iteration, you have the choice and ability to utilize both genders. People like myself can not change the color of our skin, which reflect poorly on your verbiage when talking about meritocracy when you've the ability to "hide in the closet" or utilize your gender as a weapon or to gain advantage when one isn't qualified.

[juliancheal (Julian Cheal)]

Fred Heath wrote:

Andrew Vit wrote:

1. Is there any evidence to suggest that we (or any other software community) need a CoC ?

We could just look at historical discussions (mailing list/redmine) to see how often a conduct issue has come up in the past.

That alone isn't enough. We need evidence as to whether these issues would have been either avoided or better handled by the existence of a CoC.

4. How many people will be marginalised and excluded by the introduction of this CoC vs how many people are marginalised and excluded by it's ommittance. In other words, has anyone ever said "I feel fearful / uncomfortable contributing to Ruby because it doesn't have a CoC" ?

We could just look at Github projects and determine if the number of unique contributors has increased since the date they added a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file.

As evidence that would be purely circumstantial. We need evidence of how many potential contributors have been put off by the lack of a CoC. Against how many will be put off by the existence of such a CoC.

Then it's based on facts and not just some people's political opinions.

My point exactly.

When someone has been harassed, their response was not to file a bug on bugs.ruby-lang or post the harassment on a mailing list. Often is the case to suffer in silence, and in some cases to remove oneself from the community in general.

Therefore, as people have mentioned there is no easy to find corpus of harassment data, that one can base a decision from. As previously mentioned, one cannot simply write a test case for community issues.

I feel this discussion has gone in many directions, bar the one useful one. It should not be a discussion of Code of Conduct: yea or nay. More a discussion of, given the choices of the available codes of conducts, which one best suits our community.
From Matz's reply it seems obvious that he too agrees with there being a code of conduct, but is unsure of the language.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Julian Cheal wrote:

When someone has been harassed, their response was not to file a bug on bugs.ruby-lang or post the harassment on a mailing list. Often is the case to suffer in silence, and in some cases to remove oneself from the community in general.

Therefore, as people have mentioned there is no easy to find corpus of harassment data, that one can base a decision from. As previously mentioned, one cannot simply write a test case for community issues.

I feel this discussion has gone in many directions, bar the one useful one. It should not be a discussion of Code of Conduct: yea or nay. More a discussion of, given the choices of the available codes of conducts, which one best suits our community.
From Matz's reply it seems obvious that he too agrees with there being a code of conduct, but is unsure of the language.

This is also the case when people are introverted. We are a mix of people, introverts, extroverts, asians, whites, blacks, hispanics and other races. If people aren't willing to speak up, then the problem is their own.

Just like with introverted people, you can tell them to speak up one way or another. If someone is feeling harassed, they can report directly to Matz or another, as their contact information has always been available. Otherwise if you're inferring there should be a special class, well that's just stirring the pot to cause drama.

[CorainChicago (Cora Hays-Magan)]

I support having a CoC for Ruby. The Ruby community will be a safer and more welcoming place for all developers.

[aaronk (Aaron Klaassen)]

Cora Hays-Magan wrote:

I support having a CoC for Ruby. The Ruby community will be a safer and more welcoming place for all developers.

Absolutely. Including the CoC is unambiguously the right choice.

[betsythemuffin (Betsy Haibel)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

If people aren't willing to speak up, then the problem is their own.

I find it difficult to interpret this comment in the spirit of MINASWAN. To me, a community is not a community -- and nothing at all like "nice" -- if it doesn't try to support its members in speaking up when they have problems. A Code of Conduct is a concrete mechanism for that support and I don't understand objections to making that support more concrete.

I don't think that the Contributor Covenant is a perfect one-size-fits-all Code of Conduct for every community -- Coraline herself has never said that she intended it to be one, quite the opposite. Honestly ruby-core talking about what they'd want/need out of a Code of Conduct publicly is more reassuring to me than them just adopting the CC without comment, because it means that they're taking the adoption process seriously and want to be absolutely clear about what values they're expressing with whatever Code of Conduct they might adopt. But I do very strongly feel that Codes of Conduct in the abstract are important tools.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Betsy Haibel wrote:

Ruby Dino wrote:

If people aren't willing to speak up, then the problem is their own.

I find it difficult to interpret this comment in the spirit of MINASWAN. To me, a community is not a community -- and nothing at all like "nice" -- if it doesn't try to support its members in speaking up when they have problems. A Code of Conduct is a concrete mechanism for that support and I don't understand objections to making that support more concrete.

Ruby has operated without a CoC for the longest time without issue. We've had people from all walks of life, including people who could be described as jerks. If silencing the extroverted or people with firm language is a result of giving quiet mousey people a voice, than it's already failed. i.e. LKML and Linus

I don't think that the Contributor Covenant is a perfect one-size-fits-all Code of Conduct for every community -- Coraline herself has never said that she intended it to be one, quite the opposite. Honestly ruby-core talking about what they'd want/need out of a Code of Conduct publicly is more reassuring to me than them just adopting the CC without comment, because it means that they're taking the adoption process seriously and want to be absolutely clear about what values they're expressing with whatever Code of Conduct they might adopt. But I do very strongly feel that Codes of Conduct in the abstract are important tools.

She explicitly used several shameful plugs for her own CoC, "I'm asking that we join with the larger Ruby community in supporting the adoption of the Contributor Covenant for the Ruby language." If she had intended to be neutral, then she should've asked in a neutral manner, "Would the ruby-lang community consider adopting a Code of Conduct?" However no, this did not happen.

A CoC, like laws, are tools and wouldn't solve anything in the community. Our community is very much self correcting and if people have issues... well fuck there's the ignore /junk button in the IRC/mail client. However stated earlier I the ruby-lang community has generally been friendly, even if we get in to spats on the mailing list.

[plexus (Arne Brasseur)]

I unequivocally support this initiative. I have always known the Ruby community as a positive, diverse, and welcoming place. Adopting a Code of Conduct is merely a way of stating explicitly what kind of behavior is or isn't welcome. Good agreements make good friends.

• File Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_23_44.png added

Just a heads up, one of the proposers of this issue is engaging in toxic behaviour.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Eva Lopez wrote:

Just a heads up, one of the proposers of this issue is engaging in toxic behaviour.

Who is the screenshot of and where's the post online? I don't recognize the format of the bubble box.

found the reference to "Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene"

edit: name struck, seems someone was posing on github as Kurtis as a trolling attempt

• File Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_32_31.png added

It's a ticket in the other code of conduct proposed, the code of merit.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Eva Lopez wrote:

It's a ticket in the other code of conduct proposed, the code of merit.

That's quite fucked up. Unstable people like Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene is exactly why I carry a concealed firearm. He's welcomed to commit a felony assault against my acquaintance Roberto Rosario (rosarior) while I'm with him, but he's going to be carried out in a body bag. note: yeah I started carrying due to some anti-LGBT bullshit. I'd rather kill than be killed.

edit: name struck, seems someone was posing on github as Kurtis as a trolling attempt

[kgerrard (Ken Gerrard)]

Perhaps you could step back for a while and stop dominating the thread, Ruby Dino?

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

Eva Lopez wrote:

It's a ticket in the other code of conduct proposed, the code of merit.

That's clearly not my github account, but nice try.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Ken Gerrard wrote:

Perhaps you could step back for a while and stop dominating the thread, Ruby Dino?

:3 Perhaps I should, I'd be able to reply to all of the posts in a single posts instead of making multiple posts as they come along which is spamming people's inboxes.

• File Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_30_25.png added

Apparently this is not the first time Kurtis has harrassed Roberto. Kurtis was part of the people trying to remove Roberto from a Python workgroup to create an event in Cuba, using questionable methods. Roberto is puertorican, a minority group with poor representation in the software industry.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

Matz, can we please get some moderation here. Two parties are being toxic, one posting false information to inflame the other.

• File Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_31_06.png added

False? https://archive.is/q25KG

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Can we please stop with the incitement and personal attacks? This issue is important.

A person proposing a code of conduct routine violates such code of conduct, yes, it is very important.

• Is this an example of the kinds of activities that fall under the code of conduct?
• Does it work retroactively once adopted?
• If someone is in favor of a code of conduct, does that make that person immune to articles of the code of conduct?

These are important matters on the efficacy and willingness to enforce the code of conduct regardless of who is the complaint against. Project maintainers should not be above the code of conduct, that should be article #1 in the proposition.

[tenderlovemaking (Aaron Patterson)]

• File deleted (Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_23_44.png)

[tenderlovemaking (Aaron Patterson)]

• File deleted (Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_32_31.png)

[tenderlovemaking (Aaron Patterson)]

• File deleted (Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_30_25.png)

[tenderlovemaking (Aaron Patterson)]

• File deleted (Screenshot from 2016-01-21 22_31_06.png)

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Eva Lopez wrote:

A person proposing a code of conduct routine violates such code of conduct, yes, it is very important.

I proposed the code of conduct and I did nothing to violate any such document.

These are important matters on the efficacy and willingness to enforce the code of conduct regardless of who is the complaint against. Project maintainers should not be above the code of conduct, that should be article #1 in the proposition.

Agreed.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Eva Lopez wrote:

A person proposing a code of conduct routine violates such code of conduct, yes, it is very important.

I proposed the code of conduct and I did nothing to violate any such document.

Good redirection, the statement was about Kurtis.

These are important matters on the efficacy and willingness to enforce the code of conduct regardless of who is the complaint against. Project maintainers should not be above the code of conduct, that should be article #1 in the proposition.

Agreed.

OK, we are in agreement. Answers?

I will simplify my question: What would be the course of action for such violations of the Contributor Covenant?

[jcroisant (John Croisant)]

As a Ruby programmer for over a decade, and as the author of several gems, I strongly support the adoption of a Code of Conduct.

Specifically, I support adopting the Contributor Covenant, with some tweaks to fit the Ruby project (for example, to make clear who is responsible for handling incidents, or to add clauses regarding culture and native language). The Contributor Covenant is an excellent and mature foundation for making a CoC. A lot of thought and care have gone into writing it, and it is already widely adopted. It would not make sense to write a new CoC from scratch just for Ruby.

Some people think MINASWAN means we don't need a CoC. But MINASWAN is merely an ideal, an aspiration, a wish. Harassment does happen in the Ruby community, and MINASWAN doesn't provide any guidance or mechanism for responding to it. This very thread itself already contains examples of personal attacks and harassment based on gender identity and expression. This further highlights the fact that Ruby needs a solid and actionable CoC, such as the Contributor Covenant.

Adopting a CoC would show that the Ruby community really cares, and that MINASWAN is not just something we say to feel good about ourselves.

I see that deletion of evidence is the first course of action. What would be the second?

[strand (Strand McCutchen)]

Matz,

Can you link to the Postgres Code of Conduct? A quick search brought up a code of conduct for their conference and another draft Code of Conduct, but I couldn't locate the Postgres project's code of conduct in any authoritative way.

You cited two concerns with the language of the Contributor Covenant. Would you be willing to adopt a modified version of the Contributor Covenant which has been edited to reflect your concerns?

There are two sections you don't completely agree with. The first is:

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments[…] contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct…

How would you prefer that maintainers respond to comments or contributions which are not in the Ruby spirit? For instance, if Zachary Scott filed an issue titled "Aaron Patterson is not so great" and filled it with personal attack against Aaron, should we just file the issue as "won't fix" and move on?

The second section you had a concern about is:

Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct may be permanently removed from the project team.

How would you prefer that the Ruby project respond to maintainers who do not follow the Code of Conduct? For instance, if Aaron Patterson started harassing Zachary Scott on Twitter, I imagine that another maintainer might reach out to him and say, "Hey, that's not cool. Please stop it." If, after a reasonable attempt at intervening, this behavior was still happening, what consequences, if any, do you think would be appropriate?

I think the situations I painted above are absurd… Zak and Aaron are two of the nicest people I have met, and they are exemplars of the Ruby community. But the Ruby community is really big now, and adopting a code of conduct which specifies how maintainers will cultivate our community is very important.

Thanks for your time. Respectfully,
Strand

postscript—I started learning Ruby about five years ago… I'd tried many other languages before, and none of them really stuck. Or maybe I just didn't stick with them long enough. Ruby was different though, and maybe the key difference is how many nice people helped clarify the finer points of the language. Today I make my living writing Ruby. Over my years in this community I've noticed a few not-so-nice people in the Ruby community. If Ruby can't adopt a code of conduct which specifies clearly how maintainers will enforce it and how they will be held accountable for their behavior, then I will stop writing Ruby. Not that day, for sure, and probably not for a while, but I'll identify the communities which not only have nice people, but enforce community standards so the not-nice ones aren't tolerated indefinitely, and I'll join them.

[melquiades (Paul Cantrell)]

I support the adoption of this code of conduct. It seems reasonable and well-written.

To those concerned about preserving meritocracy, I’ll say two things:

1. If we are in fact seeking to judge ideas on merit alone, regardless of personal views, then we should judge this code of conduct by its merits alone. Ad hominem attacks about its authors and advocates, and speculation about their thoughts and intents, are the very opposite of merit-based evaluation.
2. Sticking with evaluating the text in the code of conduct itself, this policy seems to protect — not threaten — merit-based discussion of ideas, since it tasks moderators with weeding out things that commonly undermine that mode of discussion.

A little nugget of empirical evidence to complement the reasoning: I notice that the other language I spend serious time writing these days has adopted it, and no apocalypse has yet ensued. https://swift.org/community/#code-of-conduct

[willbradley (Will Bradley)]

+1, formalizing "MINASWAN" into actionable, specific guidelines is necessary in order to effectively manage volunteer groups. Thanks to the proposer for initiating and withstanding tons of BS.

[seantheprogrammer (Sean Griffin)]

Just to throw another voice in the ring, we've adopted a Contributor Covenant based Code of Conduct on Rails. I've also done so on every other project that I maintain, and am in favor of doing so here. Any change which makes people feel safe or improves our ability to draw from a larger pool of contributors is a good one. The direction the discussion on this thread has taken is unfortunate, and I hope we can see this merged and closed quickly.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

Strand,

First, PostgreSQL CoC is here http://www.spinics.net/lists/pgsql/msg165105.html

I am not against having CoC in general. As I already mentioned, I have a few concerns on the proposed CoC ("the CoC" hereafter).

1. The CoC has some undefined or ambiguous terms in it. For example how can we define membership of the community? Or what is the community after all.
2. The CoC enforce us (contributors) obligations to watch that some of us may not want.
3. The CoC contains banning members from the community as a punishment. This does not mean anything but hurting individuals. One can easily set up a new identity on the net and re-join to the community as much as he/she wants, Besides that one can regret the previous act and change the attitude.
4. The CoC covers activities/conversations out of "the community". For example, I may tweet something stupid that hurts somebody else, probably due to lack of imagination, and without concrete definition of the community, I myself should be banned. That's the obligation, according to the CoC, because people label me as a creator of the language, so every act of mine cannot be "personal" under the CoC.

Considering above concerns, I cannot accept "the CoC" for the Ruby community. Let me emphasize again: I don't oppose to having CoC for the Ruby community. But not this.

My acceptable modified version of the CoC is like the following

Contributor Code of Conduct

As contributors and maintainers of this project, and in the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we pledge to respect all people who contribute through reporting issues, posting feature requests, updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches, and other activities.

We are committed to making participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, belief, or nationality.

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

• The use of sexualized language or imagery
• Personal attacks
• Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments
• Harassment
• Publishing other's private information, such as physical addresses, without explicit permission
• Other unethical conduct

Project maintainers may remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting a project maintainer at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

Some may feel it doesn't enbodies Social Justice, some may feel it's still too much. I welcome your opinion.

Matz.

[headius (Charles Nutter)]

I support having a Code of Conduct. I will defer to others to decide which one.

[phluid61 (Matthew Kerwin)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

My acceptable modified version of the CoC is like the following

Contributor Code of Conduct

As contributors and maintainers of this project, and in the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we pledge to respect all people who contribute through reporting issues, posting feature requests, updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches, and other activities.

We are committed to making participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, belief, or nationality.

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

• The use of sexualized language or imagery
• Personal attacks
• Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments
• Harassment
• Publishing other's private information, such as physical addresses, without explicit permission
• Other unethical conduct

Project maintainers may remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting a project maintainer at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

Some may feel it doesn't enbodies Social Justice, some may feel it's still too much. I welcome your opinion.

Matz.

I like this. It seems like a natural elaboration of what MINASWAN means, and includes (neutral, non-aggressive) actions which can be taken if/when a breach occurs. I also note that it's not set in stone, and can evolve over time as circumstances change or as new information becomes available.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

My acceptable modified version of the CoC is like the following

I think that's acceptable. Now that that is established, a conversation about enforcement should follow.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

a conversation about enforcement should follow.

What's wrong with "a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances"?

[shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)]

To: Caroline and others who support CoC

Please let us learn. Most ruby committers are inexparts in this area. When you add a comment over the proposal form Matz, tell us not just it is inadequate, but also why.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

By Japanese law, Matz (and administrators of sub systems) already has responsibility to remove comments which entrench on or infringe another one's right.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote at https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-95:

My acceptable modified version of the CoC is like the following

Thank you, matz.
I like this.

Some may feel it doesn't enbodies Social Justice, some may feel it's still too much. I welcome your opinion.

Please give us the definition of "Project maintainers".

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

The project maintainers here mean a subset of contributors who have privilege to modify the web sites, wiki, list archives etc.

Matz.

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

The current draft Code of Conduct that PostgreSQL is considering can
be found at http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail]

I personally think it could be cut down a bit by removing parts
unrelated to conduct. Here's my proposed CoC:

== Ruby Community Code of Conduct (CoC) ==

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, 
productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to 
contribute to the Ruby community. It applies to all "collaborative 
space", which is defined as community communications channels (such as
mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, commit comments, etc.).

* Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free
of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

* Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a 
pattern of behaviour which could be considered harassment will not be 
tolerated.

Possible advantages over the Contributor Covenant:

1. Significantly shorter. Ruby values concise code, and the CoC language
   should reflect this.

2. Doesn't enumerate protected characteristics, making some protected
   characteristics (e.g. gender, gender identity) seeming more
   important than other characteristics (e.g. economic status, criminal
   history). It's unfeasible to list all characteristics that people
   will want to protect in a CoC. Ruby values generic code,
   unnecessarily specific code is a smell.

3. Doesn't enumerate unacceptable behavior, making some behavior that
   could be disruptive seemingly be allowable if not explicitly listed.
   Again, Ruby values generic code.

4. Only applies to the community space. So people won't be able to use
   the CoC to ban other people or call for them to be kicked out of the
   Ruby community based on a single tweet in a conversation held on
   Twitter.

5. Does not enforce obligations on the contributors.

6. Does not enforce or recommend banishment from the community.

Matz already mentioned that the PostgreSQL CoC is much better fit. I
recommend we base our CoC on their current draft, as my example here
does, instead of basing it on the Contributor Covenant.

Jeremy

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

I find the English translation of the law: http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/law/detail/?id=2088&vm=04&re=01
It also enforces maintainers to disclosing Identification Information of the Sender with due process.

I think the workflow is not well established yet and should be established.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

My acceptable modified version of the CoC is like the following

I think that's acceptable. Now that that is established, a conversation about enforcement should follow.

I also think Matz proposed CoC is a great start but, yes, enforcement needs to be discussed. I also think that the CoC needs to be clearer on what happens when somebody violates it. It seems ambiguous as to how offenses are handled.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

While maintaining objection to any CoC at all -...

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

... Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

Some potential for problems here, in that an incident reporter, perhaps also the 'harrassed', may choose to go public in another forum, in which case surely they have waived their right to confidentiality. Silly to have a person for example, complaining about a decision of the community maintainers, and those maintainers being unable to defend that decision (if they so wished) due to a strict rule on confidence.

I'd propose..."Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident subject to the reporter also maintaining confidentiality".

+1 Jeremy Evan's draft.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Jeremy Evans wrote:

The current draft Code of Conduct that PostgreSQL is considering can
be found at http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail]

I personally think it could be cut down a bit by removing parts
unrelated to conduct. Here's my proposed CoC:

== Ruby Community Code of Conduct (CoC) ==

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, 
productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to 
contribute to the Ruby community. It applies to all "collaborative 
space", which is defined as community communications channels (such as
mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, commit comments, etc.).

* Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free
of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

* Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a 
pattern of behaviour which could be considered harassment will not be 
tolerated.

CoC (or something like that) should have a process to relief violations at least removing violating content.
So A CoC should have an area which they can manage.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Jeremy Evans wrote:

2. Doesn't enumerate protected characteristics,
3. Doesn't enumerate unacceptable behavior,
4. Only applies to the community space.
5. Does not enforce obligations on the contributors.
6. Does not enforce or recommend banishment from the community.

I like this draft. The above points were my greatest concerns with the original proposed CoC.

Also, Coraline raised this question on Twitter:
"Thoughts on leaving technical mgmt of Ruby to Matz and delegating community mgmt to a separate org?"
https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690334282607378432

Why would this be needed?

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

[Administration note] @tenderlove
Could you lock the account instead of removing the account?
It makes easy to recover the account or removing all comments related the account.

[strand (Strand McCutchen)]

Matz:

The code of conduct which you provided, let's call it The Ruby Code of Conduct, is an excellent place to start. I like that it contains a pledge of respect, that it commits us to a harassment-free experience for everyone, that it provides a list of unacceptable behavior, that it clarifies how maintainers can enforce the code, and that it specifies how a member of the community can report unacceptable behavior.

I think it could be improved with the following changes:

• Maintain a version number for every version of the code. This document will likely evolve and change over time. Perhaps on adoption, we could declare it the Ruby Code v 1.0.0, and use patch numbers to indicate how much the document's evolution.

• Provide a list of expected or even excellent behavior. The Stumptown Syndicate Citizen's Code has a great example of this.

• Sadly, many people who harass others do not think their behavior is unacceptable. Defining what harassment is can provide maintainers some guidance on how to interpret ambiguous behavior and provides guidance to community members.

• I realize you are hesitant to consider banning anyone from the community, and I understand this hesitation, but I think it is useful to clarify that temporary or permanent banning can occur. This is a nuclear option (when possible, I believe communities should follow some restorative justice process) but I think the last paragraph should be amended to read:

  Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting a project maintainer at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances, up to and including a temporary ban or permanent expulsion from the community without warning. Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

• I think it would be useful to clarify that folks in our community may be asked to stop behaving unacceptably. Sample language looks like: "Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately."

• License: In the spirit of open source, we should explicitly state the license which people can copy this with. Either the Ruby License or Creative Commons seems appropriate.

Matz, please edit the code however you see fit, and merge it into the codebase. What we have right now is a good start, and while there is still some ambiguity and room for improvement, it is more explicit than the MINASWAN motto.

Thank you for being open to feedback,
Strand

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

My acceptable modified version of the CoC is like the following

I very much support a CoC in any version that's okay with Matz. I'm okay with the proposed version, but have a few comments (change requests for consideration).

Contributor Code of Conduct

As contributors and maintainers of this project, and in the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we pledge to respect all people who contribute through reporting issues, posting feature requests, updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches, and other activities.

This doesn't mention actual commits.

Also, because we know who we are, it may be good to replace "this project" with the actual name or description. Also,

We are committed to making participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, belief, or nationality.

I think it would be good to add culture, language, and age here.
(instead of language, language abilities or natural language abilities might work. "native language", as proposed before, may be too narrow)
Also, something words that could cover aspects

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

• The use of sexualized language or imagery
• Personal attacks
• Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments
• Harassment
• Publishing other's private information, such as physical addresses, without explicit permission
• Other unethical conduct

Project maintainers may remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting a project maintainer at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

It might be good to have something here saying that in the case of an incident, everybody is encouraged to be careful and polite, assume carelessness or ignorance before bad will, and hold back to avoid making things worse.

Some may feel it doesn't enbodies Social Justice, some may feel it's still too much. I welcome your opinion.

Matz.

Maybe it would be good to insert a bit more of Ruby-specific language. Things like "in order to make programming and improving Ruby fun for everyone" or so.

Just some ideas. I'm okay with whatever gets approved by Matz.

[shugo (Shugo Maeda)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

The project maintainers here mean a subset of contributors who have privilege to modify the web sites, wiki, list archives etc.

As far as I know, we have no official list archive.
Do you mean blade (http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp)?

[phluid61 (Matthew Kerwin)]

Martin Dürst wrote:

Just some ideas. I'm okay with whatever gets approved by Matz.

+1 to everything Martin said.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Andrew Vit wrote:

Why would this be needed?

It's not. Coraline is just trying to shoehorn in her own philosophy to the community. Matz is a CIS male with privilege afterall. </snark>

I expected her to make such a public question. The fact is the community belongs to Matz and he does a good job or delegates to others if he doesn't have time available.

Jeremy Evans wrote:

Possible advantages over the Contributor Covenant:

Jeremy

I agree with this, basically it boils down to, "Don't be an asshole."

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Strand,

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

• The use of sexualized language or imagery

Some may feel it doesn't enbodies Social Justice, some may feel it's still too much. I welcome your opinion.

Matz.

My opinion is there are different cultures, even many in the US when comparing rural to those in NYC who use colorful language. My own language in general conversation is quite indecent through means of dominantly swearing, talking about BDSM, mates or give advice on such topics. I'm not going to "tone it down" in general conversation due to a frail person who feels "triggered" or offended by those with different cultural and societal beliefs. If someone feels awkward, they can speak up and I usually take it to PM if I'm talking to someone one on one.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Shugo Maeda wrote:

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

The project maintainers here mean a subset of contributors who have privilege to modify the web sites, wiki, list archives etc.

As far as I know, we have no official list archive.
Do you mean blade (http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp)?

I'm also considering about that.
How we handle ML archives are difficult issue.
Maybe we should provide the official archive and talk 3rd parties to stop mirroring.

[normalperson (Eric Wong)]

[e-mail] wrote:

The current draft Code of Conduct that PostgreSQL is considering can
be found at http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail]

Thanks.

I personally think it could be cut down a bit by removing parts
unrelated to conduct. Here's my proposed CoC:

Actually, you left out what I considered the most important point:

* We are tolerant of people’s right to have opposing views.

Otherwise, it's the only one I've found acceptable
(but still unnecessary IMHO)

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free
  of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

Perhaps add: " against others"

I consider tongue-in-cheek remarks against oneself to be fine.
It's common way of venting and expressing severity when I fix my own
embarassing mistakes.

Possible advantages over the Contributor Covenant:

Agreed on all points.

Unsubscribe: mailto:[e-mail]?subject=unsubscribe
http://lists.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/ruby-core

[normalperson (Eric Wong)]

[e-mail] wrote:

Shugo Maeda wrote:

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

The project maintainers here mean a subset of contributors who have privilege to modify the web sites, wiki, list archives etc.

As far as I know, we have no official list archive.
Do you mean blade (http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp)?

I'm also considering about that.
How we handle ML archives are difficult issue.
Maybe we should provide the official archive

Yes, please. I've been meaning to ask for a downloadable version
so I don't have to hammer + dedupe from gmane.org.

and talk 3rd parties to stop mirroring.

Why? Perhaps they should mention they are unofficial mirrors instead
and include a link to the canonical one.

Having more mirrors reduces chance of censorship and data loss in case
of disaster.

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[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Yui NARUSE wrote:

I find the English translation of the law: http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/law/detail/?id=2088&vm=04&re=01
It also enforces maintainers to disclosing Identification Information of the Sender with due process.

It's good to know some of the legal base under which we operate.

But it's important to notice that we want to avoid having to make recourse to the law. Once somebody thinks they need a lawyer, everybody has already lost.

What we want is to address problems quickly (or even much better, not let them happen at all), give people a chance to fix their behavior and seriously apologize, and try our best to make sure everybody continues to have fun working on and with Ruby.

I think the workflow is not well established yet and should be established.

I agree that we need a bit more of an idea how we apply things, but creating too many explicit rules will be counterproductive.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Some other options to consider here as a starting point:

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Code_of_conduct_evaluations

I somewhat prefer the "We value X" / "Therefore we Y" wording styles (see Ubuntu's)
which leaves it to the spirit of interpretation and good judgment instead of
trying to enumerate specific lists of offenses (which you never will).

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

The "Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct" of W3C is another text to consider as a base for ours: https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/
There are clearly things in there, such as 'conflict of interest' and 'confidentiality' (as it applies to work products, not to potential complaints) that are less relevant for us, but there's also quite some very good language, e.g. on cultural differences.

[HillaryS (Hillary S)]

This is how projects die.

Absolutely sickening.

Beta male white knights falling over themselves for a nutcase SJW trying to infest yet another open source project.

Linux and FreeBSD have show the dangers of not slamming the door immediately and forcefully on SJW project infiltration attempts.

Linux SJW Sarah Sharp spent years trying to pick fights with dev team members and to be able to scream 'harrasment!' or 'toxic environment!' - Thank god Linux has never allowed SJWs to infest the project with Code of Conducts to wield as a weapon against anyone not in line with their nutty SJW/feminist ideologies.

Professional victim/online harasser/bully Randi Harper desperately tried to get the FreeBSD project the same sort of garbage Code of Conduct this nutcase Coraline Ada Ehmke is trying to ram down the throats of the Ruby community. The fact that one of the worst online bullies on the Net is a massive supporter of Code of Conducts should make it painfully clear what a powerful weapon they are for SJW nutcases.

Say goodbye to talented developers and say hello to deadweight SJWs tone policing your every word that doesn't fit exactly with their nutty SJW/sexist/feminist ideologies.

Say hello to deadweight SJW project members searching through your online social media and correspondences for 'wrong think'.

This is how projects die.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Eric Wong wrote:

[e-mail] wrote:

Shugo Maeda wrote:

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

The project maintainers here mean a subset of contributors who have privilege to modify the web sites, wiki, list archives etc.

As far as I know, we have no official list archive.
Do you mean blade (http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp)?

I'm also considering about that.
How we handle ML archives are difficult issue.
Maybe we should provide the official archive

Yes, please. I've been meaning to ask for a downloadable version
so I don't have to hammer + dedupe from gmane.org.

You can get the raw data from http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/ruby/ruby-core/73098

and talk 3rd parties to stop mirroring.

Why? Perhaps they should mention they are unofficial mirrors instead
and include a link to the canonical one.

Having more mirrors reduces chance of censorship and data loss in case
of disaster.

It's also "maybe".
For example "Publishing other's private information, such as physical addresses, without explicit permission",
it need to remove related content from our storage and tell mirrors to remove them too.
While it works fine, of course mirrors are good thing.

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

Eric Wong wrote:

Actually, you left out what I considered the most important point:

• We are tolerant of people’s right to have opposing views.

I do think we should be tolerant of people's right to have
opposing views. However, I think the statement is unrelated to
conduct, and therefore I don't believe it belongs in a Code of
Conduct.

If someone is completely intolerant of any opposing views, as long
as they don't conduct themselves in a way that violates the CoC,
then no actions should be taken against them.

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free
  of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

Perhaps add: " against others"

I consider tongue-in-cheek remarks against oneself to be fine.
It's common way of venting and expressing severity when I fix my own
embarassing mistakes.

I agree in principle, but find it obvious, and I'd like the CoC to be
kept short. To paraphrase Saint-Exupery, perfection in this case is when
there is nothing left to remove.

[austin (Austin Ziegler)]

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On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 7:34 AM, [e-mail] wrote:

I'm going to start off by saying I was the first one to mention SJW in
this thread
and I do very much get it.

I’m not sure that you do. Understand that I am not saying that your lived
experience isn’t real and that you personally may have not experienced
the sort of issues that far too many people of colour, creed, sexuality,
gender, or whatever other means has been used to marginalize, belittle,
etc.

What I do know is that you’re expounding “Respectability Politics” and are
attempting to dismiss Coraline’s recommendation simply because her words
may not be as polite, refined, or as friendly as you would like them to be.
What you are doing when you do this is attempting to say that her lived
experience isn’t real. So no, I’m not actually sure that you get it.

Look, if you actually act MINASWAN, there’s nothing to be worried about
from a code of conduct. These things aren’t put in place to give people
things to trip over just so they can be banned from a community; they are
there to help with making judgements when there are hard calls to be made.

-a

Austin Ziegler • [e-mail] • [e-mail]
http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue

[austin (Austin Ziegler)]

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On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 8:26 AM, [e-mail] wrote:

Issue #12004 has been updated by Chuck Remes.

I am not in favor of the adoption of a CoC.

If this solved a real problem, I would consider it as would any reasonable
person. However, no one in this thread has been able to point to any
situations where a CoC (and specifically, this CoC) would have solved the
problem. Instead they say that we can't know if there are problems because
those marginalized people have avoided the community. Their claim is not
falsifiable. To me that makes the claim absolutely worthless.

The counter-claim is also not falsifiable (which essentially is that
“because no one has claimed that this is a problem, it isn’t a problem”).
I’m a software development manager in my day job now. I have to work very
hard to make sure that every single one of my developers is heard because
they aren’t all bold and outspoken. It’s often a subtle thing, but the
effort is real.

I agree with you about this CoC for Ruby, because there are organizations
behind Ruby. Ruby itself should not have a CoC that applies to the repo
(such as the Contributor Covenant or the “Code of Merit” nonsense that some
folks are proposing in its stead), but something that is a bit broader and
written with knowledge that Matz is essentially a benevolent dictator for
this community.

-a

Austin Ziegler • [e-mail] • [e-mail]
http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

I like Jeremy's version better if it's acceptable for others.

Matz.

[normalperson (Eric Wong)]

[e-mail] wrote:

Eric Wong wrote:

[e-mail] wrote:

How we handle ML archives are difficult issue.
Maybe we should provide the official archive

Yes, please. I've been meaning to ask for a downloadable version
so I don't have to hammer + dedupe from gmane.org.

You can get the raw data from http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/ruby/ruby-core/73098

I mean as single tarball or mbox file without having to hammer with
multiple requests. I think gmane offers mbox as an option, now; I will
check later. I was temporarily banned from gmane for fetching too
much over NNTP in the past :x

and talk 3rd parties to stop mirroring.

Why? Perhaps they should mention they are unofficial mirrors instead
and include a link to the canonical one.

Having more mirrors reduces chance of censorship and data loss in case
of disaster.

It's also "maybe".
For example "Publishing other's private information, such as physical addresses, without explicit permission",
it need to remove related content from our storage and tell mirrors to remove them too.

It should be up to the mirror hosts and jurisdiction of mirrors.
Most mirrors should have removal instructions; but things like
Tor/Freenet/GNUnet/etc may make full removal impossible.

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[normalperson (Eric Wong)]

[e-mail] wrote:

Eric Wong wrote:

Actually, you left out what I considered the most important point:

• We are tolerant of people’s right to have opposing views.

I do think we should be tolerant of people's right to have
opposing views. However, I think the statement is unrelated to
conduct, and therefore I don't believe it belongs in a Code of
Conduct.

Alright; I was considering it a good statement of intent/background;
similar to the first paragraph of the Linux Code of Conflict:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/Documentation/CodeOfConflict

Anyways, if matz likes yours then I guess it is fine.

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[strand (Strand McCutchen)]

Please do not adopt the the proposed code of conduct adapted by Jeremy. This code lacks any specific language indicating how, if at all, the code will be enforced—it doesn't specify how members of our community are held accountable for their behavior.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Austin Ziegler wrote:

I’m not sure that you do.

What I do know is that you’re expounding “Respectability Politics” and are
attempting to dismiss Coraline’s recommendation simply because her words
may not be as polite, refined, or as friendly as you would like them to be.

--
Austin Ziegler • [e-mail] • [e-mail]
http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue

Oh believe me, I do get it.

Coraline's words aren't the problem, it's the philosophy she is attempting to push. The CoC she constructed doesn't have the verbiage, however look at the index page in the repo regarding meritocracy. People should be promoted based on merit, not their color, sex, gender, etc. I also mentioned a real life story in one of my posts regarding a person of color who was promoted over a hispanic individual. It was upsetting because the person promoted wasn't promoted based on performance but due to the manager actually stating for reasons of race. Upon correcting the manager and stating hispanics also suffered and the promotion was wrong, it wouldn't feel right to demote someone based on obscene stupidity.

Yes, yes I do fucking get it. Coraline's philosophy though is beyond retarded.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Strand McCutchen wrote:

Please do not adopt the the proposed code of conduct adapted by Jeremy. This code lacks any specific language indicating how, if at all, the code will be enforced—it doesn't specify how members of our community are held accountable for their behavior.

That would be up to Matz. He leads the project. The CoC of Jeremy's should be adopted, as it's slim, smart and coincides with Ruby beliefs.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

Austin Ziegler wrote:

I’m not sure that you do.

What I do know is that you’re expounding “Respectability Politics” and are
attempting to dismiss Coraline’s recommendation simply because her words
may not be as polite, refined, or as friendly as you would like them to be.

--
Austin Ziegler • [e-mail] • [e-mail]
http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue

Oh believe me, I do get it.

Coraline's words aren't the problem, it's the philosophy she is attempting to push. The CoC she constructed doesn't have the verbiage, however look at the index page in the repo regarding meritocracy. People should be promoted based on merit, not their color, sex, gender, etc. I also mentioned a real life story in one of my posts regarding a person of color who was promoted over a hispanic individual. It was upsetting because the person promoted wasn't promoted based on performance but due to the manager actually stating for reasons of race. Upon correcting the manager and stating hispanics also suffered and the promotion was wrong, it wouldn't feel right to demote someone based on obscene stupidity.

Nobody here is suggesting the promotion of people based on their background. You're inventing this. We are striving for equality and for people who generally feel marginized to feel safer when they contribute.

Yes, yes I do fucking get it. Coraline's philosophy though is beyond retarded.

You really do use a lot of derogatory language. I hope you're able to take a step back and see that what you write is unnecessarily inflammatory. Are you simply against a CoC because you don't want to be held accountable for referring to people or their ideals as "retarded"?

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

Strand,

I understand your worry for the lack of enforcement. But it's not a law. I consider it's our declaration of our intention to remove/reduce conflicts/harassments from our community.

Matz.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Strand,

I understand your worry for the lack of enforcement. But it's not a law. I consider it's our declaration of our intention to remove/reduce conflicts/harassments from our community.

Matz.

This is an unfortunate conundrum, then. A code of conduct should be treated similarly to a law. If there aren't repercussions for violating it, and if it's not enforced, it's ultimately meaningless. The Ruby maintainers and community need to be willing to uphold a commitment to this sort of code of conduct, IMO

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

I'm okay with whatever gets approved by Matz.

Agreed, almost by definition :)

I like Jeremy's version better if it's acceptable for others.

It's acceptable to me.

What constitutes 'personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks' then becomes the issue, over time. I would continue to advocate that, as is made explicit in the Postgres CoC, focus is confined narrowly to Ruby-related interactions.

Elia saying on Twitter that some groups are not facing reality - it was always more than trans people, and not in the Opal context - should never have been considered harassment that should lead to him being banned from Opal.

Why?

Because the structure of so many important arguments about social, scientific and political issues is precisely that both sides think the other is not facing reality. People taking part in an open source community must be free to debate such matters honestly and vigorously without have to resort to a (different) pseudonym.

Here's another example. The leader of Elia's church last year issued an encyclical about the environment. I agree with the criticism made of that statement here:

http://nypost.com/2015/09/23/on-climate-change-pope-francis-isnt-listening-to-the-worlds-poor/

Lomborg believes the Pope is not facing reality on what the poor want and need. Those who disagree with Lomborg believe he's not facing reality about the potentially catastrophic effect of CO2 emissions.

That's the very essence of the argument - and of many other types of argument.

There must be no fear of being able to express oneself on these issues outside of the Ruby context.

As far as expressions within the Ruby context are concerned, here's my favourite on this thread:

I bring up the case of _why, he was weird, and you know what? We loved him to pieces.

More of that, please.

[sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada)]

Strand McCutchen wrote:

If Ruby can't adopt a code of conduct which specifies clearly how maintainers will enforce it and how they will be held accountable for their behavior, then I will stop writing Ruby. Not that day, for sure, and probably not for a while, but I'll identify the communities which not only have nice people, but enforce community standards so the not-nice ones aren't tolerated indefinitely, and I'll join them.

Why not put in practice? Both sides will be happy.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

David Celis wrote:

This is an unfortunate conundrum, then. A code of conduct should be treated similarly to a law. If there aren't repercussions for violating it, and if it's not enforced, it's ultimately meaningless. The Ruby maintainers and community need to be willing to uphold a commitment to this sort of code of conduct, IMO

But what kind of enforcement we can do? As I said before, banning is meaningless (in our community). Only we can do is reject/remove/edit issues/pages/conversations with problems, but I don't think it needs to be written in CoC.

Matz.

[shreeve (Steve Shreeve)]

I agree wholeheartedly with Matz. There is no need for this CoC. These efforts to prevent "micro-agressions", etc. are absurd and childish.

Ruby's community is great and has survived wonderfully for decades without this. These codes of conduct generally have the exact opposite of their intended effect. A desire for "diversity" and "acceptance of others" ends up with a rigid mindset against anyone that doesn't feel the same about some social issue. As F. A. Hayek so wisely stated, "Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?"

Please, there is no need for this at all.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

David Celis wrote:

This is an unfortunate conundrum, then. A code of conduct should be treated similarly to a law. If there aren't repercussions for violating it, and if it's not enforced, it's ultimately meaningless. The Ruby maintainers and community need to be willing to uphold a commitment to this sort of code of conduct, IMO

But what kind of enforcement we can do? As I said before, banning is meaningless (in our community). Only we can do is reject/remove/edit issues/pages/conversations with problems, but I don't think it needs to be written in CoC.

Matz.

I agree that banning a user in our community is meaningless. It is, of course, impossible to remove someone from the greater Ruby community. It is simply too large. However, even those measures that you list are important and I think it is fair to document them. When comments, commits, or conversations are removed or when people are removed from the main Ruby repository or issue tracker for violating this document, it is important to be able to point at that document and say "Here's why what you did was a Bad Thing, and here is where it said doing that Bad Thing would result in this consequence." Otherwise, that person has the opportunity to say "I had no idea that doing this Bad Thing would result in this consequence so that consequence shouldn't occur." Then the Bad Thing becomes meaningless.

Steve Shreeve wrote:

I agree wholeheartedly with Matz. There is no need for this CoC. These efforts to prevent "micro-agressions", etc. are absurd and childish.

If you had followed the discussion so far, you would know that Matz has stated himself as open to adopting a Code of Conduct. Therefore, what exactly are you agreeing with?

[austin (Austin Ziegler)]

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Matz, I respectfully disagree. Enforcement should be written in a CoC to be
meaningful and effective. Inasmuch as we want a CoC, we want this for a
couple of reasons (IMO):

1. To signal that we, the Ruby community as a whole and the core
   contributors to Ruby specifically, consider certain behaviours
   unacceptable, especially those involving harassment of any kind and
   marginalizing behaviour;
2. To signal that we, the Ruby community as a whole and the core
   contributors to Ruby specifically, are marking the official spaces for Ruby
   (ruby-core, ruby-talk and other official mailing lists; the Redmine
   instance for issues with Ruby and related projects; the ruby/ruby Github
   repo; etc.) as safe spaces where people can be assured that harassment
   will not be tolerated.

I also disagree that banning is meaningless; there may be little that can
be done against determined attackers who can repeatedly create new
accounts, etc., but as a signal, temporary and/or permanent banning of
particular personae can be very useful.

This isn’t to say that I think that signaling is the only reason to do
these, but that the signals themselves are important because it will
encourage greater participation by people who find themselves otherwise
intimidated.

You will choose as you believe you should, but I strongly encourage you to
keep some enforcement for when the rules/guidelines are broken, because
they will otherwise be seen as empty promises.

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 12:22 AM, [e-mail] wrote:

Issue #12004 has been updated by Yukihiro Matsumoto.

David Celis wrote:

This is an unfortunate conundrum, then. A code of conduct should be
treated similarly to a law. If there aren't repercussions for violating it,
and if it's not enforced, it's ultimately meaningless. The Ruby maintainers
and community need to be willing to uphold a commitment to this sort of
code of conduct, IMO

But what kind of enforcement we can do? As I said before, banning is
meaningless (in our community). Only we can do is reject/remove/edit
issues/pages/conversations with problems, but I don't think it needs to be
written in CoC.

Matz.

---

Misc #12004: Code of Conduct
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#change-56345

• Author: Coraline Ada Ehmke
• Status: Assigned
• Priority: Normal
• Assignee: Yukihiro Matsumoto

---

I am the creator of the Contributor Covenant, a code of conduct for Open
Source projects. At last count there are over 13,000 projects on Github
that have adopted it. This past year saw adoption of Contributor Covenant
by a lot of very large, very visible projects, including Rails, Github's
Atom text editor, Angular JS, bundler, curl, diaspora, discourse, Eclipse,
rspec, shoes, and rvm. The bundler team made code of conduct integration an
option in the gem creation workflow, putting it on par with license
selection. Many open source language communities have already adopted the
code of conduct, including Elixir, Mono, the .NET foundation, F#, and
Apple's Swift. RubyTogether also adopted a policy to only fund Ruby
projects that had a solid code of conduct in place.

Right now in the PHP community there is a healthy debate about adopting
the Contributor Covenant. Since it came from and has been so widely adopted
by the Ruby community at large, I think it's time that we consider adopting
it for the core Ruby language as well.

Our community prides itself on niceness. What a code of conduct does is
define what we mean by nice. It states clearly that we value openness,
courtesy, and compassion. That we care about and want contributions from
people who may be different from us. That we pledge to respect all
contributors regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other
factors. And it makes it clear that we are prepared to follow through on
these values with action when and if an incident arises.

I'm asking that we join with the larger Ruby community in supporting the
adoption of the Contributor Covenant for the Ruby language. I think that
this will be an important step forward and will ensure the continued
welcoming and supportive environment around Ruby. You can read the full
text of the Contributor Covenant at
http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/3/0/ and learn more at
http://contributor-covenant.org/.

Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

--
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/

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[akhramov (Artem Khramov)]

Weren't we nice before?

[sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada)]

David Celis wrote:

Steve Shreeve wrote:

I agree wholeheartedly with Matz. There is no need for this CoC. These efforts to prevent "micro-agressions", etc. are absurd and childish.

If you had followed the discussion so far, you would know that Matz has stated himself as open to adopting a Code of Conduct. Therefore, what exactly are you agreeing with?

You seem to be intentionally confusing the two CoCs. "this CoC" != Jeremy's CoC

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Artem Khramov wrote:

Weren't we nice before?

Some people are nice, some people are not nice. People being nice is not what's at question here. What's at question is what should happen when people are not nice.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

Enforcement requires obligation for both sides. We (or at least I) don't want that privilege and obligation.
We (or at least I) do our best to make the community peaceful. But it's at most best effort.

For example, when sensitive information has disclosed on the list, we cannot remove every copy of mails from the net, or even from the blade archive (which is canonical but not controlled by us) for sure.

Besides that, I don't want to live in the community where a member can possibly be casted out forcefully. It's not nice.
It should be resolved by law enforcement, if needed. Thus banning is out of question (for me at least).

Matz.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

Artem Khramov wrote:

Weren't we nice before?

Some people are nice, some people are not nice. People being nice is not what's at question here. What's at question is what should happen when people are not nice.

Well you see, this thing we used before this issue was created is called /ignore on IRC and the plonk/junk filter in our mail clients. :-)

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Besides that, I don't want to live in the community where a member can possibly be casted out forcefully. It's not nice.
It should be resolved by law enforcement, if needed. Thus banning is out of question (for me at least).

Matz.

This is why people look up to you, your kindness is beyond extraordinary.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

This is why people look up to you, your kindness is beyond extraordinary.

I haven't always been nice. I regret some of my words in the past wholeheartedly.
I thought they were from good intention. At least I pretended to believe so.
But they were mean. Probably they hurted people.

They happened many years ago. I don't want to that kind of atmosphere never again.

Matz.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Enforcement requires obligation for both sides. We (or at least I) don't want that privilege and obligation.
We (or at least I) do our best to make the community peaceful. But it's at most best effort.

This is a problem that having a Code of Conduct Committee would solve. It is very reasonable to have a designated group of people who have the duty of upholding the code of conduct. You yourself do not have to be on this committee, but there should be people who have the obligation to enforce the code of conduct. I am sure that there are people who would be happy to volunteer for this committee so that maintainers who do not want this obligation do not need to take it. I myself would be happy to volunteer. I think that Strand would probably also volunteer.

Besides that, I don't want to live in the community where a member can possibly be casted out forcefully. It's not nice.

Niceness is not black and white. I think that it is more nice to cast someone out forcefully when they repeatedly act against the ideals of the community than to allow them to continue to act against those ideals without regard for other community members. Casting out, also, does not have to be permanent. I think that if people can come to understand why their actions were harmful and show empathy, they should be allowed to return and show us that level of empathy.

[brennx0r (Brenna Flood)]

David Celis wrote:

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Enforcement requires obligation for both sides. We (or at least I) don't want that privilege and obligation.
We (or at least I) do our best to make the community peaceful. But it's at most best effort.

This is a problem that having a Code of Conduct Committee would solve. It is very reasonable to have a designated group of people who have the duty of upholding the code of conduct. You yourself do not have to be on this committee, but there should be people who have the obligation to enforce the code of conduct. I am sure that there are people who would be happy to volunteer for this committee so that maintainers who do not want this obligation do not need to take it. I myself would be happy to volunteer. I think that Strand would probably also volunteer.

Besides that, I don't want to live in the community where a member can possibly be casted out forcefully. It's not nice.

Niceness is not black and white. I think that it is more nice to cast someone out forcefully when they repeatedly act against the ideals of the community than to allow them to continue to act against those ideals without regard for other community members. Casting out, also, does not have to be permanent. I think that if people can come to understand why their actions were harmful and show empathy, they should be allowed to return and show us that level of empathy.

I agree 100% with these comments and suggestions. Seriously, I was in the process of writing these exact two points. Thank you for writing this.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

I think that if people can come to understand why their actions were harmful and show empathy, they should be allowed to return and show us that level of empathy.

Empathy isn't required to participate in a community. One doesn't and shouldn't need to connect with others on an emotional level. We are here to progress levels of engineering and science. If people want an emotional attachment, they should go get a girlfriend/boyfriend.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

David Celis wrote:

I think that if people can come to understand why their actions were harmful and show empathy, they should be allowed to return and show us that level of empathy.

Empathy isn't required to participate in a community. One doesn't and shouldn't need to connect with others on an emotional level. We are here to progress levels of engineering and science. If people want an emotional attachment, they should go get a girlfriend/boyfriend.

Engineering and science are progressed by humans. Machines aren't writing our Ruby code; humans are, and humans are emotional animals. Our brains have been hardwired to experience emotions as an evolutionary adaptation as we've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Humans and emotions are inseparable.

Furthermore, this has nothing to do with what you label as "emotional attachment." It has to do with the fundamental human desire to be understood and accepted, and that is important anywhere and everywhere.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

David,

Thank you for the offering. I appreciate your intention to help the community.

I understand the importance of declaration of our intention against harassment (therefore having kind of CoC).
But I don't believe that much in (yet another) organization/committee to manage community well.
I am afraid legit rules, especially with enforcement, and committee according to it can easily bring bureaucracy, which I hate.

Matz.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

David,

Thank you for the offering. I appreciate your intention to help the community.

I understand the importance of declaration of our intention against harassment (therefore having kind of CoC).
But I don't believe that much in (yet another) organization/committee to manage community well.
I am afraid legit rules, especially with enforcement, and committee according to it can easily bring bureaucracy, which I hate.

Matz.

I certainly understand your worry. I can tell you that (in my experience, at least) once a Code of Conduct is in place, the need to enforce it is rare. Simply having the document in place is itself extremely important. As an example, the Portland Ruby community adopted a Code of Conduct a couple of years ago, and several people volunteered to enforce it if necessary and formed a Code of Conduct committee with the approval of the majority of the community. Since then, I can think of only one time that the committee had to take action on someone for violating the Code of Conduct. Even then, this was an extreme case and the individual in question was harassing many women and making them feel unsafe. The Code of Conduct committee took every available opportunity to have conversations with this individual and decided that his behavior would not change. The enforcement of the Code of Conduct was extreme because this individual was extreme, and that is how I feel it should be. I am personally not worried about bureaucracy being introduced by such a committee and I am happy to have more conversations around this idea if Ruby maintainers would not want that sort of obligation.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

Engineering and science are progressed by humans. Machines aren't writing our Ruby code; humans are, and humans are emotional animals. Our brains have been hardwired to experience emotions as an evolutionary adaptation as we've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Humans and emotions are inseparable.

Furthermore, this has nothing to do with what you label as "emotional attachment." It has to do with the fundamental human desire to be understood and accepted, and that is important anywhere and everywhere.

Actually it does. Some of us don't have empathy or don't feel as much empathy as others. Many humans experience psychopathy, whether partial or full, by means of environment or genetics. I can tell you I've never felt any attachment or empathy for anyone in the community. I'm here for the science and engineering. I'm not saying "no empathy allowed," but one shouldn't assume others give a shit about your feelings.

Just sayin'.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

I understand the importance of declaration of our intention against harassment (therefore having kind of CoC).
But I don't believe that much in (yet another) organization/committee to manage community well.
I am afraid legit rules, especially with enforcement, and committee according to it can easily bring bureaucracy, which I hate.

I understand not wanting bureaucracy, but something can and has to be done if a member of the community engages in a campaign of, for example, sexual harassment. There are ways of limiting such an individual's access to the community and to the codebase. There is public censure. If there are no consequences for wrongful activity, then what's even the point of having a code of conduct? It has no teeth.

I'd also like to point out that things like sexual harassment that are not on-the-job are not illegal. Members of the community have to have someone that they can report abuse to, and that person has to be able to do more than say "sorry that's happening to you." If you don't want a committee then at least this delegate responsibility to someone.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

David Celis wrote:

Engineering and science are progressed by humans. Machines aren't writing our Ruby code; humans are, and humans are emotional animals. Our brains have been hardwired to experience emotions as an evolutionary adaptation as we've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Humans and emotions are inseparable.

Furthermore, this has nothing to do with what you label as "emotional attachment." It has to do with the fundamental human desire to be understood and accepted, and that is important anywhere and everywhere.

Actually it does. Some of us don't have empathy or don't feel as much empathy as others. Many humans experience psychopathy, whether partial or full, by means of environment or genetics. I can tell you I've never felt any attachment or empathy for anyone in the community. I'm here for the science and engineering. I'm not saying "no empathy allowed," but one shouldn't assume others give a shit about your feelings.

Just sayin'.

The oft-mentioned ideal of MINASWAN is important to the Ruby community. You're right that sociopathy (and, thus, an inability to show empathy) is a thing and so empathy should not be required in the community. But even sociopaths are able to be courteous and Nice without having to be able to put themselves in someone else's shoes and understand their point of view. Sociopaths know what it means to be a human being, and they are able to treat others as humans.

Openly "not giving a shit" about others' feelings and continuing to show that level of disregard when someone speaks up is not Nice. The Ruby community wants to be Nice.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

The oft-mentioned ideal of MINASWAN is important to the Ruby community. You're right that sociopathy (and, thus, an inability to show empathy) is a thing and so empathy should not be required in the community. But even sociopaths are able to be courteous and Nice without having to be able to put themselves in someone else's shoes and understand their point of view. Sociopaths know what it means to be a human being, and they are able to treat others as humans.

Openly "not giving a shit" about others' feelings and continuing to show that level of disregard when someone speaks up is not Nice. The Ruby community wants to be Nice.

:-) I must correct you on the use of sociopathy, as it's not the same thing as psychopathy.

Sherlock Holmes, even though a fictional character, is a high functioning sociopath. What he does is only for his self interest without regard for others in any manner. They're also generally seen as hot-heads, but this isn't the majority of cases. Basically, no empathy and they only care about themselves.

Psychopathy on the other hand, while also lacking full or partial empathy, are individuals who go through the world working their way through the world usually encouraging paths calculating how to best have the most efficient outcome.

I've stated earlier I tend to use colorful language, don't take it personally... as I don't give a shit either way ;)

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

I understand not wanting bureaucracy, but something can and has to be done if a member of the community engages in a campaign of, for example, sexual harassment. There are ways of limiting such an individual's access to the community and to the codebase. There is public censure. If there are no consequences for wrongful activity, then what's even the point of having a code of conduct? It has no teeth.

Our community have 20+ years of history. We had a few issues in the past, but all of them could be resolve by the communication.
On the other hand, we had to take great care to avoid bureaucracy in our workflows and processes. For me, avoiding bureaucracy is far immediate danger. Of course, I agree with you in part, so I agree to add kind of CoC for the community.

Matz.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

David Celis wrote:

The oft-mentioned ideal of MINASWAN is important to the Ruby community. You're right that sociopathy (and, thus, an inability to show empathy) is a thing and so empathy should not be required in the community. But even sociopaths are able to be courteous and Nice without having to be able to put themselves in someone else's shoes and understand their point of view. Sociopaths know what it means to be a human being, and they are able to treat others as humans.

Openly "not giving a shit" about others' feelings and continuing to show that level of disregard when someone speaks up is not Nice. The Ruby community wants to be Nice.

:-) I must correct you on the use of sociopathy, as it's not the same thing as psychopathy.

My mistake. I was a psychology student some years ago and at some point there was some contention in the DSM about psychopathy vs. sociopathy. Language can sometimes move quickly and it does look like my vocabulary is antiquated. Though it does seem that the DSM V lists psychopathy as the condition that involves a total lack of empathy where as sociopaths are sometimes able to form emotional attachments: (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy or https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/how-tell-sociopath-psychopath or http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-siciliano/what-is-a-sociopath_b_5877160.html).

But I really don't want to argue semantics, as I think my point still stands. Sociopath or psychopath, people know what is generally accepted as Nice and they can act accordingly. You don't need to be able to experience another person's feelings or understand their feelings to know what sort of behavior a community typically agrees on as being Nice. Psychopath or no, if someone knows that their behavior could result in them temporarily or permanently being ejected from the community, they will be much less likely to engage in that behavior.

[shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)]

Stay on topic. Thank you everyone.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

If you don't want a committee then at least this delegate responsibility to someone.

Inevitably those who have the most passionate interest in behavioural standards and their enforcement would end up in these positions, and there is immediately a gap between the CoC committee's (or Tsar's) average definition of 'reasonable' and what would be 'on average' considered 'reasonable' to the community at large.

If there is to be any enforcement, against which Matz has wisely counselled, I would rather a dozen developers selected at random from the community considered the case, than a standing committee.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

I understand the importance of declaration of our intention against harassment (therefore having kind of CoC).
But I don't believe that much in (yet another) organization/committee to manage community well.
I am afraid legit rules, especially with enforcement, and committee according to it can easily bring bureaucracy, which I hate.

I understand not wanting bureaucracy, but something can and has to be done if a member of the community engages in a campaign of, for example, sexual harassment. There are ways of limiting such an individual's access to the community and to the codebase. There is public censure. If there are no consequences for wrongful activity, then what's even the point of having a code of conduct? It has no teeth.

I understand you try to create an effective way of preventing harassment.
How to prevent spreading information which includes violation is well defined and it is easy to recover the rights of the sender even though the process may fail.
But expulsion is tough action.
As far as I understand, it requires well defined terms and due process.
While I assume CoC is well defined, due process is still hard issue.

And even if we expulse a person who are repeatedly creating new accounts with one time mail address.
Therefore I think removing individual items works almost cases and edge cases should be up to law.

I'd also like to point out that things like sexual harassment that are not on-the-job are not illegal. Members of the community have to have someone that they can report abuse to, and that person has to be able to do more than say "sorry that's happening to you." If you don't want a committee then at least this delegate responsibility to someone.

As you say sexual harassment in labor law (criminal law) is defined as the one on-the-job.
But at least in Japan such actions are considered as defamation or insult in both criminal law and civil law.
Moreover "When any right of others is infringed by information" service provider must remove it.
http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/law/detail/?id=2088&vm=04&re=01

Maybe we should have a general contact or something to request to reject/remove/edit.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Matz said
I don't want to live in the community where a member can possibly be casted out forcefully. It's not nice.

Our community have 20+ years of history. We had a few issues in the past, but all of them could be resolve by the communication.

Thank you!! Issues between adults are resolved by communication, not some totalitarian, controlling enforcement policy dictated by a political agenda.

I would like to re-emphasize that there is no evidence that CoCs bring harmony, inclusivity or any of the other things their proponents claim. On the contrary, there are many incidents of discord, hate and exclusivity in software communities where CoCs -such as the proposed one- have been introduced.

I personally think that proposing a CoC for a community that you have led flawlessly and by example for over 20 years is insulting. It's what some others on this thread would undoubtedly find 'offensive' if it was happening to them. But, since you have decided to use a CoC, I would urge you to adopt a Code of Merit:

Code Of Merit

To sum it up, it basically says "We don't care what race, colour, religion, gender you are, you are welcome to contribute to the project. You will only be judged on your technical merit and nothing else."
If we must have a CoC, I can't think of a more egalitarian, fair and -dare I say- socially just one. I think it embodies the Ruby community spirit over the last 20 years quite nicely. I hope you consider it.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

I understand not wanting bureaucracy, but something can and has to be done if a member of the community engages in a campaign of, for example, sexual harassment. There are ways of limiting such an individual's access to the community and to the codebase. There is public censure. If there are no consequences for wrongful activity, then what's even the point of having a code of conduct? It has no teeth.

Our community have 20+ years of history. We had a few issues in the past, but all of them could be resolve by the communication.
On the other hand, we had to take great care to avoid bureaucracy in our workflows and processes. For me, avoiding bureaucracy is far immediate danger. Of course, I agree with you in part, so I agree to add kind of CoC for the community.

I very much agree with Matz, as I have seen increasing bureaucracy in other organizations and didn't like it.

Just as an idea, what about the following: We already have a mail address specifically designed and operated to address security issues ([e-mail]). It seems to me that there might be some commonalities between that mailing list and the issue in this thread. One is a strong desire for confidentiality. I'm not part of the security team, but as far as I understand, it has been working without too much bureaucracy. Also, it works without a widely published list of who watches mail to that address.

I'd also like to note that on this present issue, some actual action (removing uploaded files and accounts) has already happened without an actual CoC (yet?) in force. I cannot comment on the details, because those files were already removed when I read my mail this morning, but I hope we can take this as an indication that things are already working to quite some extent.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Fred Heath wrote:

Code Of Merit

If we must have a CoC, I can't think of a more egalitarian, fair and -dare I say- socially just one. I think it embodies the Ruby community spirit over the last 20 years quite nicely. I hope you consider it.

I have looked at that document. While it has some good language, I totally miss the fun aspect that is core to Ruby. Also, it says "There is no room for ambiguity.". That may not work well with Japanese culture, where ambiguity is very often used.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Martin Dürst wrote
While it has some good language, I totally miss the fun aspect that is core to Ruby.

I agree, I just think overall it captures the Ruby community spirit better than anything else. This community has always been about good code and innovation and I think this Code reflects that. Besides, there's nothing stopping us from adding a 'fun' bit to it, if we want to :)

Also, it says "There is no room for ambiguity.". That may not work well with Japanese culture, where ambiguity is very often used

I'm not that familiar with Japanese culture but this Code is obviously referring to technical ambiguity. For instance, me saying 'ok, I will implement a logger' isn't good enough, it's very ambiguous. I must spec it out and specify the medium, multi-threading, the API, etc. Besides, as mentioned above, we can always tailor it to our purpose.

[drenmi (Ted Johansson)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Our community have 20+ years of history. We had a few issues in the past, but all of them could be resolve by the communication.

I am a strong proponent of having a code of conduct. It is important to be clear with what we expect of each other. However, I think the proposed document is far too focused on punitive action, and I see a lot of cries for "laws" and "enforcement." This apparent thirst for retribution is, in my humble opinion, anathema of the spirit of our community.

I like to think that conflict resolution is something that needs to happen between people, with mediation if needed, when at all possible. I fear this document is to be brandished as a weapon from afar, escalating conflict rather than resolving it, and leading to further polarization instead of harmonization. Having someone understand how their actions were hurtful to someone else, and offer them a chance to apologize, seems far more useful to me than pulling out the ban hammer.

Let's be relentless in our forgiving.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

Jeremy Evans wrote:

Possible advantages over the Contributor Covenant:

1. Significantly shorter. Ruby values concise code, and the CoC language
   should reflect this.

2. Doesn't enumerate protected characteristics, making some protected
   characteristics (e.g. gender, gender identity) seeming more
   important than other characteristics (e.g. economic status, criminal
   history). It's unfeasible to list all characteristics that people
   will want to protect in a CoC. Ruby values generic code,
   unnecessarily specific code is a smell.

3. Doesn't enumerate unacceptable behavior, making some behavior that
   could be disruptive seemingly be allowable if not explicitly listed.
   Again, Ruby values generic code.

4. Only applies to the community space. So people won't be able to use
   the CoC to ban other people or call for them to be kicked out of the
   Ruby community based on a single tweet in a conversation held on
   Twitter.

5. Does not enforce obligations on the contributors.

6. Does not enforce or recommend banishment from the community.

Thank you, Jeremy.
You pointed out perfectly what I expect our CoC.
Especially, 5) and 6) are quite important points.

And I indicate one more point from Jeremy's version, it clearly says:

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free
  of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

Yes, it's the obligations of all of us, not only Matz's nor some "Project maintainers"'s.

(this comment is removed)

[pat (Pat Allan)]

Ted Johansson wrote:

I am a strong proponent of having a code of conduct. It is important to be clear with what we expect of each other. However, I think the proposed document is far too focused on punitive action, and I see a lot of cries for "laws" and "enforcement." This apparent thirst for retribution is, in my humble opinion, anathema of the spirit of our community.

I can't say I'm getting quite the vibe you are regarding a thirst for retribution. My take is more that it's not enough to say 'be nice to each other' but also 'we have some idea of what to do when people aren't nice'. Otherwise it's not a Code of Conduct, just a mission statement - it may make people happy, but doesn't address how we support each other's right to be safe. Being clear about how incidents are handled provides accountability: if shit things happen, then we know they'll be dealt with.

(The thoughts that follow are sparked by this thread generally, not Ted's quoted comment above.)

For those who are getting hung up on the idea of kicking someone out of the community: as Strand has noted, expulsion from the community is a tool of last resort. It's not a tool used joyfully, it's not the default response to problems. There's certainly room for dialogue between parties, and warnings if things continue, allowance for the situation, etc. I don't think anyone here is saying: "Pat said something sexist, so we ban him from everything Ruby related, no ifs, no buts." I don't think anyone likes the idea of absolute bans, but the worst end of behaviour (which would be extremely rare!) may sadly warrant it.

Looking outward for inspiration: from what I understand, the push to have a Code of Conduct for Go came from within their core team, and perhaps similarly for Swift. I think that's very helpful, because it means their teams have a passion to walk the talk. If Matz and the rest of the core team don't have that drive, I don't think it can be forced, and I'm not sure what the way forward is. I do not like the idea of separating technical and community responsibilities completely - I can easily see that leading to a disconnect between the two groups, focused on completely different aspects of the Ruby community. If there was some group that included both some Ruby core team members and others in the community, that might be better? Also, Go's Code of Conduct is quite detailed, which is not a bad thing at all: https://golang.org/conduct (I'm not sure how their Working Group is managed, mind you.)

Jeremy and others have mentioned that they're not keen to list all potential types of harassment, and I can understand that - having a list that covers absolutely everything is difficult (if not impossible). However, I've also found (especially through helping manage Ruby Australia's Code of Conduct and Anti Harassment Policy) that those suggesting the specific types of harassment are those who have experienced them personally, and can you blame them from wanting to be sure they don't experience that again? For wanting to be sure that this community will not tolerate similar behaviour? (Again, I don't have an answer here, I just want to point out there are reasons for having such lists.)

To be clear: I would love to see a Code of Conduct for Ruby. I don't view it as an indication of a problem, but rather an indication that those behind Ruby care about their community being safe and respected, and are willing to act to ensure that as much as possible. I don't want it because I'm supposedly part of some authoritarian conspiracy - I want it so the Ruby community becomes even stronger and safer and welcoming for everyone, especially those who often are victims of bigotry and harassment.

[afast (Andreas Fast)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

I like Jeremy's version better if it's acceptable for others.

Matz.

I like this one too. It sends the main message that we want to convey, that is, discrimination, harassment, etc. will not be tolerated. I think this, and a strong history (20+ years) of dealing with conflict should be enough proof for people to feel safe in the ruby community, which is what we want.
It was pointed out that these code of conducts rarely need to be enforced, so I think a "will not be tolerated" is good enough for now.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Pat Allan wrote:

I can't say I'm getting quite the vibe you are regarding a thirst for retribution. My take is more that it's not enough to say 'be nice to each other' but also 'we have some idea of what to do when people aren't nice'. Otherwise it's not a Code of Conduct, just a mission statement - it may make people happy, but doesn't address how we support each other's right to be safe. Being clear about how incidents are handled provides accountability: if shit things happen, then we know they'll be dealt with.

I think it remains a valid factor to consider given the controversial nature of Ehmke's past actions. Here is my evidence to suggest this: https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

1. In this thread Ehmke is upset about purported transphobic comments stated on a medium of a project maintainer that was outside the context and scope of the project he works on.

2. Ehmke requests a high-value contributor is removed from the project.

3. Ehmke has never in the past showed signs or indicated that she was part of the community.

4. The project maintainer in question not once, ever, stated his opinions, which is a product of his culture, in relation to the project.

If that isn't a case of over reaction and retribution, then I don't know what is. After this ordeal, Ehmke salvaged the situation to push forth a code of conduct which they accepted.

I think Ehmke's intolerance of somebody's politics or culture is no reason whatsoever to inflict retribution in a project that is unrelated to what was said on twitter. I think formalizing enforcement is also a way to individually or group shame a project for being more benevolent and resorting to remediation despite not providing the intended punitive measurements expected by the person reporting a code of conduct violation. (This sentence was a little convoluted but what I'm saying is a code of conduct with open interpretation can be used as a weapon to shame a project or person over any non-project communication.)

(Disclaimer:I avoided using gender pronouns for Coraline Ada Ehmke because I'm genuinely unsure what is appropriate but I don't mean any disrespect.)

Looking outward for inspiration: from what I understand, the push to have a Code of Conduct for Go came from within their core team, and perhaps similarly for Swift. I think that's very helpful, because it means their teams have a passion to walk the talk. If Matz and the rest of the core team don't have that drive, I don't think it can be forced, and I'm not sure what the way forward is. I do not like the idea of separating technical and community responsibilities completely - I can easily see that leading to a disconnect between the two groups, focused on completely different aspects of the Ruby community. If there was some group that included both some Ruby core team members and others in the community, that might be better? Also, Go's Code of Conduct is quite detailed, which is not a bad thing at all: https://golang.org/conduct (I'm not sure how their Working Group is managed, mind you.)

There is a spectrum of a liberal to authoritative code of conduct. I think a code of conduct should be designed to fit what the community wants, and I think the Ruby community is divided but leaning towards are more liberal view. Bureacracy is also another pertinent concern which a project should not get inovled in if it doesn't have a past history of issues. Furthermore, nothing is set in stone. Perhaps in the future the community may come across an unsavoury person, or group of people, that warrants a formal system of banning or expulsion. But as things stand, I do not believe that time is now.

I think a valid compromise for those who require a code of conduct with a formalized code for enforcment should perhaps wait for when a situation that requires a need. Perhaps the community can police themselves fine on an individual matter basis using Matz discretion. I'm not one to predict how things will be.

Jeremy and others have mentioned that they're not keen to list all potential types of harassment, and I can understand that - having a list that covers absolutely everything is difficult (if not impossible). However, I've also found (especially through helping manage Ruby Australia's Code of Conduct and Anti Harassment Policy) that those suggesting the specific types of harassment are those who have experienced them personally, and can you blame them from wanting to be sure they don't experience that again? For wanting to be sure that this community will not tolerate similar behaviour? (Again, I don't have an answer here, I just want to point out there are reasons for having such lists.)

I can agree with listing every point of harassment but I think demonstrating reasonable "intent" to harm a specific individual is also required. This again becomes a bureaucratic process that even legal courts have difficulty with. (Thought experiment: perhaps someone said something unsavory while highly intoxicated while online :), which they normally would never say otherwise -- or perhaps their mental faculties were diminished that they were unable to articulate thoughts in polite language. People take offense and put out the charge of abuse. Was there any original intent of abuse? [I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here.]).

To be clear: I would love to see a Code of Conduct for Ruby. I don't view it as an indication of a problem, but rather an indication that those behind Ruby care about their community being safe and respected, and are willing to act to ensure that as much as possible. I don't want it because I'm supposedly part of some authoritarian conspiracy - I want it so the Ruby community becomes even stronger and safer and welcoming for everyone, especially those who often are victims of bigotry and harassment.

I think the Ruby community (albeit myself as a newcomer) should celebrate that for 20 years it has always been a safe and respectful community. I agree the code of conduct as suggested by Jeremly, or using one such as PostgreSQL, or OpenSSL which focus on positive behavior and not punitive measures are great fit for Ruby today. However there should always be an option to change this or perhaps review this at a later stage (let's say 1 year from the time the code of conduct goes into effect) to determine if a more authoritative code of conduct is required.

My 2c coming from a 1 year Rubyist. I would like to thank the community for being excellent and helping me to learn and use Ruby effectively.

Edit: The responses beneath this response attacks Coraline Ada Ehmke is unfair and do not agree with this at all. I opined in how a code of conduct can open up the thirst for retribution for those that personally feel slighted.

I want to showcase another overreacting case: Bryan Cantrill of Joyent stating publicly that he would fire Ben Noordhuis (who has never been employed by Joyent) for rejecting a trivial pull request to remove gender pronouns. You can hear his speech here: https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun . This is the kind of retribution I'm worried about, because this is an overreaction and assumes the intent of Ben Noordhuis without presenting reasonable evidence. I don't like this, and I don't like the posturing and grandstanding. To me, these "progressive" authoritative code of conducts seem to be a product of white culture which is intolerant of all other cultures. I find using a code of conduct to impose a white culture view is disgusting and we should remain neutral but morally excellent people in the scope of the project.

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

I like Jeremy Evans version. And I like the direction Matz is taking this.

---

On points of defining language regarding other proposed Cocs. What is determined as either sexual or harassment is different by culture and even by individuals. For example: In Mexico it is indecent for a woman to show legs.

There are also false claims of harassment like when a guy flirts with a girl by saying "hey good looking" and she, being not interested in the guy, claims it's harassment as the "easiest" way to try to ensure she hears from him no more.

Harassment claims are normally taken very seriously. But the use of the term harassment is painted with a very broad brush and where the line is drawn at is different for every person. This also gets complicated when dealing with people's sensitivities, relative moralism, and dismissal of potential truths as personal attacks. When it comes to this it's best if people on both sides of the conversation approach conversing the other with love and respect and to try and understand the other's views. But as many people are not delicate with their way of communicating - the claim of discrimination, harassment, or personal attack would likely quickly be raised even if that's not the other parties intent.

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

Ruby Amateur:

If that isn't a case of over reaction and retribution, then I don't know what is. After this ordeal, Ehmke salvaged the situation to push forth a code of conduct which they accepted.

Agreed. But not one supporter of Ehmke's CoC on this thread has admitted that the treatment of Elia in July was overreaction. My deduction: they believe it was justified and they want to be able to persecute others the same way. That's the purpose of the new CoC for them.

Clarification of this would be very valuable.

[pat (Pat Allan)]

Richard Drake wrote:

Agreed. But not one supporter of Ehmke's CoC on this thread has admitted that the treatment of Elia in July was overreaction. My deduction: they believe it was justified and they want to be able to persecute others the same way. That's the purpose of the new CoC for them.

Clarification of this would be very valuable.

Supporting Coraline's proposed Code of Conduct is not the same as supporting every action Coraline has ever made, just like supporting Jeremy's proposed Code of Conduct is not the same as supporting every action Jeremy has ever made, and so on for Matz and everyone else who has proposed a Code of Conduct. You're also expecting that everyone who supports Coraline's proposed Code of Conduct is completely across what happened between her, Elia, and the rest of the Opal team and feels qualified to make judgements about it (I know I'm not).

Let's stop making this an us vs them argument. It seems the majority of people in this discussion are keen to see a Code of Conduct of some shape - if you have input on what that document should look like, please, share that. If you think a document is not helpful, fine, share your thinking about that too. If you want to attack people and place blame about specific incidents, I'm quite sure this isn't the place for it.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Pat Allan wrote:

Supporting Coraline's proposed Code of Conduct is not the same as supporting every action Coraline has ever made

Incorrect. The spirit of Coraline's CoC is clearly indicated in the GitHub repository. I don't believe Matz would ever choose the Contributor's Covenant due to the spirit of the CoC.

https://github.com/CoralineAda/contributor_covenant/commit/0e927bc01614d6b0de021a314dbe95e7dfcc7bb9

I've posted this link earlier in the thread, read the posts. Read the redacted sections of index.html. Clearly Coraline has a problem with meritocracies, not just people "getting away with bad behavior" due to their technical advancements but in general. People shouldn't be shut out because of their opinions, but injecting a document created from political vile wouldn't be in the best interest of Ruby. I'd rather Matz adopt a CoC from a neutral party or create his own for the community.

I also agree with the person earlier in the thread. If any action would be taken against a person, it should be 12 random developers per incident, not a standing committee and CERTAINLY not anyone with a chip on their shoulder the size of Texas.

[pat (Pat Allan)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

I've posted this link earlier in the thread, read the posts. Read the redacted sections of index.html. Clearly Coraline has a problem with meritocracies, not just people "getting away with bad behavior" due to their technical advancements but in general. People shouldn't be shut out because of their opinions, but injecting a document created from political vile wouldn't be in the best interest of Ruby. I'd rather Matz adopt a CoC from a neutral party or create his own for the community.

So Coraline has 'political' opinions. Okay. It's clear that you do as well. And I do, and Matz does, and so does everybody. It can't be avoided. But we're not judging what Coraline's Code of Conduct said at one point. We're judging what the version she's suggested says, and the Codes suggested by others. If Matz accepted Coraline's proposed Code, he's not saying yes to future versions of it, he'd be saying yes to this version.

Again, you're adding personal attacks into this discussion which are completely unnecessary and unhelpful. Please stop.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Pat Allan wrote:

So Coraline has 'political' opinions. Okay. It's clear that you do as well. And I do, and Matz does, and so does everybody. It can't be avoided. But we're not judging what Coraline's Code of Conduct said at one point. We're judging what the version she's suggested says, and the Codes suggested by others. If Matz accepted Coraline's proposed Code, he's not saying yes to future versions of it, he'd be saying yes to this version.

Again, I'm talking about the spirit of the Contributor's Covenant, which is venomous. Read the link which is a history diff to Coraline's repo for the Contributor Covenant's index.html.

Again, you're adding personal attacks into this discussion which are completely unnecessary and unhelpful. Please stop.

Uh, there's no personal attacks here. I'm voicing my opinion where Coraline said earlier there should be a "committee" to judge bad behavior and she wants to volunteer. We don't need a biased person with a chip on their shoulder judging others.

Just to downsize it for you:
No to bad spirited CoC
No to person on chip on their shoulder

Easy enough for you to understand?

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

Pat (#176):

That's a null point on the graph. Of course if you haven't got enough knowledge to take a position on Elia's treatment you shouldn't. I'm interested in the many that thought they had enough to condemn him in June - not July, sorry - and that support Coraline's initiative now. I repeat, not a single supporter has said "Houston, we had a problem then but we've learned from it." I think my deduction is fair: they want to persecute other people just like this guy and that's the purpose of the new CoC. And that is outrageous.

Again, clarification would be very helpful.

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

To the moderators: Young Hitler (#170 and #179) is an obvious troll. We don't need fake (or possibly real, and evil) anti-semitism to contaminate the important arguments here.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Richard Drake wrote:

To the moderators: Young Hitler (#170 and #179) is a obvious troll. We don't need fake (or possibly real, and evil) anti-semitism to contaminate the important arguments here.

But, wait....oh no!!! we have no CoC!! how can we deal with an obvious troll without a CoC to protect us and tell us what to do?! We're doomed! DOOMED, I tell ya!

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

Fred, we don't need a CoC to call out trolls, just common-sense. That's how Ruby has prospered for 20 years.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Fred Heath wrote:

Richard Drake wrote:

To the moderators: Young Hitler (#170 and #179) is a obvious troll. We don't need fake (or possibly real, and evil) anti-semitism to contaminate the important arguments here.

But, wait....oh no!!! we have no CoC!! how can we deal with an obvious troll without a CoC to protect us and tell us what to do?! We're doomed! DOOMED, I tell ya!

The sarcasm is bleeding out of my monitor.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

[ANN]
I locked "Young Hitler" on my own responsibility.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Usaku NAKAMURA wrote:

[ANN]
I locked "Young Hitler" on my own responsibility.

Hold on. Are you telling us that you dealt with disruptive behaviour without an offense-defining, action-enabling document backed by a committee of 12 politically outstanding members dealing punitive action ??!

How is that even possible??

[betafive (Beta Five)]

I just wanted to briefly note that I was once denied attendance at a Ruby-focused event with a Code of Conduct (Madison RailsBridge, run by Coraline's friends at Adorable.IO) owing to my skin color and gender.

Those attempting to push the narrative that employing a Code of Conduct will serve to prevent harassment or discrimination are being disingenuous.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

Fred Heath wrote:

Hold on. Are you telling us that you dealt with disruptive behaviour without an offense-defining, action-enabling document backed by a committee of 12 politically outstanding members dealing punitive action ??!

How is that even possible??

I've exercised the authority granted to me in accordance with my conscience ever.
This is also the same.
If I am wrong, someone who has the authority will fix.
And if I am badly wrong, matz will deprive me of the authority from me.
This is our way for now.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Usaku NAKAMURA wrote:

Fred Heath wrote:

Hold on. Are you telling us that you dealt with disruptive behaviour without an offense-defining, action-enabling document backed by a committee of 12 politically outstanding members dealing punitive action ??!

How is that even possible??

I've exercised the authority granted to me in accordance with my conscience ever.
This is also the same.
If I am wrong, someone who has the authority will fix.
And if I am badly wrong, matz will deprive me of the authority from me.
This is our way for now.

Thank you and sorry for the misunderstanding. It wasn't an actual question and I wasn't expecting an answer, I was using sarcasm to make a point. The point being that we don't need a CoC to deal with offensive behaviour, as you beautifully demonstrated by using your conscience and common sense to deal with the situation.

I appreciate sarcasm doesn't translate across very well across cultures/languages, so I'll try to use less of it here :)

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Since what is now proposed lacks a reporting mechanism and enforcement information, I don't think it's accurate to describe it as a code of conduct. It should be called "Community Guidelines" or something similar. Attribution of the language to Contributor Covenant is still applicable though ("inspired by the Contributor Covenant" or something like that would be appropriate.)

[rubyhubie (Hubie Fuller)]

Enacting a Code of Conduct probably ranges from being tolerable to necessary; however it pretty clearly not as bad of a thing as some are suggesting.

Having said that, I find that the proposed Code of Conduct (Contributor Covenant) is blindly accepted since it has been repeatedly promoted by its author, and it is easier to accept something that is already out there. The language specifically "for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, or nationality" is problematic. It seems to have priority on gender / sexual issues before race, religion, nationality, which is referenced four times at the beginning of the list. Even body size has priority over race and ethnicity.

I'm not suggesting that this priority is incorrect, or that I have a solution for the correct one. Perhaps the author allowed their priorities to permeate into the proposed CoC, which is not a bad thing, and should be somewhat expected. However, quickly accepting the proposed CoC demonstrates a haste that is not representative of the Ruby community.

[aspleenic (PJ Hagerty)]

For what it's worth, as a conference organizer (not just of Ruby, but other communities as well), I've seen CoCs in action and they work. The fear that a CoC or the Contributor Covenant being over reaching is a fear that need not exist.

Postulate 1: People are people and have a diverse set of beliefs, behaviors, identities, and thoughts
Postulate 2: Many of these factors should not and will not play into contributing to an open source project.
Postulate 3: If they do, there may be repercussions or, in certain cases, support can be offered.
Postulate 4: Behavior, expression of beliefs, expression of identity, etc OUTSIDE THE PROJECT has no bearing on any of this.

This is how I read the Contributor Covenant. This is how I read most CoCs. It changes nothing, but says to the outside world, if you're cool with me contributing, I'm cool with you.

I don't see any negatives. That's my 2 cents.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Since what is now proposed lacks a reporting mechanism and enforcement information, I don't think it's accurate to describe it as a code of conduct. It should be called "Community Guidelines" or something similar. Attribution of the language to Contributor Covenant is still applicable though ("inspired by the Contributor Covenant" or something like that would be appropriate.)

Except it's not related to the Contributor Covenant. The version cut down by Jeremy and praised by Matz is the Code of Conduct from PostrgreSQL, so the appropriate text would be "Inspired by the PostgreSQL Code of Conduct"

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

Fred Heath wrote:

Thank you and sorry for the misunderstanding. It wasn't an actual question and I wasn't expecting an answer, I was using sarcasm to make a point. The point being that we don't need a CoC to deal with offensive behaviour, as you beautifully demonstrated by using your conscience and common sense to deal with the situation.

Ah, sorry, it is difficult to read the fine nuances of English to me ;-(
(My mother tongue is Japanese.)

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

PJ Hagerty:

I don't see any negatives.

At least ten of us on this thread have made it clear we see what happened to Elia Schito in June as a negative. Nobody's had the guts to address this: either to say they think it was right or that it was wrong but the new CoC is a good thing anyway. Whichever it is, the silence is highly unpersuasive.

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

Fred: sorry that I too initially didn't get the irony. Well said.

[aspleenic (PJ Hagerty)]

Richard Drake wrote:

At least ten of us on this thread have made it clear we see what happened to Elia Schito in June as a negative. Nobody's had the guts to address this: either to say they think it was right or that it was wrong but the new CoC is a good thing anyway. Whichever it is, the silence is highly unpersuasive.

What happened to Elia is a single incident scored against a multitude of incidents against people trying to be part of a project or community. It was admitted that the Elia incident was handled poorly and in the future things would be fine tuned to go better.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Usaku NAKAMURA wrote:

Ah, sorry, it is difficult to read the fine nuances of English to me ;-(
(My mother tongue is Japanese.)

Richard Drake wrote:

Fred: sorry that I too initially didn't get the irony. Well said.

Don't say sorry guys, I'm the one who didn't take into account that this is a multi-lingual/cultural audience. I sometimes forget not everyone speaks or understands the nuances of UK English.

If only we had a CoC to set me straight!! (oops, here I go again....)

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Fred, please tone down the sarcasm. It's already been made clear more than once that sort of language doesn't translate into Japanese very well and just ultimately becomes a confusing exchange. Thanks!

[cjcsuhta (Corey Csuhta)]

I strongly support the creation of a policy "with teeth". It is not sufficient to list the ways that people should be nice, or to point at MINASWAN. You must strongly assert that the Ruby community is a welcoming place by also taking responsibility for it.

• Document clearly what is unacceptable and where it is unacceptable
• Document how unacceptable behavior can be reported
• Document what actions may be taken
• Exempt no one from the policy

Do you control the entire community? No. But you can do a whole lot of good by governing the communication channels essential to Ruby core, at the very least. You already do this to some extent, but now you should make it explicit.

Do you have to exhaustively list every scenario in the CoC? No.

Do you need to provide a venue for someone to report unacceptable behavior, be heard, and be taken seriously? Yes. This a step toward community maturity.

David Celis wrote:

Fred, please tone down the sarcasm. It's already been made clear more than once that sort of language doesn't translate into Japanese very well and just ultimately becomes a confusing exchange. Thanks!

This is exactly why Ruby needs a CoC.

Its great to see that the obvious troll was banned, but what Fred has done here is committed quite a serious micro-aggression against a minority and has got away with it scott free.

There are around 8-10 people in this thread who, with an enforceable Code of Conduct, we would be able to purge as micro-aggressors thus making the Ruby community a much safer space for marginalized groups. Overtime we can work towards eliminating as many people with problematic opinions until they will no-longer participate in the community, or they will learn to suppress their points of view, both in tech and in their open personal lives (as it will reflect on their status within tech communities).

By the way, I forgot to mention but I am on Patreon if anyone here would like to help me fight against bigotry in Tech- https://www.patreon.com/coraline

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

I did not post that. This user is a fraud: https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/users/10502

tech Communities are nothing but a game to me

spent months of time strategically planting ideas into codes of conduct, and playing mind games

get bored of one tech community after a while and move on to my next victim but that's okay because there's literally billions of you dirty little roaches to fuck around with

some people actually believe I care about women in tech as people but the truth is i only use them for my personal advantage and entertainment

The need for a Code of Conduct is subjective, what we need is keep communities open to new ideas, after all they are Free Open Source project communities that thrive on intellectual currency. This why I oppose the usage of the Contributor Covenant, as a whole or in part.

As mentioned by Richard [https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-196] it is important to look at the motivations behind the push for adoption of the Covenant and as another poster showed, proponents of the Covenant HAVE engaged in behaviour that contradicts it, yet no punitive action have occured for these wrong doings. The ambigious and selective nature at which the Covenant can even detect wrong doing is cause for concern. Relevant link:https://archive.is/q25KG

Coraline's insistence that in the case a CoC is adopted, the Contributor Covenant is credits, is a conflict of interest and revelas an ulterior motive. It seems to be more about gaining a foot note to brag about adoption number to further push the Covenant into other projects as it the case in this very issue: "At last count there are over 13,000 projects on Github that have adopted it." Implement it because all these have done, one of the many logical fallacies being used to push for adoption in this thread.

Other cases against CoC adoption are the case of the Django Software Foundation conference and mailing list CoCs.

After implementation of the private mailing list CoC activity has trickled down to the point where the past december board election saw record low participation causing a preocupation for vote diversity. These preocupations were voiced by the new chair and echoed by the rest of the board. Most members in the list are scared now to post anything. This is a case where adoption of a CoC cause a reduction in diversity and particiaption.

Further beyond the board, as a consequence of low participation the Board, Code of Conduct Committe, Grant Committe, Fellowship Committe are composed of the same leardership, very few new name. A monoculture is being created as a secondary effect.
The other case is the complaint filed against a members of the DSF by a transgendered programmer. The CoC committe representative acknowledges that there is a "conflict of interest" in the complaint and warns that it will be a delicate matter. It seems position does matter when the time for applicatbility comes in the CoC cases. In these cases those in favor of CoCs or in positions of power seem to be shielded from the requirements of the code.

Further evidence in the decline of the operations of the DSF can be seem in the low number of Corporate members this year, where many companies have not renewed their membership causing a severe cut of the fountations' revenue. The grant from the Mozilla foundation has a backstory known to just a few.

There is also a legal matter of the DSF using foundation money for pursuit of matter of political nature in violating it's bylaws and contrary to it's mission statement. This matter is being discussed in private for fear of retribution, and shows how CoCs are not above the law.

I can post censored screenshots (and archived links where there is no identifiable information) of these cases if assurance that evidence against CoC's will not be further deleted.

Disclaimer: I am a Django core developer, DSF member, PyLadies co-founder, PSF member and DjangoGirls US chapter board member.

I hope this is not what we are to expect in the CoC future: https://archive.is/0x6Wr

PS: Please stop deleting accounts.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Anonymous wrote:

I hope this is not what we are to expect in the CoC future: https://archive.is/0x6Wr

PS: Please stop deleting accounts.

This is actually quite typical of those types. I expect next Coraline will announce on her twitter to come here and harass the Ruby-lang developers until they cave to their demands. This is the described behavior I've seen from those who have an agenda to push.

[eylerwerve (Jonathan Eyler-Werve)]

I strongly support adopting a code of conduct, with enforcement provisions. The fake account creation and personal attacks against Coraline displayed above should give pause to anyone who thinks MINASWAN is a magic remedy.

It's not OK to say "Our community doesn't have this problem" and then do nothing about it. Because all human communities have this problem. The responsible ones, the 'nice' ones, are the ones taking reasonable steps to address abuse and harassment. If you care about this, you should care about creating an effective and fair governance systems, not just promises.

Hi guys,

I've done a lot of thinking over the last day and after reading this thread, I understand how a CoC for the Ruby community isn't the best option. Please could you close this request and accept my apologies.

Thank you for your time, Coraline.

P.S. - Please support me on Patreon: patreon.com/coraline

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

A code of conduct, fundamentally, exists in a community in the same way that a disaster plan exists. It is there, so that, should an incident occur, there is a clear indication of both the process through which that incident can be reported, and the potential outcomes of resolution of that incident should remediation fail. To put it more succinctly, the involvement of the formalized process of a code of conduct is, in itself, a method of last resort.

Ideally, if a code of conduct has been adopted, its only usage should be one of signaling to people what behaviors will not be tolerated, and suggesting to those who might be affected by harassment, in any form, that they have a direct ability to seek remediation through a formalized process, and that their issue will not be ignored or trivialized. With a vocal involvement by all parties, it should be relatively impossible to actually utilize a code of conduct as a blunt instrument.

Does a code of conduct push towards a certain mindset or set of views? Absolutely. It works to move people towards a situation where comments and situations that could be questionable under the code of conduct are actively self-patrolled. If this is a problematic concept for you, I ask you why your "freedom" to make such comments or situations is so dearly important to you. Is there something inherently problematic with taking a moment, or maybe a few moments, to think about how a situation could be viewed as hurtful or antagonizing from another person's perspective? Is there something wrong with curbing behavior and thinking about how to present your points and opinions to others in a manner that is less inflammatory? If you believe there is, contemplate that conclusion.

In the end, a code of conduct is an emergency plan. Akin to an earthquake or fire evacuation plan, it provides guidelines for how to act in an unforseeable circumstance so it can be met with reason, rather than knee-jerk reactions.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Jonathan Eyler-Werve wrote:

I strongly support adopting a code of conduct, with enforcement provisions. The fake account creation and personal attacks against Coraline displayed above should give pause to anyone who thinks MINASWAN is a magic remedy.

It's not OK to say "Our community doesn't have this problem" and then do nothing about it. Because all human communities have this problem. The responsible ones, the 'nice' ones, are the ones taking reasonable steps to address abuse and harassment. If you care about this, you should care about creating an effective and fair governance systems, not just promises.

Or we've seen her political activism, including others of her crowd in action and are overwhelmingly against her actions.

As a minority far oppressed more than Coraline, she needs to just drop it.

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

Disregard #209, as it comes from the fake account created by someone impersonating the original poster.

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

Does a code of conduct push towards a certain mindset or set of views? Absolutely. It works to move people towards a situation where comments and situations that could be questionable under the code of conduct are actively self-patrolled. If this is a problematic concept for you, I ask you why your "freedom" to make such comments or situations is so dearly important to you. Is there something inherently problematic with taking a moment, or maybe a few moments, to think about how a situation could be viewed as hurtful or antagonizing from another person's perspective? Is there something wrong with curbing behavior and thinking about how to present your points and opinions to others in a manner that is less inflammatory? If you believe there is, contemplate that conclusion.

What's made me second guess my own idea for the CoC is that there have been times in history where it was illegal or you risked rejection from society to be pro gay/trans/minority. How sure are we that our current world view is the best one? Could we be marginalizing people who have the best views for humanity but are currently unpopular?

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

Disregard #209, as it comes from the fake account created by someone impersonating the original poster.

Just because I am now against the CoC doesn't mean you can oppress me and marginalize my views.

Mods, please close this thread and end all this harassment.

[phinze (Paul Hinze)]

I'm adding my voice the growing group of Ruby project creators/maintainers on this thread who support the adoption of a CoC with a mechanism for enforcement of violations.

As the amount of noise on this thread grows, I hope the message that shines through is one that reflects the values of the core of the Ruby community. It's disappointing to hear Matz favor his own personal interpretation of "nice" over the voices of so many from the community who are saying clearly and emphatically: enforcement is crucial to an effective CoC. And an effective CoC is crucial to building the kind of community that is "nice" in a way that is not just bound to the personal interpretation of a few individuals, but instead is based in a public, collaboratively authored, and collectively agreed upon set of standards that is shared between everyone who participates.

Perhaps with enough of us joining together, we the Ruby Community can help Matz understand. Count me in as one.

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

As a minority far oppressed more than Coraline, she needs to just drop it.

This is a claim that cannot be substantiated in your favor and is nothing if not divisive. Comparisons between two groups oppressions' has no bearing on the discussion at hand and does nothing to lend credence to your claims and views.

This is to say that I am not denying your experiences, they are real and valid. However, you have no ability to quantitatively, or qualitatively compare how your experiences of discrimination compare to another person's, particularly by using the social groups you belong to as a basis for that argument.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

Disregard #209, as it comes from the fake account created by someone impersonating the original poster.

I only knew it was a matter of time before the white knights of Coraline came to this thread.

Lauren's timeline can be seen here where she's discussing this ticket
https://twitter.com/laurenvoswinkel/with_replies

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

Disregard #209, as it comes from the fake account created by someone impersonating the original poster.

Just because I am now against the CoC doesn't mean you can oppress me and marginalize my views.

Mods, please close this thread and end all this harassment.

https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/users/10502 != https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/users/10446

Impersonating another to advance your views is detestable, with or without a code of conduct in place.

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

Ruby Dino wrote:

As a minority far oppressed more than Coraline, she needs to just drop it.

This is a claim that cannot be substantiated in your favor and is nothing if not divisive. Comparisons between two groups oppressions' has no bearing on the discussion at hand and does nothing to lend credence to your claims and views.

This is to say that I am not denying your experiences, they are real and valid. However, you have no ability to quantitatively, or qualitatively compare how your experiences of discrimination compare to another person's, particularly by using the social groups you belong to as a basis for that argument.

In that case what is the progressive stack?

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

This is to say that I am not denying your experiences, they are real and valid. However, you have no ability to quantitatively, or qualitatively compare how your experiences of discrimination compare to another person's, particularly by using the social groups you belong to as a basis for that argument.

Except the way Coraline and others like her engage is not only damaging, it polarizes the others on the opposite side of the fence to hate the LGBT community even more.

Basically, "Thanks for fucking everything up we've worked on for the past 30 years"

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Please disable user 10502. That's not Coraline Ada Ehmke, it's somebody else pretending to be her. Thanks!

Paul Hinze wrote:

I hope the message that shines through is one that reflects the values of the core of the Ruby community. It's disappointing to hear Matz favor his own personal interpretation of "nice" over the voices of so many from the community who are saying clearly and emphatically: enforcement is crucial to an effective CoC. And an effective CoC is crucial to building the kind of community that is "nice" in a way that is not just bound to the personal interpretation of a few individuals, but instead is based in a public, collaboratively authored, and collectively agreed upon set of standards that is shared between everyone who participates.

https://jaymans.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sat-race-income-1995.png

This graph here clearly demonstrates that Matz, being an Asain man has the highest IQ in this thread so I have changed my position to trust him and his judgement of what is nice being far better than my own.

David Celis wrote:

Please disable user 10502. That's not Coraline Ada Ehmke, it's somebody else pretending to be her. Thanks!

I am the real Coraline, i have changed my opinion and these leftists cannot accept that. Please stop them from brigading me from twitter.

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

This is to say that I am not denying your experiences, they are real and valid. However, you have no ability to quantitatively, or qualitatively compare how your experiences of discrimination compare to another person's, particularly by using the social groups you belong to as a basis for that argument.

Except the way Coraline and others like her engage is not only damaging, it polarizes the others on the opposite side of the fence to hate the LGBT community even more.

Basically, "Thanks for fucking everything up we've worked on for the past 30 years"

Which has exactly what relevance to the discussion of codes of conduct and whether or not one with defined and enforceable action items should be adopted?

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

David Celis wrote:

Fred, please tone down the sarcasm. It's already been made clear more than once that sort of language doesn't translate into Japanese very well and just ultimately becomes a confusing exchange. Thanks!

This is exactly why Ruby needs a CoC.

Its great to see that the obvious troll was banned, but what Fred has done here is committed quite a serious micro-aggression against a minority and has got away with it scott free.

There are around 8-10 people in this thread who, with an enforceable Code of Conduct, we would be able to purge as micro-aggressors thus making the Ruby community a much safer space for marginalized groups. Overtime we can work towards eliminating as many people with problematic opinions until they will no-longer participate in the community, or they will learn to suppress their points of view, both in tech and in their open personal lives (as it will reflect on their status within tech communities).

By the way, I forgot to mention but I am on Patreon if anyone here would like to help me fight against bigotry in Tech- https://www.patreon.com/coraline

I am now confused! Is the above (#202) really from Coraline? Because if it is, this post demonstrates -in better ways than I ever could- the absolute need to reject this CoC and everything it stands for. Can a moderator please clarify?

I forgot, I have some links to post:

WOW MUST SEE Auschwitz the true story ( David Cole in Auschwitz Full Documentary )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQjNs-Ght8s

The Greatest Truth Never Told - Full documentary about Hitler did nothing wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmDU_1sUXik

Please support me on Patreon: patreon.com/coraline

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

Fred Heath wrote:

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

David Celis wrote:

Fred, please tone down the sarcasm. It's already been made clear more than once that sort of language doesn't translate into Japanese very well and just ultimately becomes a confusing exchange. Thanks!

This is exactly why Ruby needs a CoC.

Its great to see that the obvious troll was banned, but what Fred has done here is committed quite a serious micro-aggression against a minority and has got away with it scott free.

There are around 8-10 people in this thread who, with an enforceable Code of Conduct, we would be able to purge as micro-aggressors thus making the Ruby community a much safer space for marginalized groups. Overtime we can work towards eliminating as many people with problematic opinions until they will no-longer participate in the community, or they will learn to suppress their points of view, both in tech and in their open personal lives (as it will reflect on their status within tech communities).

By the way, I forgot to mention but I am on Patreon if anyone here would like to help me fight against bigotry in Tech- https://www.patreon.com/coraline

I am now confused! Is the above (#202) really from Coraline? Because if it is, this post demonstrates -in better ways than I ever could- the absolute need to reject this CoC and everything it stands for. Can a moderator please clarify?

#202 came from the impersonating account. Hover over the name to see the user id to verify if it is actually Coraline (the OP has her id) versus the impostor.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Fred Heath wrote:

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

David Celis wrote:

Fred, please tone down the sarcasm. It's already been made clear more than once that sort of language doesn't translate into Japanese very well and just ultimately becomes a confusing exchange. Thanks!

This is exactly why Ruby needs a CoC.

Its great to see that the obvious troll was banned, but what Fred has done here is committed quite a serious micro-aggression against a minority and has got away with it scott free.

There are around 8-10 people in this thread who, with an enforceable Code of Conduct, we would be able to purge as micro-aggressors thus making the Ruby community a much safer space for marginalized groups. Overtime we can work towards eliminating as many people with problematic opinions until they will no-longer participate in the community, or they will learn to suppress their points of view, both in tech and in their open personal lives (as it will reflect on their status within tech communities).

By the way, I forgot to mention but I am on Patreon if anyone here would like to help me fight against bigotry in Tech- https://www.patreon.com/coraline

I am now confused! Is the above (#202) really from Coraline? Because if it is, this post demonstrates -in better ways than I ever could- the absolute need to reject this CoC and everything it stands for. Can a moderator please clarify?

That is not Coraline, as others and myself have already stated. Coraline's user ID is 10446, and she already pointed out the impersonator in an earlier comment (https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-203). That impersonator's user ID is 10502; I ask that a moderator please deal with this.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

Which has exactly what relevance to the discussion of codes of conduct and whether or not one with defined and enforceable action items should be adopted?

The relevance of WHICH CoC Ruby should adopt if any. The Contributors Covenant is bad spirited, as I've displayed the github link to the commits.

[AstonJ (Aston J)]

Matz,

Please don't feel like you have to act now. It would be totally fine to thank everyone for bringing the matter to your attention and saying that you would now like some time to think about it. That could be a few weeks or a few months - there is no rush. You have been running things absolutely fine for over 20 years - a few months without a CoC isn't going to kill anyone.

I do feel that rushing into one could create more problems that it would solve - particularly if it is based on the CCoC - which I feel has a negative, unnecessarily antagonistic tone and is connected to an unpleasant episode in our very community (Opal controversy). Contrast it to the positive open-armed tone of the Sass community guidelines: http://sass-lang.com/community-guidelines

Aston

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

The relevance of WHICH CoC Ruby should adopt if any. The Contributors Covenant is bad spirited, as I've displayed the github link to the commits.

Which is fair, looking at my initial comment on here, do you support or not support a CoC to be used as described. If so, which one, if not, why?

Do you disagree with my suggestion of enforceable and definable protocols in cases where existing methodologies of remediation fail?

Let's move the conversation about this in a productive direction rather than sniping at each other.

Matz,

You are from Glorious Japan. I am from Germany. Our people stood together in the 1940s as one. We know that the supposed rape of nanking was a hoax (http://www2.biglobe.ne.jp/remnant/nankingm.htm). You know that the supposed holocaust was a hoax (https://www.reddit.com/r/holocaust/).

I am sorry that I opened up this request. It was a mistake. I was tricked by Jews.

Please close it as soon as you awake from your slumber.

Coraline

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

Which is fair, looking at my initial comment on here, do you support or not support a CoC to be used as described. If so, which one, if not, why?

Do you disagree with my suggestion of enforceable and definable protocols in cases where existing methodologies of remediation fail?

Let's move the conversation about this in a productive direction rather than sniping at each other.

We've had many admins on ruby-lang throughout the time, some with commit privs have admin access. I'd like a small but decent CoC like PostgreSQL's which basically states "don't be an asshole." Enforcement doesn't need to be specified, as we've already seen in this thread if we see someone being bad they are removed. This would be even more so for a CoC or guideline. CoCs don't have to be like laws, as this is also a privately run project and not subject to legal remedies unless otherwise specified by country law.

[RedFred (Fred Heath)]

Aston J wrote:

Matz,

Please don't feel like you have to act now. It would be totally fine to thank everyone for bringing the matter to your attention and saying that you would now like some time to think about it. That could be a few weeks or a few months - there is no rush. You have been running things absolutely fine for over 20 years - a few months without a CoC isn't going to kill anyone.

I do feel that rushing into one could create more problems that it would solve - particularly if it is based on the CCoC - which I feel has a negative, unnecessarily antagonistic tone and is connected to an unpleasant episode in our very community (Opal controversy). Contrast it to the positive open-armed tone of the Sass community guidelines: http://sass-lang.com/community-guidelines

Aston

I agree with Aston on this one. Matz please take some time to think on this. That's my last word on the matter. Goodbye and thanks for listening.

Matz,

I forgot to mention, if you would like to see the inspiration behind the CoC please see:

http://ddickerson.igc.org/The_Protocols_of_the_Learned_Elders_of_Zion.pdf

Coraline

[valarissa (Lauren Voswinkel)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

We've had many admins on ruby-lang throughout the time, some with commit privs have admin access. I'd like a small but decent CoC like PostgreSQL's which basically states "don't be an asshole." Enforcement doesn't need to be specified, as we've already seen in this thread if we see someone being bad they are removed. This would be even more so for a CoC or guideline. CoCs don't have to be like laws, as this is also a privately run project and not subject to legal remedies unless otherwise specified by country law.

The question is not "Why is what we do inadequate?" It's much more about "If there is an issue that is highly contentious, what do we do in that case?" Also, "Do people feel like they have a way or place to bring forward sensitive issues without fear of direct reprisal?"

I get it, a CoC can seem like either a bureaucratic hassle or like a gag on feeling relaxed in an environment. That said, there are explanations of why CoCs need to be enforceable, visible, and provide a path for private reporting and remediation. http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/ is one such example.

Fundamentally, we may be unable to come to a consensus about what a CoC should be as our experiences and those of our friends probably differ drastically. I, personally, have seen vague CoCs personally affect people I care about, so I'm steadfastly against relying on vagaries for situations that are far and away outside the norm of human interaction and behavior. My insistence would be that, because this is a private project, particularly with people from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, that stipulating examples of what kind of behavior is unacceptable becomes MORE important. The reason for this being that we have no common laws, culture, or social background to rely on to make those inferences. Without that commonality, explicit examples become crucial.

Lauren Voswinkel wrote:

some stuff

Wow, great points Lauren. Are you transgendered and if so do you happen to have a patreon account I can donate to?

(mine is patreon.com/coraline in case you didn't know)

[eylerwerve (Jonathan Eyler-Werve)]

More moderation, please.

[sikachu (Prem Sichanugrist)]

I think the moderators have been pinged. However, due to time zone, we might not see any action until 12:00AM GMT given it's Saturday morning.

Please enjoy this thread responsibly, and happy Friday! You've made it through another week! 🐱

[trueheart78 (Josh Mills)]

I love the Ruby community. I've come to love many of the people (Aaron, Coraline, Matz, etc). If these people, which have been integral to the community that I love, are in agreement that a CoC is good idea, then we should be drafting one if a current one does not exist. The fact that ones does not currently exist for Ruby should be considered an oversight, and should be remedied.

Josh Mills wrote:

I love the Ruby community. I've come to love many of the people (Aaron, Coraline, Matz, etc). If these people, which have been integral to the community that I love, are in agreement that a CoC is good idea, then we should be drafting one if a current one does not exist. The fact that ones does not currently exist for Ruby should be considered an oversight, and should be remedied.

Would it be suitable to split the entire tech community in two?

People who support CoCs (Cucks)
People who don't support CoCs (Ubermensch)

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

Any moderation, please.

I was thinking, could we vote to replace Matz with Anita Sarkeesian as I feel she is more ethically qualified to lead this community?

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

Just as an idea, what about the following: We already have a mail address specifically designed and operated to address security issues ([e-mail]). It seems to me that there might be some commonalities between that mailing list and the issue in this thread. One is a strong desire for confidentiality. I'm not part of the security team, but as far as I understand, it has been working without too much bureaucracy. Also, it works without a widely published list of who watches mail to that address.

Sorry, I respectfully and strong disagree to reuse [e-mail]. [e-mail] is not only subscribed security team, but also some OS vendor and Linux distributor staff because we want they handle security issue very quickly. If real and serious personal attack will be happen, I suspect injured person don't want the attacking message widely spread. Then, harassment and security reporting place should be separated.

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

Sorry, I respectfully and strong disagree to reuse [e-mail]. [e-mail] is not only subscribed security team, but also some OS vendor and Linux distributor staff because we want they handle security issue very quickly. If real and serious personal attack will be happen, I suspect injured person don't want the attacking message widely spread. Then, harassment and security reporting place should be separated.

Thank you honorable Kosaki-San for shutting down this Marxist.

If we do adopt a CoC I have a new clause for it adopted from another CoC by a wonderful open source contributor named David Lane.

"We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white (and Japanese) children."

(I've amended it for our Japanese Aryan brethren)

Also please can we add:

"Because the beauty of the White (and Japanese) Aryan woman must not perish from the earth."

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

Just as an idea, what about the following: We already have a mail address specifically designed and operated to address security issues ([e-mail]). It seems to me that there might be some commonalities between that mailing list and the issue in this thread. One is a strong desire for confidentiality. I'm not part of the security team, but as far as I understand, it has been working without too much bureaucracy. Also, it works without a widely published list of who watches mail to that address.

Sorry, I respectfully and strong disagree to reuse [e-mail]. [e-mail] is not only subscribed security team, but also some OS vendor and Linux distributor staff because we want they handle security issue very quickly. If real and serious personal attack will be happen, I suspect injured person don't want the attacking message widely spread. Then, harassment and security reporting place should be separated.

Agreed, [e-mail] is the wrong place to discuss CoC issues. That mailing list is for security vulnerabilities in the Ruby code ecosystem and would be bad for confidentiality purposes as well as being unrelated to personal security

Hello this is the real Coralina, we need to stop this trolling ASAP as its derailing this vital conversation about implementing a CoC.

Please could everyone who wants a CoC please email [e-mail] right now!

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

This thread could be worrisome if it weren't so blindingly obvious where the bile originates from. There have been interesting points raised by people who don't think the code of conduct proposed by Coraline is appropriate.

It seems, however, that most of the reasonable participants of this thread agree that a more clearly defined code of conduct (whatever its final form) is a welcome addition.

Despite Jeremy Evans' reasonable suggestion that the code of conduct for the Ruby community reflect the philosophies of the language by being more succinct and less specific, I believe the examples listed in the Contributor Covenant code of conduct are useful. They define common abuses and misbehavior. I don't believe it's easy to mistake these examples for an exhaustive list.

I therefore support Coraline's suggestion that the Ruby core team should adopt Contributor Covenant's 1.3.0 version of the Contributor Code of Conduct.

[jcroisant (John Croisant)]

This thread has had personal attacks, trolls, and impersonation. The mods have acted in some cases (in other cases we are still waiting), but only because it is happening right in front of them.

But what if harassment happens where the mods cannot see? For example, what if a new Ruby user sends an email to ruby-talk, and someone replies privately (not to the list) with harassment, insults, sexual comments, etc.? The new user might think that the Ruby community is a bad place, and leave without telling anyone. The mods might never find out, because the harasser did not say it on the list, and the Ruby community has no CoC to provide guidance about how to report harassment. The harasser could remain for years, scaring people away from the community.

A CoC needs to at least:

• Provide a list of examples of unacceptable behavior. Otherwise people may be not sure whether the behavior is allowed in this community. For example, personal insults are (apparently) allowed on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, but are not allowed on ruby-talk. The CoC needs to reflect the Ruby community's standards and expectations of behavior.
• Provide guidelines and instructions about how to report incidents. Otherwise people may not know who to contact about the incident.
• Describe the possible consequences of bad behavior, so that people know reports will be taken seriously.

Those features are missing from the PostgreSQL draft CoC, and the version Jeremy Evans posted, and the Code of Merit, and the Sass community guidelines. In my opinion that makes them inadequate for helping members of the Ruby community who experience harassment. Of the CoCs I have seen proposed in this thread, only the Contributor Covenant has those important features.

I understand the desire to avoid bureaucracy, but we could start with something as simple as an email address or private mailing list that people can contact when an incident occurs, as Martin Dürst suggested. (The address would be a new address, not [e-mail].) That address could forward the reports to the mods, who would then decide how to respond.

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

[e-mail] seems like an obvious address to contact in order to deal with such issues.

Like security, dealing with conduct issues is difficult, time-consuming, and something that needs to be prioritized by people who are trained on how to properly address potential conduct violations.

[afast (Andreas Fast)]

I still think that the tone of Coraline's proposal isn't very much aligned with the ruby community. I think that the core team has shown a lot of common sense in the past and we can trust they will continue to do so in the future.
This is about people feeling comfortable and welcome with the ruby community, and I think it has shown maturity and people do feel welcome. I don't think that a code of conduct in itself would make the community a safer place, but people following it.

I like Jeremy's proposal much better, specially because the tone is more attuned to the ruby community and conveys the message, and I think everyone finds it acceptable, although those wanting forceful action might find it lacking, they're not against it. Matz has stated that he doesn't want to put that burden on maintainers and I support his choice.

We can still rely on common sense for forceful action should it be needed, and as we've seen in this very thread, it works just fine.

Olivier Lacan wrote:

[e-mail] seems like an obvious address to contact in order to deal with such issues.

Like security, dealing with conduct issues is difficult, time-consuming, and something that needs to be prioritized by people who are trained on how to properly address potential conduct violations.

Can we ensure that the progressive stack is used to determine whom the aggressor is? This could be a good way to oppress cisgendered white men while promoting rent-seeking behavior in frizzy haired mulatto chicks and transgendereds.

Andreas Fast wrote:

I still think that the tone of Coraline's proposal isn't very much aligned with the ruby community. I think that the core team has shown a lot of common sense in the past and we can trust they will continue to do so in the future.
This is about people feeling comfortable and welcome with the ruby community, and I think it has shown maturity and people do feel welcome. I don't think that a code of conduct in itself would make the community a safer place, but people following it.

I like Jeremy's proposal much better, specially because the tone is more attuned to the ruby community and conveys the message, and I think everyone finds it acceptable, although those wanting forceful action might find it lacking, they're not against it. Matz has stated that he doesn't want to put that burden on maintainers and I support his choice.

We can still rely on common sense for forceful action should it be needed, and as we've seen in this very thread, it works just fine.

Come on Andreas, its 2016! The time of Aryan Japanese common scene and logic is over, it is the time for Jewish/Marxist divisive logic now.

Matz did a good job these 20 years but its time for him to hand the community over to us. He will be remembered well.

Maybe he could join the PHP community now we are ready to replace him?

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

[e-mail] seems like an obvious address to contact in order to deal with such issues.

Like security, dealing with conduct issues is difficult, time-consuming, and something that needs to be prioritized by people who are trained on how to properly address potential conduct violations.

If this is mandatory, nobody can handle this. Unfortunately ruby
community was too healthy and no serious conflict. Any ruby committer
have no enough experience to handle such kind of issue. So, I'd
suggest to start as best effort.

That's better than do nothing.

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

[e-mail] seems like an obvious address to contact in order to deal with such issues.

Like security, dealing with conduct issues is difficult, time-consuming, and something that needs to be prioritized by people who are trained on how to properly address potential conduct violations.

If this is mandatory, nobody can handle this. Unfortunately ruby
community was too healthy and no serious conflict. Any ruby committer
have no enough experience to handle such kind of issue. So, I'd
suggest to start as best effort.

That's better than do nothing.

Well this is how we work.

We see a healthy community with no conflict.

We come along, propose our trojan horse (CoC).

Divide and conquer the community.

Once its in ruins, we move on.

Did you know we stopped Dead or Alive Xtreme beach Volleyball 3 from being released in the west?

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

Andreas Fast wrote:

We can still rely on common sense for forceful action should it be needed, and as we've seen in this very thread, it works just fine.

What does this mean? Where would one individual contact the Ruby core team privately to discuss a conduct issue? It seems to have been established that security@ is not appropriate.

Being able to reach out to someone seems important. This concept of a single point of contact was added in Contributor Covenant 1.3.0 and seems like a good idea.

A few people from the Ruby core team seem worried (in this thread) that no one has the time to respond to such issues. This seems odd to me because there is currently no way of knowing how many people would contact [e-mail] if it existed. Are we expecting dozens of emails a day? Why would we possibly expect that? Isn't it worrisome that we would expect hordes of people to raise issues of conduct?

There needs to be a somewhat private way for people to ask for help with such matters, if there isn't already. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to suggest that if the core team refuses to establish a [e-mail] when a [e-mail] exists for fear of being overwhelmed, then perhaps the core team needs to be a little more concerned with conduct.

I'm also very busy with my private life, work and open source projects but if responding to conduct issues can allow anyone in the Ruby community to know they can find help when needed, I'll gladly volunteer myself. You can contact me directly at [e-mail].

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

• Provide a list of examples of unacceptable behavior. Otherwise people may be not sure whether the behavior is allowed in this community. For example, personal insults are (apparently) allowed on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, but are not allowed on ruby-talk. The CoC needs to reflect the Ruby community's standards and expectations of behavior.

Off topic: this is not technically correct. I'm an Asian, non-native
English speaker and working for Linux Kernel Mailing List for 10+
years but I haven't got a personal insult. Some dirty words are
considered allowed on it by historical reason but it doesn't mean a
personal attack is okay.

A maintainer sometimes needs to say a bad code is really really
baaaaad! But it should not be considered it's a kind of personal
attack. I hope everyone understand a good man can write toxic bad
code.

sorry for off topic.

Olivier Lacan wrote:

please can vulnerable trans-gendereded women email me on [e-mail]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

• Provide a list of examples of unacceptable behavior. Otherwise people may be not sure whether the behavior is allowed in this community. For example, personal insults are (apparently) allowed on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, but are not allowed on ruby-talk. The CoC needs to reflect the Ruby community's standards and expectations of behavior.

Off topic: this is not technically correct. I'm an Asian, non-native
English speaker and working for Linux Kernel Mailing List for 10+
years but I haven't got a personal insult. Some dirty words are
considered allowed on it by historical reason but it doesn't mean a
personal attack is okay.

A maintainer sometimes needs to say a bad code is really really
baaaaad! But it should not be considered it's a kind of personal
attack. I hope everyone understand a good man can write toxic bad
code.

sorry for off topic.

Honorable Kosaki-san,

You must understand that you are engaging with these people in good faith. They are acting in bad faith and speaking in a kind of double talk which is being lost in translation.

They talk about "feeling safe", "personal attacks", "harassment" but really they are using these concepts as a pretense for assuming political power over technical communities.

You remind me of: "Safe Space" Students Silence Asian Woman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8UTj8lQJhY

You are an Honorable Japanese man. Bless your kind heart.

You must wake up and be smart like Light Yagami from Death Note to outsmart them.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Andreas Fast wrote:

I still think that the tone of Coraline's proposal isn't very much aligned with the ruby community. I think that the core team has shown a lot of common sense in the past and we can trust they will continue to do so in the future.
This is about people feeling comfortable and welcome with the ruby community, and I think it has shown maturity and people do feel welcome. I don't think that a code of conduct in itself would make the community a safer place, but people following it.

I like Jeremy's proposal much better, specially because the tone is more attuned to the ruby community and conveys the message, and I think everyone finds it acceptable, although those wanting forceful action might find it lacking, they're not against it. Matz has stated that he doesn't want to put that burden on maintainers and I support his choice.

We can still rely on common sense for forceful action should it be needed, and as we've seen in this very thread, it works just fine.

I fully agree. I think the community needs to stop torturing itselves over this thread and do the following:

(1) Choose Jeremy, PostgreSQL, or OpenSSL proposal (the latter 2 being my specific opinion). Attribution goes to PostgreSQL or Jeremy. Commit it to the project.

(2) Perhaps make a date 3, 6, or 12 months from now to review if we need to reconsider what further to put into the code of conduct.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

It should be noted that both Rust and node have seemly reacted to this discussion by doing exactly what Olivier Lucan is talking about.

The Contributor Covenant is the appropriate choice, with minor adjustments to fit the architecture, scope, and space of the CRuby community.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

A few people from the Ruby core team seem worried (in this thread) that no one has the time to respond to such issues. This seems odd to me because there is currently no way of knowing how many people would contact [e-mail] if it existed. Are we expecting dozens of emails a day? Why would we possibly expect that? Isn't it worrisome that we would expect hordes of people to raise issues of conduct?

No. My point was not time nor willing. You said

Like security, dealing with conduct issues is difficult, time-consuming, and something that needs to be prioritized by
people who are trained on how to properly address potential conduct violations.

But currently clearly nobody trained because our community have no issue now.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:

It should be noted that both Rust and node have seemly reacted to this discussion by doing exactly what Olivier Lucan is talking about.

The Contributor Covenant is the appropriate choice, with minor adjustments to fit the architecture, scope, and space of the CRuby community.

It's not actually, as the Contributor Covenant is a politically motivated document. A different non-political CoC is best suited.

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

But currently clearly nobody trained because our community have no issue now.

1. Even if not in core, there are several people in the Ruby community trained in such matters.
2. How can you know that there are no issues if there is no way to submit them to anyone (aside from a public forum, which is not at all an appropriate place to do so)?

I'm not trying to be annoying. How can you quantify something you don't measure? I'll gladly admit ignorance if there are other semi-private ways to communicate with the CRuby core team. It's just that despite being a member of this community for several years now, I am not aware of one. The only private email address I can find is Matz's email address on the README.md file on GitHub.

[transmom (Brenda Sandberg)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

I hope everyone understand a good man can write toxic bad code

I feel kind of marginalized as a transgendered mother of two and programmer by your statement.
You seem to imply that only men write code.
This kind of stereotype is exactly what a CoC would effectively counter.

[hsbt (Hiroshi SHIBATA)]

[ANN] I locked https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/users/10502

This is fake account.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

John Croisant wrote:

But what if harassment happens where the mods cannot see? For example, what if a new Ruby user sends an email to ruby-talk, and someone replies privately (not to the list) with harassment, insults, sexual comments, etc.?

This is bad and doesn't relate to the community. Anything off-list or off site is out of bounds. If someone is harassing you outside of the project, that's up to you.

Also, if this was the case, then we should ban Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene for his in appropriate tweet about matz.
https://twitter.com/krainboltgreene/status/690437246059556864
"And frankly, as @yukihiro_matz has stated he doesn't feel like being responsible for helping people feel safe then fuck his leadership."

While I'm posting under a pseudoname, I've been in this community since 99'. He only seems to be interesting in stirring the pot and causing drama instead of being apart of the community.

You ask what isn't acceptable behavior? Look at Coraline, Kurtis, Lauren and anyone's Twitter timeline who is pushing this issue. These types of aggravating hostilities of forcing their views on people and reiterating the same thing after being told no or "it is not a good fit" is exactly their methods in to bullying people in to their viewpoint.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

But currently clearly nobody trained because our community have no issue now.

1. Even if not in core, there are several people in the Ruby community trained in such matters.
2. How can you know that there are no issues if there is no way to submit them to anyone (aside from a public forum, which is not at all an appropriate place to do so)?

You clearly misunderstand something. This is ruby-core and we talked
about ruby-core. There are plenty ruby communities on the Internet and
they are clearly out of control from Ruby core committers/maintainers.
That's out of topic.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

I hope everyone understand a good man can write toxic bad

I feel kind of marginalized as a transgendered mother of two and programmer by your statement.
You seem to imply that only men write code.

I don't catch why you feel so. Can you elaborate more?

This kind of stereotype is exactly what a CoC would effectively counter.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

I hope everyone understand a good man can write toxic bad

I feel kind of marginalized as a transgendered mother of two and programmer by your statement.
You seem to imply that only men write code.

I don't catch why you feel so. Can you elaborate more?

This kind of stereotype is exactly what a CoC would effectively counter.

Motohiro, this is another troll account. Please don't engage.

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

• File Screen Shot 2016-01-22 at 6.45.23 PM.png Screen Shot 2016-01-22 at 6.45.23 PM.png added

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

My acceptable modified version of the CoC is like the following

Contributor Code of Conduct

As contributors and maintainers of this project, and in the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we pledge to respect all people who contribute through reporting issues, posting feature requests, updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches, and other activities.

We are committed to making participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, belief, or nationality.

Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:

• The use of sexualized language or imagery
• Personal attacks
• Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments
• Harassment
• Publishing other's private information, such as physical addresses, without explicit permission
• Other unethical conduct

Project maintainers may remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting a project maintainer at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

Attached is a visual diff between the Contributor Covenant code of conduct version 1.3.0 and Matz's edited version.

After reviewing Matz's proposed version, I believe it is a good first step. Although it clearly compromises on the responsibility of maintainers and their accountability, it includes the private email contact I believe important for code of conduct violations to be reported and addressed by the team. However, I believe that a line mentioning that the code of conduct is adapted from Contributor Covenant would be very appropriate.

Here's a Gist with a text split diff of the two versions: https://gist.github.com/olivierlacan/84bd12d0ac13dfdd85d2/revisions?diff=split

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

To simplify for those looking up thread for Jeremy Evan's version (which Matz consider a better fit) to contrast with Matz original version reposted by Oliver, here it is:

== Ruby Community Code of Conduct (CoC) ==

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, 
productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to 
contribute to the Ruby community. It applies to all "collaborative 
space", which is defined as community communications channels (such as
mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, commit comments, etc.).

* Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free
of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

* Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a 
pattern of behaviour which could be considered harassment will not be 
tolerated.

Here is PostgreSQL CoC final draft:

== PostgreSQL Community Code of Conduct (CoC) == 

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, 
productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to 
contribute to the PostgreSQL community. It applies to all "collaborative 
space", which is defined as community communications channels (such as 
mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, commit comments, etc.). 

* We are tolerant of people’s right to have opposing views. 

* Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free 
of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks. 

* When interpreting the words and actions of others, participants 
should always assume good intentions. 

* Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a 
pattern of behaviour which could be considered harassment will not be 
tolerated. 

Any my personal favorite, OpenSSL Code of Conduct:

Code of Conduct

The OpenSSL community consists primarily, although not solely, of its online presence in mailing lists and activities such as the blog postings and comments, the GitHub repository, and so on. These outlets are managed by the OpenSSL development team, whose members are listed here:  https://www.openssl.org/community/team.html

We strive to be an open and inclusive community where anyone can contribute. Contributions should be judged on their own merits; we don't care about your gender identity, race, political beliefs, age, or similar attributes.

If we see that one or more members of the community are generally abusive, harassing others, or seem to be trying to intimidate them into leaving the community, we will first ask those who are doing so to take a break from participation for a while. If you see any evidence of such activity, please let us know by sending email to  [e-mail].

[rdrake98 (Richard Drake)]

It's a pity the trolling of a fake Coraline has prevented the real one answering my question in #175 but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. :)

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

While I'm posting under a pseudoname, I've been in this community since 99'. He only seems to be interesting in stirring the pot and causing drama instead of being apart of the community.

Yeah, I totally have no interest in being a part of the community: https://rubygems.org/profiles/krainboltgreene https://rubytogether.org/news/2015-12-31-december-2015-monthly-update

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

• File Ruby_Code_of_Conduct_Numbers.png Ruby_Code_of_Conduct_Numbers.png added

I totaled up the number of people who have expressed being for or against adding a code of conduct in this thread. I thought it might be interesting for everyone to see the breakdown.

46 people (73%) expressed being FOR adding a code of conduct. 17 people (27%) expressed that they were AGAINST adding a code of conduct.

Of people who were for adding a code of conduct, 20 people (43%) agreed with the Contributor Covenant as it is written. 26 people (57%) expressed that they would agree to an altered / different code of conduct.

I've also seen a lot of new accounts in this discussion. Out of curiosity, I totaled the new accounts up as well. Of people who expressed an opinion either for or against a CoC, about 50% of them were using newly created accounts. 24 people with new accounts were for adding a CoC, while 8 people with new accounts were against.

In summary, the majority of people who have been posting here agree that Ruby should have a code of conduct. There seems to be a split about which code of conduct to use, however. Also, the people with newly created accounts seem to hold a similar opinion to people with long standing accounts.

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

Ruby Amateur wrote:

To simplify for those looking up thread for Jeremy Evan's version (which Matz consider a better fit) to contrast with Matz original version reposted by Oliver, here it is:
Thanks for clarifying that. I missed it.

I'd like to point out differences between the following proposals (reproduced in this Gist) if that can help:

• Contributor Covenant 1.3.0
• Matz edit of Contributor Covenant 1.3.0
• Jeremy Evan's version

Contributor Covenant (1.3.0)

Included

• statement of intent
• statement of commitment
• multiple clear examples of unacceptable behavior
• detailed consequences of violations
• statement of commitment to fairness and consistent application
• scope of application ("collaborative spaces" and public)
• point of contact for reporting violations
• promise of confidentiality for violation reporters
• responsibility and commitment of maintainers

Matz edit of Contributor Covenant 1.3.0

Included

• statement of intent
• multiple clear examples of unacceptable behavior
• non-tolerated negative behavior
• detailed consequences of violations
• point of contact for reporting violations
• promise of confidentiality for violation reporters

Not Included

• scope of application (although implied project-only)
• consequences of violations to perpetrators
• expectation of public or private behavior (outside project)
• responsibility and commitment of maintainers

Jeremy Evan's version

Included

• statement of intent
• scope of application: "collaborative space"
• expected positive behavior
• non-tolerated negative behavior

Not Included

• point of contact for reporting violations
• detailed consequences of violations
• consequences of violations to perpetrators
• expectation of public or private behavior (outside "collaborative spaces")
• responsibility and commitment of maintainers

I'll admit that the Contributor Covenant 1.3.0 version is far more verbose and specific. I think however that Matz's original proposal for an edit of the CC 1.3.0 version was more appropriate since it only removed the following:

• application to public sphere outside the project
• statement of commitment to fairness and consistent application
• statement that the maintainers "have the right and responsibility" to act.

It merely modified the untouched parts of the CC 1.3.0 by removing:

• copy that referenced behavior outside the scope of the project ("public")
• threat of temporary or permanent ban for violating contributors
• "unprofessional conduct" as an example of unacceptable behavior
• "electronic addresses" as something not to published without permission

And adding:

• "belief" as something protected by the code of conduct

I must insist on the consequences for violations to be more clearly defined. Otherwise the fact that few in the core team are trained to handle conduct issues could become more problematic. I think Coraline mentioned that examples of consequences give "teeth" to a code of conduct. That makes sense to me. While I understand why Matz would be reluctant to ban people who violate the code of conduct, clear consequences need to be stated. Otherwise the only proof that the code of conduct is being enforced would be the public announcement that someone violated the code of conduct. Meanwhile neither perpetrators nor victims of code of conduct violations can be assured that the core team will act because no examples of potential consequences are stated.

I would admit that applying a code of conduct to the public sphere beyond the project (say if a contributor is a frequent Twitter user with a lot of followers) is a very problematic idea. I can understand reticence on that front.

Jeremy Evan's version is without a doubt better than nothing. But I believe Matz's earlier edit of the CC 1.3.0 is a far better compromise.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Benton Barnett wrote:

I totalled up the number of people who have expressed being for or against adding a code of conduct in this thread. ...
46 people (73%) expressed being FOR adding a code of conduct. 17 people (27%) expressed that they were AGAINST adding a code of conduct.

With so few, I think we can all be grateful that a decision that affects thousands of programmers in a 20 year old community isn't being decided by a poll of a few dozen self selected commentators. We can only, with appropriate humility, offer advice.

[jcroisant (John Croisant)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

But what if harassment happens where the mods cannot see? For example, what if a new Ruby user sends an email to ruby-talk, and someone replies privately (not to the list) with harassment, insults, sexual comments, etc.?

This is bad and doesn't relate to the community. Anything off-list or off site is out of bounds. If someone is harassing you outside of the project, that's up to you.

Even if it happens off-list, it very much affects and relates to the community.

• The new user was harassed because they participated in the community. Now they may be afraid to participate any more.
• The new user may warn their friends that the community is bad. This would discourage other people from joining the community.
• The harasser may continue to target other members of the community. Over time, many nice people may leave, while not-nice people stay. This makes the community worse for everyone.

It is not possible to prevent all harassment. But if there is a CoC, at least people knows that the harassment is not normal, and knows that they can contact the mods. Then the mods will know about the problem, and can decide what to do about it.

For example, if the harasser is subscribed to the mailing list, then the mods could remove them, so that it is not so easy for them to find new targets to harass. If the same person harasses many users, the mods can warn everyone that the person is doing it, so that everyone can block the harasser. It is not a perfect solution (a determined harasser could create a new account, or browse the list archives), but it is much better than letting the harasser continue unhindered.

Even if there is no technical solution, then at least the mods can reassure the user that they are welcome in the community, and that harassment is not allowed. This can make a big difference in whether the user decides to leave or stay, and what they tell their friends about the Ruby community.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Olivier Lacan wrote:

I must insist on the consequences for violations to be more clearly defined. Otherwise the fact that few in the core team are trained to handle conduct issues could become more problematic. I think Coraline mentioned that examples of consequences give "teeth" to a code of conduct. That makes sense to me. While I understand why Matz would be reluctant to ban people who violate the code of conduct, clear consequences need to be stated. Otherwise the only proof that the code of conduct is being enforced would be the public announcement that someone violated the code of conduct. Meanwhile neither perpetrators nor victims of code of conduct violations can be assured that the core team will act because no examples of potential consequences are stated.

I would admit that applying a code of conduct to the public sphere beyond the project (say if a contributor is a frequent Twitter user with a lot of followers) is a very problematic idea. I can understand reticence on that front.

Jeremy Evan's version is without a doubt better than nothing. But I believe Matz's earlier edit of the CC 1.3.0 is a far better compromise.

Matz argues that consequences and violations such as banishment is ineffective and very much useless. The accused can simply recreate a new account or identity and contribute again. There is also too much burden in doing so. My other concern is these violations and enforcements aren't protective of identities and make spectacles of people, people that may have not done anything terribly wrong (going back to the retribution aspect), which I is what I believe happened to Charles Nutter and the Rubinius project.

Having said that... may I suggest a compromise? The Ruby community already feels it is a safe and respectful community (although some people that feel strongly about the enforcement find this debatable). This thread itself is getting out of hand and away from the topic of implementing a code of conduct. So perhaps Matz should decide, and let's revisit the topic at a later stage (maybe in 3 or 6 months?) regarding enforcement and consequences (something Matz doesn't feel necessary today), and determine if such a mechanism needs to be in place. I'm not sufficiently convinced this needs to be implemented on day 1, and it simply might be a case of YAGNI.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

The Ruby community already feels it is a safe and respectful community.

No. Some people have said this. That doesn't make it a general opinion.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Olivier Lacan wrote:

I must insist on the consequences for violations to be more clearly defined. Otherwise the fact that few in the core team are trained to handle conduct issues could become more problematic.

This focus on the core team and their so-called 'inexperience' is a recurring theme in tweets by CoC proponents and messages on this board.

It's a debatable proposition that training in the management of conflict and conduct issues is an incontestable good. Perhaps it just add fuel to the fire to formalise things?

There is also, respectfully, a taint of condescension to it. I would submit that one might pick up a few conflict management skills running a community for 20 years.

[duckinator (Marie Markwell)]

To start: I 100% agree with adding a CoC. I also agree with using the Contributor Covenant. I would be willing to consider an altered/different CoC, but not any of the ones I've seen so far.

Looking at the diff that Olivier (https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-271) linked to (https://gist.github.com/olivierlacan/84bd12d0ac13dfdd85d2/revisions?diff=split):

1. What's the purpose of the removal of "public or private"?
2. An address being electronic (e.g. email) doesn't make it less sensitive. Just because you have it doesn't mean you have the right to share it. Not everybody shares their email address and such freely.
3. The largest chunk that was altered/removed effectively renders it useless (I'll go into this more later).
4. Removing attribution? Really?

Now, let's dive into 3 a bit.

1. You changed "have the right and responsibility" to "may." Do maintainers not have to enforce it, if it's adopted? If they do, what was the purpose of loosening the language like that? If they don't, the act of adopting it would be useless.
2. You removed the part about maintainers being allowed to ban people. Why?
3. You removed the part that says the CoC will be enforced fairly. The possibility of it not being applied fairly is what many of the negative responses have been about.
4. You removed the part that says that it applies in public spaces when people are representing the project or its community. Why would you want to allow people to get away with it when explicitly representing the Ruby community? I don't get that at all.

[duckinator (Marie Markwell)]

The Ruby community already feels it is a safe and respectful community.

The fact that this issue was raised and has continued to be discussed explicitly means that only part of the community feels this way.

If everyone agreed, it would have not been opened. If everyone came to that agreement later, the discussion would not be continuing.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:

The Ruby community already feels it is a safe and respectful community.

No. Some people have said this. That doesn't make it a general opinion.

Has anyone said the opposite? Or provided a single counter-example?

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:

The Ruby community already feels it is a safe and respectful community.

No. Some people have said this. That doesn't make it a general opinion.

Perhaps you are correct.

For example, I find your disgusting remarks about Matz on Twitter disrespectful. On the other hand, that is outside the scope of this discussion. Of course, from the sentiments you have expressed you are in favor of including commentary about the project beyond the collaborative spaces of Ruby itself.

So I think it would be a good way to show how the people in Ruby community harbor a safe and respectful community and apologize for your disgusting remarks about Matz.

Thank you.

[duckinator (Marie Markwell)]

Has anyone said the opposite? Or provided a single counter-example?

Well, to start with, this issue itself.

And these responses to it:
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-1
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-2
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-3
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-4
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-10
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-14
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-25
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-45
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004#note-48
... etc. (I only went through the first 50 or so, out of nearly 300.)

And all of the discussion on Twitter.

Basically: Yes.

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

Gordon King wrote:

With so few, I think we can all be grateful that a decision that affects thousands of programmers in a 20 year old community isn't being decided by a poll of a few dozen self selected commentators. We can only, with appropriate humility, offer advice.

You are correct that this is not something that is decided by popular vote, of which I am also thankful for. The goal of a code of conduct is to protect the underprivileged, something that democracy has traditionally failed to do.

It's also worth noting that a small minority has dominated this thread. 8 people with newly created accounts, who also were against adding a code of conduct, are responsible for an overwhelming 54 comments in this thread. Compared to 24 people with newly created accounts who were for adding a code of conduct, who only posted 64 times. New accounts who are against the code of conduct are posting 4 times (!!!) as often as other people.

To clarify, most people in this thread post 2.77 times, on average. Except for people with new accounts who are also against adding a CoC, they post an average of 6.75 times. This means that a small fraction of the community is taking up far more of space than any other group, including long standing members of the Ruby community.

When Matz looks over this issue, I trust he will look at the quality--not quantity--of these posts.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Sorry, you misunderstood: I meant a counter-example for "The Ruby community already feels it is a safe and respectful community", or anyone actually saying that it is not.

Also, could we avoid the current discussion as a source of examples please: some people are just here for the rhetoric (both sides), which I can appreciate too, but it is getting too heated to be representative of the community on any other day...

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Benton Barnett wrote:

New accounts who are against the code of conduct are posting 4 times (!!!) as often as other people.

I thought the original argument for adding the CoC was because of attracting new people outside the established community... shouldn't these new users' opinions matter more then? Or do I misunderstand your point?

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Benton Barnett wrote:

8 people with newly created accounts, who also were against adding a code of conduct, are responsible for an overwhelming 54 comments in this thread.

Not that the volume of posts to people is even remotely relevant to the quality of those posts or the discussion on whether there should be a CoC, or what form it should take but (genuine question) is the troll with their two dozen comments included in your opposed stats or did you just ignore them altogether? Its not many posts really is it regardless.

a small fraction of the community is taking up far more of space than any other group

This entire discussion is a minuscule fraction of the community :)

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Since what is now proposed lacks a reporting mechanism and enforcement information, I don't think it's accurate to describe it as a code of conduct.

This is a "no true scotsman" statement. According to Wikipedia, "A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the social norms and rules and responsibilities of, or proper practices for, an individual, party or organization". A reporting mechanism and enforcement information is not necessary, though it could be included in a CoC.

That being said, I am not against adding a reporting email address to the CoC I proposed if ruby-core can agree on setting one up. I am against adding specific enforcement requirements (such as banning), for reasons Matz already stated.

Jeremy

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

Andrew Vit wrote:

Benton Barnett wrote:

New accounts who are against the code of conduct are posting 4 times (!!!) as often as other people.

I thought the original argument for adding the CoC was because of attracting new people outside the established community... shouldn't these new users' opinions matter more then? Or do I misunderstand your point?

It is not my place to decide whose "opinions matter more."

To clarify my earlier numbers, of the people in this thread with new accounts 24 are FOR adding a code of conduct and 8 are AGAINST. That's 75% FOR and 25% AGAINST, of only people with new accounts. However, those 8 that are AGAINST are posting at 4 times the rate of the people that are FOR, or anyone else for that matter.

And, as Gordon King correctly pointed out, this isn't being decided by a popular vote. These numbers should only be used to illustrate how the community is feeling at a glance.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

A reporting mechanism and enforcement information is not necessary, though it could be included in a CoC.

What exactly do you think "responsibilities" and "practices" mean?

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

Gordon King wrote:

is the troll with their two dozen comments included in your opposed stats or did you just ignore them altogether?

I am only including people who clearly stated if they are for or against adding a code of conduct. While this doesn't guarantee that troll accounts are filtered out, it does filter out people who have been posting off topic. Short answer: I've excluded any troll accounts to the best of my ability.

a small fraction of the community is taking up far more of space than any other group

This entire discussion is a minuscule fraction of the community :)

Agreed :) Which is why it pains me to see 8 people railroading this conversation.

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:

A reporting mechanism and enforcement information is not necessary, though it could be included in a CoC.

What exactly do you think "responsibilities" and "practices" mean?

I think "responsibilities" here applies to contributors, as they are the ones responsible for not violating the CoC by disrupting the community, posting personal attacks, etc..

In regards to "practices", notice that the definition states "...social norms and rules and responsibilities of, or proper practices for..." (note the "or"). A document that outlines the social norms, rules, and responsibilities without mentioning practices still meets the definition of a CoC. As in ruby: (true or false # => true)

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

[ANN] user account creation on the redmine is now temporary stopped. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Benton Barnett wrote:

Agreed :) Which is why it pains me to see 8 people railroading this conversation.

Respectfully, I think that's an uncharitable way to describe the vast majority of the contributions of your fellow, but disagreeing, rubyists. In this entire debate, nothing said on this board has equalled the vitriol expressed by Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene on their twitter account towards the leader of this community.

If a couple of days of debate is too much, then why didn't everyone just stop when Matz expressed his opinion? Charges that people wish to continue arguing the toss (as my dear old dad used to put it) can be levelled both ways, and normally signal that one side of a debate at least is unhappy that its not going their way, and wish those disagreeing would just disappear.

I for one would be perfectly comfortable if the debate ended now with Matz's consensus decision: The introduction of Jeremy's CoC.

Its a beautiful Saturday summer afternoon where I am, so I'm off to hop in the pool with the kids. Have at me. You've got a good four hours.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Jeremy Evans wrote:

I think "responsibilities" here applies to contributors, as they are the ones responsible for not violating the CoC by disrupting the community, posting personal attacks, etc..

In regards to "practices", notice that the definition states "...social norms and rules and responsibilities of, or proper practices for..." (note the "or"). A document that outlines the social norms, rules, and responsibilities without mentioning practices still meets the definition of a CoC. As in ruby: (true or false # => true)

I think a succinct way of putting it is "responsibilities" is being mindful of others and practices is "etiquette."

I think the version you adapted from PostgreSQL encompasses these two notions well enough.

Edit:

I would also suggest if consequences, moderation, or punitive measures are to be encoded into the Code of Conduct, then adopt the last line from OpenSSL CoC:

If we see that one or more members of the community are generally abusive, harassing others, or seem to be trying to intimidate them into leaving the community, we will first ask those who are doing so to take a break from participation for a while. If you see any evidence of such activity, please let us know by sending email to  <EMAIL>@ruby-lang.org

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Marie Markwell wrote:

4. Removing attribution? Really?

This was presumably not intentional, it was so Matz can trim down an approximate code of conduct that he deemed acceptable to post for consideration. It is by no means final, as we're seeing. I don't believe Matz would brazenly plagiarize.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

Sorry, I respectfully and strong disagree to reuse [e-mail]. [e-mail] is not only subscribed security team, but also some OS vendor and Linux distributor staff because we want they handle security issue very quickly. If real and serious personal attack will be happen, I suspect injured person don't want the attacking message widely spread. Then, harassment and security reporting place should be separated.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. What I meant is to create a SEPARATE mail address, but to run it somewhat similar to the security list. Similar means that the recipients are volunteers appointed by Matz, but not a committee officially listed on a Web page. The easiest way to create such a list would be to just use something like [e-mail], and subscribe the current admins to the list.

Such a list would also help for spam. I have on occasion sent a mail to somebody that I suspected had administration privileges to point out some spam. But I never was sure I sent the mail to the right person, and to the person who had some time.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

Sorry, I respectfully and strong disagree to reuse [e-mail]. [e-mail] is not only subscribed security team, but also some OS vendor and Linux distributor staff because we want they handle security issue very quickly. If real and serious personal attack will be happen, I suspect injured person don't want the attacking message widely spread. Then, harassment and security reporting place should be separated.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. What I meant is to create a SEPARATE mail address, but to run it somewhat similar to the security list. Similar means that the recipients are volunteers appointed by Matz, but not a committee officially listed on a Web page. The easiest way to create such a list would be to just use something like [e-mail], and subscribe the current admins to the list.

Fully agreed.

Such a list would also help for spam. I have on occasion sent a mail to somebody that I suspected had administration privileges to point out some spam. But I never was sure I sent the mail to the right person, and to the person who had some time.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

[ANN] user account creation on the redmine is now temporary stopped. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is actually a good thing due to both sides. Coraline and her gang have been encouraging others to come here and "white knight" as evidence by this thread. I'd recommend leaving creation locked for a couple of weeks.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Marie Markwell wrote:

The Ruby community already feels it is a safe and respectful community.

The fact that this issue was raised and has continued to be discussed explicitly means that only part of the community feels this way.

If everyone agreed, it would have not been opened. If everyone came to that agreement later, the discussion would not be continuing.

Except if you read on anyone or their twitter feed, you'll find they've the attitude of..

"project here doesn't have a CoC, I don't feel safe"

I carry a firearm in public, sometimes it's open carry. This makes a few people feel "unsafe" and some people even complain to stores which make their "open carry" policy known to follow state law and don't have rules to prohibit open carry or one for "feeling safe". The act of engaging the public, you may encounter people of all varieties and those who differ in opinion and beliefs.

I've noticed from many Twitter feeds of persons advocating for the Contributor's Covenant are the same people who want to prohibit others from talking at say... RubyConf if the target is someone who greatly differs in opinion(religion, topics of MRA/GG/Feminism/etc, politics, etc) which has no reflection on Ruby, this is absolutely unacceptable.

Let me just reduce here, "You have no right to feel safe in public"

If you're on the Internet then it's definitely not a "Safe Space." People are watching, people will take screenshots, people will create a list of people who not to hire, especially those of us who are in C-level positions. We don't care about your personal problems or issues, we care about results. The same can be said for those who want to improve Ruby.

This is a public forum and privately owned. If you do not feel safe on the internet, I do think it's time to unplug. Much like people screaming, "They're harassment me online!" when a person is merely countering arguments and giving proof, one can... simply unplug.

[brennx0r (Brenna Flood)]

Ruby Dino wrote:
Much like people screaming, "They're harassment me online!" when a person is merely countering arguments and giving proof, one can... simply unplug.

You should know as well as everyone else that everything is online these days. You cannot simply "unplug". This is an unrealistic option.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Brenna Flood wrote:

Ruby Dino wrote:
Much like people screaming, "They're harassment me online!" when a person is merely countering arguments and giving proof, one can... simply unplug.

You should know as well as everyone else that everything is online these days. You cannot simply "unplug". This is an unrealistic option.

Yes actually you can. There's also a block/ignore button. There's also "Protect my account" on Twitter, privacy settings on Facebook, etc. One can simply unplug by even just turning off the computer. The power button is a wonderful thing.

I've been on the business end of an internet mob, I seemed to just get past it fine. I know I'm using a pseudo-name, but I've received backlash from groups which many would call vile. My way works, stirring the pot does not.

Your online profile is not your life. While I do maintain social accounts, I spend the majority of time outside and in a park while coding offline.

Let me reduce here, "Get off the computer and go outside"

[brennx0r (Brenna Flood)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

Let me reduce here, "Get off the computer and go outside"

While I would love to agree with you, this is just not possible. If you'll allow, the person who explains this the best:
http://tinyurl.com/zjamzo6

The internet of today is not the internet of the 1990s. I wish it were. It's just not true anymore. One of the reasons why a CoC is important.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Brenna Flood wrote:

While I would love to agree with you, this is just not possible. If you'll allow, the person who explains this the best:
http://tinyurl.com/zjamzo6

The internet of today is not the internet of the 1990s. I wish it were. It's just not true anymore. One of the reasons why a CoC is important.

Umm, the fuck dude. Saying you can't go offline is like xbox tier bs kids try to say when they get banned from XBox Live.

You can certainly go offline, nothing is stopping you from also not replying or just blocking people with opinions or statements you don't want to see.

Life does not revolve around you, nor does it revolve around your online presence. I should also note there are plenty of younger kids who learn to limit their online activities, though going through many profiles of internet activists, it's clear to me very few have engaged in outdoor activities like bicycling, mountain climbing, skiing.

I'm seeing many feel their internet presence is more important than anything else.

Koichi coded YARV on the train, he doesn't care much about his online presence and created beautiful code. Yes going offline and enjoying life really is this easy. As you are not your online profile, nor is it important.

Let me reduce here again, "Get off the computer and go outside"

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Gordon King wrote:

In this entire debate, nothing said on this board has equalled the vitriol expressed by Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene on their twitter account towards the leader of this community.

Kurtis and I have had differences in the past but this is a ridiculous sentiment to express. We have literally had neo-nazi sentiment enter this discussion thanks to trolls who I can only hope are not actually a part of the Ruby community. Nothing Kurtis has said on Twitter even comes close to Nazi beliefs.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

David Celis wrote:

Gordon King wrote:

In this entire debate, nothing said on this board has equalled the vitriol expressed by Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene on their twitter account towards the leader of this community.

Kurtis and I have had differences in the past but this is a ridiculous sentiment to express. We have literally had neo-nazi sentiment enter this discussion thanks to trolls who I can only hope are not actually a part of the Ruby community. Nothing Kurtis has said on Twitter even comes close to Nazi beliefs.

Forgive me David for not making myself clear. I was referring to the collective posts by the 'gang of eight' that Benton identified as overly prolific contributors to the 'no' side, a group Benton has clarified earlier didn't include the trolls. Kurtis on the other hand, is not a troll, and appears to be a long serving member of good standing. Hence my comparison.

We share a similar sentiment that those troll posts are utterly out of order, and I think its a credit to the community that the conversation wasn't derailed due to one or two vile idiots.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

David Celis wrote:

Gordon King wrote:

In this entire debate, nothing said on this board has equalled the vitriol expressed by Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene on their twitter account towards the leader of this community.

Kurtis and I have had differences in the past but this is a ridiculous sentiment to express. We have literally had neo-nazi sentiment enter this discussion thanks to trolls who I can only hope are not actually a part of the Ruby community. Nothing Kurtis has said on Twitter even comes close to Nazi beliefs.

It is easy to separate the trolls and the valued contributors in this community (ok -- perhaps not for some of the Japanese folk because varying connotations used in text). I am neither the former nor the latter. But I do believe Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene is a valued contributor (he has even stated as much). I find his disparaging remarks out of line and incredibly disrespectful because the Ruby community as a whole Matz does not acquiesce to his views. He hasn't expressed the same comment in this thread nor defended what he said, because I presume he is fully aware that it is a very completely inappropriate thing to say. So I find it hypocritical for him siding with the contributor covenant to bring such disgusting behavior into this space.

If I made such a remark to a fellow colleague, even in a heated debate such as this, I would recognize my fault and apologize. I don't see why this is such a difficult task for Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene who seems to allege that he wants a code of conduct. It is only very hypocritical.

Again my 2c.

We are not a community. We are technical community.

We live in national communities which have laws, which can not be replaced.
Write some law of your own, try to enforce some it, and not only will you
potentially piss people off, but you might also be sued, because there
are some real laws you can't ignore.

Discussing the subject is moot as it is trivially absurd to try to align politically
some technical contributors. Some citizen of a colonisation based nation will
argue vehemently for equal rights among race with strange notion of equality.
Others from some genocider nation will argue you are not kind enough to others.
We will only ever have harmony if we concentrate on the technical nature of a
technical community. Bring politic in and you are bound to have political issues.

Why such absurdity then ? Clearly it is an opportunity for people who
seek endorsement by ruby (a... programming language .. but a real credential
out there), who are deranged (that exists), or both.

Our apathy is their opportunity they are playing. They don't believe in what they
put forward, no one does. What they do believe is the fact that if their absurd
idea, completely unrelated to Ruby nor to any real problem, is being taken
seriously in a long discussion, that is a clear sign of weakness and an opportunity
worth digging.

Our willingness to discuss rationally irrational things out is a
direct measurement of how ready this technical community is to fall for it.
Dont be fooled by their attempt to falsely rationalize it, they are the first to not
believe it. Their absurd reasoning sound like kids ? They know. They know you know.
But dont miss the real point of it.

I urge people who would be tempted to argue on the ground of the merit
of such proposal to open their eyes on the higher motives behind this non-sense
and how pointless, (and actually damaging, as it will be perceived as a weakness
to be exploited), it would be them to try to reason those people.

That's not to say we are to be silent, on the contrary, but unfortunately and
despite our good nature which values rational explanation and helping people out,
the only good answer is forceful rejection. We are encountering the equivalent of
some form of invaders. the equivalent of if you do not want war, prepare for it.
It might be against our nature of technical people always ready to help, but that
is unfortunately the real life crossing our project and that's real life most generous
answer.

Let them do their own fork and abide by their own rules, but reject forcefully
any idea which are of non-technical nature to a technical project like this one.

Olivier Lacan wrote:

This thread could be worrisome if it weren't so blindingly obvious where the bile originates from. There have been interesting points raised by people who don't think the code of conduct proposed by Coraline is appropriate.

It seems, however, that most of the reasonable participants of this thread agree that a more clearly defined code of conduct (whatever its final form) is a welcome addition.

Not at all. This is a technical community. If you want protection by some form of law, the community which you should look for is your national community.
I presume you live in France. The retaliation measure as they stand are plainly illegal in that country.
If you want to change the laws, vote, get elected, do something.
But it is not any business with a programming language to put forward your political agenda.

If you want to contribute, do so.
If you want to have an organisation of likeminded fiends, start one.
But do not impose your strange divisive political opinions onto someone else.

Despite Jeremy Evans' reasonable suggestion that the code of conduct for the Ruby community reflect the philosophies of the language by being more succinct and less specific, I believe the examples listed in the Contributor Covenant code of conduct are useful. They define common abuses and misbehavior. I don't believe it's easy to mistake these examples for an exhaustive list.

I therefore support Coraline's suggestion that the Ruby core team should adopt Contributor Covenant's 1.3.0 version of the Contributor Code of Conduct.

I therefore support you start you own community of (ruby \intersect whatever)
Your contribution to Ruby (= Ruby \intersect nothing) will always be welcome.

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

Olivier Lacan wrote:

It seems, however, that most of the reasonable participants of this thread agree that a more clearly defined code of conduct (whatever its final form) is a welcome addition.

I disagree. I think this is merely your opinion on how the conversation has gone. I believe both sides have raised some good and reasonable points. Just because one side has used many more words does not mean that that side is the "most" of us all. It is important to consider all aspects here.

There can be harm done by having a CoC and their can be harm done without a CoC. That will never change.

The point I have tried to express is that both love and respect are things each individual can freely choose to give and no form of legislation can enforce that. Once the "law" has been written it not only limits all parties involved but it can, and will, hurt (ban/imprison) many who will unknowingly transgress it. No one here knows every law of their land and won't know if they're breaking them. I believe it's better to be confident in life by not having to worry about a "law" looming over us and to simply love and respect others by our own free will.

I have never read any CoC of projects that I've contributed to. As far as I know I've done what was right. But in truth I'm ignorant of the "laws" they've placed and if I've broken them. If they've written that I should read the CoC before contributing then that alone would be actionable for me to be banned. Then I would be the hurt party. Even though I was offering something good and with good intention the law would cause more damage than good in this situation.

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

Folks,

I guess by now all the arguments have been presented already. I'll just post in case someone wants to draw a statistic from this comment thread and give my perspective.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

My suggestion to adopt the Contributor Covenant was a first step. Ideally each community starts with something like this and evolves and shapes it to suit their particular needs.

Please don't. This will almost inevitably draw some people to spend time and time again "improving" the wording of the CoC. With this discussion (currently at 300+ comments!) we can see the effect already: people spend time discussing a document rather than actually being nice to each other and given those appropriate feedback that are not nice.

What's important in this process however is that people who might otherwise feel excluded from certain open source communities be involved in shaping the final code of conduct.

This means that people who might feel excluded must be given chance to work on the CoC while for all others it is optional.

Please do not get me wrong: I am sympathetic of the goal to give more people a chance to contribute that for whatever reason do not do it today. But I object installint a CoC for a number of reasons:

• I do not see that we actually have an issue with "non niceness".
• Some people seem to believe that having a CoC solves issues - which is nonsense of course.
• I have the impression that some expect a CoC ensures maximum happiness of all community members. This will never happen as conflicts are human.
• A CoC will encourage some bad, unnecessary or unwanted behaviors:
  • judging and policing of others pointing to the "law"
  • spending time on working on the CoC
  • even founding a CoC Committee
  • debating interpretation of particular rules (while creating the CoC, but also later on)
• We are grown ups and every grown up should know how to behave. Those who are not, will remove themselves from the community by their behavior or be removed by the community - regardless whether a CoC exists or not.
• I do not support the goal of featherbedding everybody. There are too many people insulted by peanuts that make noise or even harm others. People need to learn (again) that life also has its harsh sides and nobody is entitled a first row seat in heaven.
• I very much prefer the Buddhist approach to define the noble goal ("reduce suffering") and leave it to the individual's responsibility to do the needful in every situation than other religious approaches which give detailed rules ("here are the rules, this is forbidden, this is allowed") which tend to be applied thoughtlessly across the board.

If someone needs a negative example you can look at what is happening at US university campuses currently (search for keywords "trigger warning" and "microagression"). There are a lot of people under way with very good intentions but in the process they loose completely sight of the right measure with negative consequences for freedom of speech and even some individuals who have lost their jobs because of peanuts.

Kind regards

robert

PS: Sorry for the lengthy comment.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

I have wanted to stay neutral but the more I see, the less generous I am feeling about the idea of any CoC at all. I do think moderation is important, but that seems to be happening well enough already without a document. What is being asked for next is "more teeth", and it seems the wording that Matz originally suggested ("appropriate response to the situation") is not enough for some.

Will the CoC require that there is a 24/7 hotline and SLA too?

"Community standards only enforced during local standard business hours."
https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690619432675123200

I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone could make you happy Coraline. And that is not anyone else's problem but yours.

What happens right now is (1) you can complain about Japan on Twitter, then (2) the problem gets corrected anyway. What happens with official enforcement ("teeth") is asking for somebody's removal because their response to your complaint was not satisfactory. I don't believe anything will ever make your "safe space" crowd happy until someone's dignity is destroyed. I just can't trust your good intentions under the proposed CoC.

This is where it goes?
"And frankly, as @yukihiro_matz has stated he doesn't feel like being responsible for helping people feel safe then fuck his leadership."
https://twitter.com/krainboltgreene/status/690437246059556864

That sounds too similar to what happened at Yale University:
"You should step down. This is not about creating an intellectual space. It is about creating a home here."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IEFD_JVYd0

I just cannot understand why this authoritarian Social "Justice" mob mentality deserves anyone's respect, and how it spreads among otherwise intelligent people scares me. When did we stop thinking as individuals with our own opinions instead of mindless interest groups with a bad attitude? (I guess since Twitter, so yeah, blame Ruby anyway...)

If university presidents can be forced to step down by a noisy crowd without any justifiable reason, it can happen in our OSS groups. Please take a stand against this: these people don't need protection under a CoC, they need to take responsibility for themselves and what they say, and much of what they say is insulting.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Robert Klemme wrote:

Folks,

I guess by now all the arguments have been presented already. I'll just post in case someone wants to draw a statistic from this comment thread and give my perspective.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

My suggestion to adopt the Contributor Covenant was a first step. Ideally each community starts with something like this and evolves and shapes it to suit their particular needs.

Please don't. This will almost inevitably draw some people to spend time and time again "improving" the wording of the CoC. With this discussion (currently at 300+ comments!) we can see the effect already: people spend time discussing a document rather than actually being nice to each other and given those appropriate feedback that are not nice.

What's important in this process however is that people who might otherwise feel excluded from certain open source communities be involved in shaping the final code of conduct.

This means that people who might feel excluded must be given chance to work on the CoC while for all others it is optional.

Please do not get me wrong: I am sympathetic of the goal to give more people a chance to contribute that for whatever reason do not do it today. But I object installint a CoC for a number of reasons:

• I do not see that we actually have an issue with "non niceness".

Not seeing a problem doesn't mean it's not there. I feel that many comments made in this thread show "non niceness". But like myself and others have said, this is not about "non niceness", this is about an avenue to dealing with real harassment if and when it happens.

• Some people seem to believe that having a CoC solves issues - which is nonsense of course.

It's not nonsense. I have seen CoCs solve issues. The Portland Ruby community has a code of conduct and it hasn't had to be used often, but it has been used to solve several issues that community members have come to us with.

• I have the impression that some expect a CoC ensures maximum happiness of all community members. This will never happen as conflicts are human.

This isn't about ensuring maximum happiness. Again, it's about having a documented way of what we feel constitutes real harassment and how to deal with it when it occurs.

• A CoC will encourage some bad, unnecessary or unwanted behaviors:
  • judging and policing of others pointing to the "law"
  • spending time on working on the CoC
  • even founding a CoC Committee
  • debating interpretation of particular rules (while creating the CoC, but also later on)

Nobody is going to be judging or policing. People just wanna be a part of Ruby without being afraid to show themselves for who they are.

• We are grown ups and every grown up should know how to behave. Those who are not, will remove themselves from the community by their behavior or be removed by the community - regardless whether a CoC exists or not.

Being a grownup doesn't mean one knows how to behave. And while yes, a CoC is not required to remove people from the community for awful behavior, it is important to be able to state why someone was removed and why that behavior was awful. It's also important to state how someone could be welcomed back if they choose to work hard at returning.

• I do not support the goal of featherbedding everybody. There are too many people insulted by peanuts that make noise or even harm others. People need to learn (again) that life also has its harsh sides and nobody is entitled a first row seat in heaven.

This isn't about a first row seat in heaven, either. This is about literally basic human rights to participate in this public space without being harassed.

• I very much prefer the Buddhist approach to define the noble goal ("reduce suffering") and leave it to the individual's responsibility to do the needful in every situation than other religious approaches which give detailed rules ("here are the rules, this is forbidden, this is allowed") which tend to be applied thoughtlessly across the board.

Individuals don't tend to take action when they're in a group unless they're pointed to and told, "Hey we need you to do this thing." A CoC makes folks more likely to speak out when they see bad behavior.

If someone needs a negative example you can look at what is happening at US university campuses currently (search for keywords "trigger warning" and "microagression"). There are a lot of people under way with very good intentions but in the process they loose completely sight of the right measure with negative consequences for freedom of speech and even some individuals who have lost their jobs because of peanuts.

I just… I can't even. I think my other responses are enough.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

People just wanna be a part of Ruby without being afraid to show themselves for who they are.

Everyone can already do this as nothing stops a person from contributing to a project. We are scientists and engineers pushing for a better technological future, we don't care who you are in person.

As stated earlier people who are claiming, "Oh no, they don't have a CoC so I don't feel safe" need to unplug. You are not your online presence, nor do we care.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

As stated earlier people who are claiming, "Oh no, they don't have a CoC so I don't feel safe" need to unplug.

No.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

Ruby Dino wrote:

As stated earlier people who are claiming, "Oh no, they don't have a CoC so I don't feel safe" need to unplug.

No.

Yes.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Without getting into the politics of the case, I did think this quote from Gregory Allan Elliot was interesting, where he described being offline as a condition of his bail.

I’d like to tell the hundreds of millions on Twitter that I’ve been offline and in real life for three years and two months and it is so much healthier and nicer to be out with real people and being able to talk to them and get facial expressions and laughs and giggles and anger and everything firsthand, in real life.

I'd never heard of him until the last couple of days, but he sounds like a person who spent a bit too much time online as well :)

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Gordon King wrote:

Without getting into the politics of the case, I did think this quote from Gregory Allan Elliot was interesting, where he described being offline as a condition of his bail.

Wow, that is so inappropriate.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Wow, that is so inappropriate.

Now now, tetchy much :) Seriously good luck with giving up the cigarettes, its a drag whatever your politics and I feel for you. That prickly aggravation goes away after a day or two and then you're basically there. Took me like 10 attempts but never felt better!

Apologies to the group for the off topic.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

David Celis wrote:

• A CoC will encourage some bad, unnecessary or unwanted behaviors:
  • judging and policing of others pointing to the "law"
  • spending time on working on the CoC
  • even founding a CoC Committee
  • debating interpretation of particular rules (while creating the CoC, but also later on)

Nobody is going to be judging or policing. People just wanna be a part of Ruby without being afraid to show themselves for who they are.

I'm sorry but I agree with Paul Jones that the social justice inspired code of conducts are very much about retribution and enacting punishment due to insensitivity (or sensitivity) of others. I won't go into a laundry list of examples (but if you look at previous responses I do point out two). I will say this:

Given to people in the wrong hands, a code of conduct which has enforcement mechanisms can be used to disrupt a project and enact violence in the community.

This has happened to the Rubinius project.

I would also like to point out an analogy with the Zero Tolerance policies used in the US school system:

A zero-tolerance policy in schools is a policy of punishing any infraction of a rule, regardless of accidental mistakes, ignorance, or extenuating circumstances. In schools, common zero-tolerance policies concern possession or use of illicit drugs or weapons.

These laws encoded in the US prevents a teacher from using discretion not to punish, as they may lose their job. If they don't report it, they may lose their job. I would hope most people can agree that this type of policy is similar to how a prison system is run, and that children shouldn't be deserving of draconian policies and state-mandated punishment.

I see the unchanged contributor covenent as being strikingly similar:

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or
reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions
that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or
permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate,
threatening, offensive, or harmful.

By adopting this Code of Conduct, project maintainers commit themselves to
fairly and consistently applying these principles to every aspect of managing
this project. Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of
Conduct may be permanently removed from the project team.

I'm sorry, but this alone is a non-starter to me. It spends far too much time on the language of enforcement. To me the entire contributor covenant in its original form is a tool to disrupt and enact violence in communities by focusing on enforcement and punishment.

• We are grown ups and every grown up should know how to behave. Those who are not, will remove themselves from the community by their behavior or be removed by the community - regardless whether a CoC exists or not.

Being a grownup doesn't mean one knows how to behave. And while yes, a CoC is not required to remove people from the community for awful behavior, it is important to be able to state why someone was removed and why that behavior was awful. It's also important to state how someone could be welcomed back if they choose to work hard at returning.

An audit log is probably a good thing. As for being welcomed back? None of the code of conducts so far provided mention how a person can be welcome back. This should be more reason to avoid enforcing punishment for the time being, because people deserve a second, third, or whatever number of chances.

I'm very passionate about this issue, because I don't want my favourite programming language being disrupted by future-proofed policies that will be set in stone. I think we should accept a minimum viable version (such as Jeremy Evans PostgreSQL inspired CoC) and if the code of conduct is not working sufficiently, we can revisit it later.

I don't see the point of future proofing the code of conduct now, except to appease those with the social justice mentality. With a liberal code of conduct or even without, the community will remain nearly unchanged and welcoming towards contributors.

As I expressed above, a draconian code of conduct (such as the unchanged contributor covenent) can be used as a tool of violence that will make people reconsider being part of the community, and potentially losing both potential and existing contributors.

Again my opinion, my 2c. I hope this gets taken into consideration.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

It's important to note in the face of all this hand-wavy "SJWs are coming to steal my cheese" nonsense that enforcement of a code of conduct is and always will be in the hands and in the discretion of project maintainers, or whomever Matz and others assign to the task. The code of conduct is not a set of draconian laws that obligate maintainers to ostracize someone at the first sight of an offense and it's disingenuous to say that this is so.

If you don't trust project managers with a code of conduct, then how can you possibly trust them without one?

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

If you don't trust project managers with a code of conduct, then how can you possibly trust them without one?

You're skewing facts again. We've signaled we're okay with a CoC, however we're not comfortable with your CoC due to the nature and reason of it's creation.

We trust Matz, we also trust him with a CoC.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Coraline I just saw your tweet where you quoted my #320 above and left out my last line, thereby removing the full context from my point, which was the fact that a social media fanatic when forced to get offline was better for it.

For the record, I've tried to avoid the disparagement's I've read about you online and other places, but I must say you've acted in very bad faith here and it's made me reconsider your character.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It's important to note in the face of all this hand-wavy "SJWs are coming to steal my cheese" nonsense that enforcement of a code of conduct is and always will be in the hands and in the discretion of project maintainers, or whomever Matz and others assign to the task. The code of conduct is not a set of draconian laws that obligate maintainers to ostracize someone at the first sight of an offense and it's disingenuous to say that this is so.

If you are referring to what I said, I had never said "SJWs are coming to steal my cheese." I have never said SJW. I know people consider it a disparaging term, and I'm not interested in labelling people as such.

I said given to the wrong hands a document with enforcement and punitive measures can be used as a weapon. I don't think we should be discussing documents that can enact violence in the community which has been peaceful for 20 years.

The code of conduct is not a set of draconian laws that obligate maintainers to ostracize someone at the first sight of an offense and it's disingenuous to say that this is so.

Please change your original code of conduct to allow discretion by project maintainers that way there is no such notion of obligation of enforcement. Otherwise I would argue it is a zero tolerance policy and hence draconian in nature. I don't think I have interpreted this wrong.

If you don't trust project managers with a code of conduct, then how can you possibly trust them without one?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Gordon King wrote:

Coraline I just saw your tweet where you quoted my #320 above and left out my last line, thereby removing the full context from my point, which was the fact that a social media fanatic when forced to get offline was better for it.

https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/691007711824089088

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

Since I originally posted my proposal for a CoC, based on PostgreSQL's
draft CoC, PostgreSQL has updated their draft. The current version can
be found at http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail].
I think the changes they made to some of the language improves it. As
before, I believe we should remove the parts unrelated to conduct.
Here's my updated proposed CoC:

== Ruby Community Code of Conduct (CoC) ==

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful,
productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to
contribute to the Ruby community. It applies to all "collaborative
space", which is defined as community communications channels (such as
mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, commit comments, etc.).

* Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free
of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

* Behaviour which can be reasonably considered harassment will not be
tolerated.

The main changes are:

1. Removal of the "disrupt the collaborative space" clause, as that can
   more easily lead to selective enforcement.

2. It makes clear that it is harassing behavior that will not be
   tolerated, instead of people themselves.

It's also shorter, which is good.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Gordon King wrote:

Coraline I just saw your tweet where you quoted my #320 above and left out my last line, thereby removing the full context from my point, which was the fact that a social media fanatic when forced to get offline was better for it.

https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/691007711824089088

I'm must bring up GAE for Matz and the others to read, as this is also indicative of Coraline's intentions and those of the SJW movement.

Gregory Alan Elliott was a guy voicing his opinion. Even though the person claiming GAE unlawfully harassed her had him blocked on Twitter and couldn't see his tweets unless she actively looked for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v._Elliott

The ruling was recently ruled NOT GUILTY, favoring freedom of speech. Again this is also indicative people need to unplug and get off the computer if they're going to be like the person claiming harassment.

I shall note during this time GAE was not allowed to go online(for the past 3 years), he was also fired from his job and supporting 4 kids.

Matz, this is the type of agenda Coraline is attempting to push. I recommend going with a different CoC or creating your own if you choose to move forward with creating a CoC for the Ruby community.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Jeremy Evans wrote:

Since I originally posted my proposal for a CoC, based on PostgreSQL's
draft CoC, PostgreSQL has updated their draft. The current version can
be found at http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail].
I think the changes they made to some of the language improves it. As
before, I believe we should remove the parts unrelated to conduct.
Here's my updated proposed CoC:
[...]
It's also shorter, which is good.

Thanks for this, the improvement in language is really good.

+1

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

If you don't trust project managers with a code of conduct, then how can you possibly trust them without one?

If I didn't trust the people, how would a document change that?

I trust this community. I trust Matz. Above that, I trust judges and laws -- if it must ever come to that. Is this not enough?

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

• File Ruby_Code_of_Conduct_Discussion.png Ruby_Code_of_Conduct_Discussion.png added

Daniel P. Clark wrote:

Olivier Lacan wrote:

It seems, however, that most of the reasonable participants of this thread agree that a more clearly defined code of conduct (whatever its final form) is a welcome addition.

I disagree. I think this is merely your opinion on how the conversation has gone. I believe both sides have raised some good and reasonable points. Just because one side has used many more words does not mean that that side is the "most" of us all. It is important to consider all aspects here.

My apologies for being argumentative, but 46 people in this thread have expressed approval of adopting a code on conduct while 18 have expressed disapproval of adopting a code of conduct. That's 72% in favor, and 28% not in favor. Put simply, the majority of people in this thread would like Ruby to adopt a code of conduct.

I've attached a simplified, and up to date, chart tallying up how people have responded in this thread.

Based on Matz's responses, and the general response of the community, I think it would be more helpful if we steered the conversation towards choosing which code of conduct we'd like to see implemented.

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

@Benton Barnett. What percentage of those in favor are part of the compromise versions? I, as well as others, have agreed Jeremy Evans and Matz variations on the PostgreSQLs CoC are an excellent compromise.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Based on Matz's responses, and the general response of the community, I think it would be more helpful if we steered the conversation towards choosing which code of conduct we'd like to see implemented.

I agree. It is nearly a week and I believe everyone has had their input. I think the next step is for Matz to choose the CoC that he finds appropriate.

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

Daniel P. Clark wrote:

@Benton Barnett. What percentage of those in favor are part of the compromise versions? I, as well as others, have agreed Jeremy Evans and Matz variations on the PostgreSQLs CoC are an excellent compromise.

Tallying up those different options is difficult. Most people seem to discuss the different CoCs, but only a few people explicitly endorse one or the other. I'm hesitant to tally up anything that isn't explicitly stated by the messages author.

That being said, the most popular Code of Conduct that has been proposed so far is the Contributor Covenant, with 21 people explicitly saying that are for it. 14 people have explicitly supported a different CoC (Jeremy's, Matz's or PostgreSQL's). However, I don't feel that these numbers are indicative of the situation, due to how few people are explicitly stating which code of conduct they support.

[sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada)]

Benton Barnett wrote:

That being said, the most popular Code of Conduct that has been proposed so far is the Contributor Covenant, with 21 people explicitly saying that are for it. 14 people have explicitly supported a different CoC (Jeremy's, Matz's or PostgreSQL's). However, I don't feel that these numbers are indicative of the situation, due to how few people are explicitly stating which code of conduct they support.

This is not voting. The numbers do not mean anything. Although Matz asked for opinions, the final decision is solely dependent on him. And since he has already expressed that he does not want to adopt Coraline's version, that version has already gone out of the question.

[shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)]

For record: I support having a CoC. Which one to have must be up to Matz I believe. And he already explicitly said "not this" to the porposed one (#95). It has no chance.

PS. "It is controversial what design is a good design. As to a bad design on the other hand, it is clear that a design selected by a majority vote is always a bad design." -- Kazumasa Nagai.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Gordon King wrote:

Coraline I just saw your tweet where you quoted my #320 above and left out my last line, thereby removing the full context from my point, which was the fact that a social media fanatic when forced to get offline was better for it.

https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/691007711824089088

Before the thread dies completely, could I just acknowledge Coraline's action.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Andrew Vit wrote:

Will the CoC require that there is a 24/7 hotline and SLA too?

"Community standards only enforced during local standard business hours."
https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690619432675123200

Some clarifications:

• Many maintainer actions on this very thread were taken before the start of business in Japan, or on a Saturday.
• Maintainers are volunteers. During business hours, they probably work on their day jobs. So the chance that some moderator action happens during business hours may actually be lower than during some other times of the day.
• The earth rotates, and the sun shines at different times in different parts of the world. Therefore people tend to wake and sleep at different times. This is (mildly put) difficult to change.
• I don't know any open source projects that promise or guarantee 24/7 addressing of issues, be it social issues or technical issues. I haven't yet seen any CoC promising something like this, for obvious reasons.

[shevegen (Robert A. Heiler)]

Hmm I was wanting to write a long reply just now about how I dislike this
code of conduct, but then I read that the current variant was not approved
nor would be fitting to ruby or the ruby philosophy, so it was kind of moot
to reply a lot to it. :)

(Although I have some questions about claims such as "Since it came from and
has been so widely adopted by the Ruby community" since I did not see any
statistical and unbiased analysis for such a claim.)

People are different. Matz always said so too, including the design and
philosophy of ruby - there is more than one way to do it also means that
there is more than one way to use ruby. Any code of conduct that would or would
not be chosen, should also reflect that. The above code proposal is not good
for many reasons, it is very vague such as "Other unethical or unprofessional
conduct" because who defines what is a "professional conduct"? People are
different, cultures are different. The main focus of proposals but also
contributions should be on technical aspects. Is this or that change good?
What are the trade offs and side effects? Is the documentation useful? Which
changes should happen next to ruby? And so on and so forth.

One of the best changes to ruby in the last two years was the "did you mean"
gem. I am a big fan. It may not appear huge, but it's simply awesome. It
is about the human aspect too. And it did not need a code of conduct - good
ideas can happen from anywhere, all the time.

David Celis wrote:

Robert Klemme wrote:

Folks,

I guess by now all the arguments have been presented already. I'll just post in case someone wants to draw a statistic from this comment thread and give my perspective.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

My suggestion to adopt the Contributor Covenant was a first step. Ideally each community starts with something like this and evolves and shapes it to suit their particular needs.

Please don't. This will almost inevitably draw some people to spend time and time again "improving" the wording of the CoC. With this discussion (currently at 300+ comments!) we can see the effect already: people spend time discussing a document rather than actually being nice to each other and given those appropriate feedback that are not nice.

What's important in this process however is that people who might otherwise feel excluded from certain open source communities be involved in shaping the final code of conduct.

This means that people who might feel excluded must be given chance to work on the CoC while for all others it is optional.

Please do not get me wrong: I am sympathetic of the goal to give more people a chance to contribute that for whatever reason do not do it today. But I object installint a CoC for a number of reasons:

• I do not see that we actually have an issue with "non niceness".

Not seeing a problem doesn't mean it's not there. I feel that many comments made in this thread show "non niceness". But like myself and others have said, this is not about "non niceness", this is about an avenue to dealing with real harassment if and when it happens.

The problem that you are raising, which might exist in your society, is not universal.
Not every society works like yours. Some problems of your zannen society only generate disbelief.
The world is diverse, and your strength and limitation are not everyone's.
You would be greatly inspired to respect this diversity and acknowledge it instead of presuming
everyone should be protected of problems which are fundamentally yours.
It takes some humility to recognize it but that also opens up a better understanding of
the world.

Should you feel like it is a real problem in your society, it would be a first step to tackle it
at the appropriate level and not in some obscure technical circle. Indeed the point you are
raising has nothing to do with Ruby.

People going to non-ruby conferences, people not going to conference at all, they should
also not be subjected to harassment. If you are humble enough, you will recognize that this
thought of yours is not original and new. That's why civilized societies organized
themselves around a code of conduct which they call a law.

This idea of having a law is a very old one, and went through many reforms as it is not easy
to have the necessary checks and bounds. It would be very presumptuous, on top of being
illegal, to imagine that you can pretend to have such balance in place on your own at
a worldwide scale, and reconcile what is non-acceptable here with what is completely normal
there.

• Some people seem to believe that having a CoC solves issues - which is nonsense of course.

It's not nonsense. I have seen CoCs solve issues. The Portland Ruby community has a code of conduct and it hasn't had to be used often, but it has been used to solve several issues that community members have come to us with.

Then by all means, have a Code Of Conduct if you feel like the population of Portland need one.
But those concerns talks about this population and it has nothing to do with the technical
concerns of a programming language, especially used worldwide.

You should again realize that this place you are describing is very specific and the situation
of : an english colony, having replaced natives, with a history of slavery, in needs of communicating
how nice they are, while having no intention of giving back the stolen territory, is a very
specific situation. Most of the world out there does not experience any of this.
Most of the word does not have this dire need to send out there some message about how
good they are.

• I have the impression that some expect a CoC ensures maximum happiness of all community members. This will never happen as conflicts are human.

This isn't about ensuring maximum happiness. Again, it's about having a documented way of what we feel constitutes real harassment and how to deal with it when it occurs.

Documenting it means giving the instruction manual to deranged minds on how to abuse it.
Quite the opposite, it is essential, should you want to really foster a good spirit, you would keep
a technical realm technical and oriented toward technic and nothing else.

But abuse is precisely what is looked after here, and the reason why this first step is played out.

May be some kind of compromise will be reached giving the power to Matz in front of a moderate
pushback, but make no mistake, this is a first step before a 2nd, a 3rd and eventually a control.
Every step will be made in the name of some good cause. once for this. once for that.
Each step will actually be motivated by an ulterior motive.

• A CoC will encourage some bad, unnecessary or unwanted behaviors:
  • judging and policing of others pointing to the "law"
  • spending time on working on the CoC
  • even founding a CoC Committee
  • debating interpretation of particular rules (while creating the CoC, but also later on)

Nobody is going to be judging or policing. People just wanna be a part of Ruby without being afraid to show themselves for who they are.

Some people just saw that people are manipulable, good hearted, well meaning, and decided to abuse of it
to foster their political agenda.

• We are grown ups and every grown up should know how to behave. Those who are not, will remove themselves from the community by their behavior or be removed by the community - regardless whether a CoC exists or not.

Being a grownup doesn't mean one knows how to behave.

The grown up have already made laws. As a citizen you can vote for them.
As a ruby programmer, you have nothing to say about what it means to be a grown up or not.
You are confused and mixing genres.

If we follow your twisted direction, why not have the Senate vote on evolution of the Ruby language ?

And while yes, a CoC is not required to remove people from the community for awful behavior, it is important to be able to state why someone was removed and why that behavior was awful. It's also important to state how someone could be welcomed back if they choose to work hard at returning.

Awful behavior .. like trying to impose something that Ruby has nothing to do with ?
Awful behavior .. like having the prevention of being morally qualified to punish people ?
Or like bringing your political ideas to some technical project ?

• I do not support the goal of featherbedding everybody. There are too many people insulted by peanuts that make noise or even harm others. People need to learn (again) that life also has its harsh sides and nobody is entitled a first row seat in heaven.

This isn't about a first row seat in heaven, either. This is about literally basic human rights to participate in this public space without being harassed.

For once you are right. This is about basic things.
So basic that it's kind of not at all the mission of some programming language to deal with it.
So basic that it has already been taken care of in a legislative framework.
It would be a great service to everyone if you could recognize this basic fact

• I very much prefer the Buddhist approach to define the noble goal ("reduce suffering") and leave it to the individual's responsibility to do the needful in every situation than other religious approaches which give detailed rules ("here are the rules, this is forbidden, this is allowed") which tend to be applied thoughtlessly across the board.

Individuals don't tend to take action when they're in a group unless they're pointed to and told, "Hey we need you to do this thing." A CoC makes folks more likely to speak out when they see bad behavior.

I am sure all the people who contributed to making Ruby will appreciate the fact that they "did not take action"
No doubt they were waiting for you to come and tell them what to do.
Or do you mean Ruby is a negligible outcome ?

Or are you talking of something completely different than Ruby ?
Then dont argue of things irrelevant to Ruby on bugs.ruby-lang.org

If someone needs a negative example you can look at what is happening at US university campuses currently (search for keywords "trigger warning" and "microagression"). There are a lot of people under way with very good intentions but in the process they loose completely sight of the right measure with negative consequences for freedom of speech and even some individuals who have lost their jobs because of peanuts.

I just… I can't even. I think my other responses are enough.

You know just don't. it's ok.

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

David Celis wrote:

Robert Klemme wrote:

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

• I do not see that we actually have an issue with "non niceness".

Not seeing a problem doesn't mean it's not there.

But it also does not mean it is there. Can someone please point me to some examples of real issues our community has that are addressed by the suggested CoCs?

I feel that many comments made in this thread show "non niceness". But like myself and others have said, this is not about "non niceness", this is about an avenue to dealing with real harassment if and when it happens.

As others have pointed out already, there are laws for that. So wouldn't a CoC be just stating "we abide by the law"?

• Some people seem to believe that having a CoC solves issues - which is nonsense of course.

It's not nonsense. I have seen CoCs solve issues. The Portland Ruby community has a code of conduct and it hasn't had to be used often, but it has been used to solve several issues that community members have come to us with.

Maybe I did not make my point very clear: the existence of a CoC (or a law for that matter) does not solve any problem - it is people acting who solve problems - by abiding by the rules or enforcing them. I guess you can find a law in every country that is ineffective, because it is not enforced or otherwise ignored.

• A CoC will encourage some bad, unnecessary or unwanted behaviors:
  • judging and policing of others pointing to the "law"

Nobody is going to be judging or policing. People just wanna be a part of Ruby without being afraid to show themselves for who they are.

I think you are being very optimistic here. I think the video that Andrew Vit referred to shows one example of the type of behavior I was referring to.

• We are grown ups and every grown up should know how to behave. Those who are not, will remove themselves from the community by their behavior or be removed by the community - regardless whether a CoC exists or not.

Being a grownup doesn't mean one knows how to behave.

OK, there I am being optimistic: for me the definition of "grown up" includes civilized manners. :-)

And while yes, a CoC is not required to remove people from the community for awful behavior, it is important to be able to state why someone was removed and why that behavior was awful.

And you cannot express that without reference to a CoC? What about laws or the judgement of community moderators? Btw. "awful" is not a good legal category, it is just too subjective and imprecise.

It's also important to state how someone could be welcomed back if they choose to work hard at returning.

That seems to be an important point missing from the suggested CoC.

---

Unrelated to David's comment: I believe we can see a partition forming among commenters here between "in favor of" and "against". That in itself is an unfortunate effect. If bringing up the topic of a CoC does not solve problems our community really has, then we all have lost.

Please let us keep this discussion as civilized as it has been for most parts to not cause unnecessary harm! Thank you!

[asterite (Ary Borenszweig)]

My personal belief is that the issue with these CoCs is who enforces them. It seems Matz and other members don't want to spend part of their time in thinking and judging "Is this comment harassment? Should I ban this member? Should I remove this comment?". That is, spending that time in addition to already spending time on the project: code, issues, pull requests, etc, which, if you ever managed an open source project, takes a huge amount of time.

If they agree to Coraline's CoC but later they don't enforce it, who will take action? Will you, Coraline, go to every project where you introduced your CoC and check that the rules are enforced? It's a really hard and tedious task, if not impossible.

That's why I agree with Matz: the CoC should show intentions (might be removed, edited, etc.) but no enforcements (will be removed, edited, etc.)

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Robert Klemme wrote:

David Celis wrote:
I feel that many comments made in this thread show "non niceness". But like myself and others have said, this is not about "non niceness", this is about an avenue to dealing with real harassment if and when it happens.

As others have pointed out already, there are laws for that. So wouldn't a CoC be just stating "we abide by the law"?

I partly agree with you here, but the laws are hazy and online harassment is very rarely dealt with by law enforcement in my experience. I've seen hundreds of death threats online in my day and it's never the law that steps in… I'd love for "we abide by the law" to be enough, but I don't think that it is.

Maybe I did not make my point very clear: the existence of a CoC (or a law for that matter) does not solve any problem - it is people acting who solve problems - by abiding by the rules or enforcing them. I guess you can find a law in every country that is ineffective, because it is not enforced or otherwise ignored.

Sorry, I think I need to be more clear here too! The problem that the existence of a CoC is meant to solve is to provide clear definition on what anti-harassment measures we're trying to be vigilant about enacting.

And while yes, a CoC is not required to remove people from the community for awful behavior, it is important to be able to state why someone was removed and why that behavior was awful.

And you cannot express that without reference to a CoC? What about laws or the judgement of community moderators? Btw. "awful" is not a good legal category, it is just too subjective and imprecise.

Yeah, "awful" is definitely a subjective word. I just used it as an umbrella for the listed sorts of harassing behaviors in the CoC. And sure, it can be expressed without reference to a CoC, but having that CoC as a document to express it in less ambiguous terms and in a visible spot helps.

It's also important to state how someone could be welcomed back if they choose to work hard at returning.

That seems to be an important point missing from the suggested CoC.

I agree; it's meant to be addressed by the phrasing "temporary or permanent removal from the community" but people definitely seem to be very focused on the fact that permanent removal is possible. That is meant to be a very extreme and very last resort, but perhaps it can be worded differently to be more optimistic or realistic?

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

Tsuyoshi Sawada wrote:

Benton Barnett wrote:

That being said, the most popular Code of Conduct that has been proposed so far is the Contributor Covenant, with 21 people explicitly saying that are for it. 14 people have explicitly supported a different CoC (Jeremy's, Matz's or PostgreSQL's). However, I don't feel that these numbers are indicative of the situation, due to how few people are explicitly stating which code of conduct they support.

This is not voting. The numbers do not mean anything. Although Matz asked for opinions, the final decision is solely dependent on him.

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you for reiterating that. Since the goal of a code of conduct is to protect the underprivileged, a group which may not have it's voice fully heard, I don't think the code of conduct should be chosen by a popular vote.

And since he has already expressed that he does not want to adopt Coraline's version, that version has already gone out of the question.

Yes. I was providing these numbers as a summary, since this thread has gotten quite long. Even though Matz has said he doesn't want to adopt the Contributor Covenant, I felt it would be disrespectful to people who had voiced their support for it if I excluded them from the totals.

Thank you for reminding us to stay on topic. Specifically, towards crafting a code of conduct that fits the Ruby community.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Suggested draft for community guidelines. I've tried to incorporate language that other people have suggested without losing any context or important criteria.

--

== Ruby Community Guidelines ==

As part of our collective culture we believe that the Ruby community should be open and welcoming to everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for people engaging with and contributing to to the Ruby community. It applies to all collaborative spaces and documents, including mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, big reports, and pull requests.

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

• Participants must agree that the use of sexual imagery, sexual language, and sexual
  advances are not conducive to a professional environment and must be avoided.

• Participants must not publish non-public contact information about other members of the community, including physical addresses or other private information.

• Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a pattern of behaviour which could reasonably be considered harassment will not be tolerated.

• Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by sending an email to [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Respondents are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

We believe that by thoughtfully abiding by these community guidelines, we help Ruby fulfill its promise to make people happy and to put the needs of the community first.

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Suggested draft for community guidelines. I've tried to incorporate language that other people have suggested without losing any context or important criteria.

Thank you for the update!

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by sending an email to [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Respondents are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

That means some form of institution, however small or informal, needs to be created and run by one or more persons. I am highlighting this because I think that would be a consequence of adopting a text as CoC which includes that section of which everybody should be aware.

We believe that by thoughtfully abiding by these community guidelines, we help Ruby fulfill its promise to make people happy and to put the needs of the community first.

Hey, David, you see, it is about happiness. ;-)

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

There's a problem with this line here. In the past we've had German participants who have told others their code or design was very stupid. Those who are native Germans are known to be very direct, and while this line has good intentions on "disparaging personal remarks" there's a conflict with what others have already mentioned relating to a problem with attempting to apply a universal code for all.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

I can see your point, but I doubt that a statement about someone's code, rude as it might be to others, would be interpreted as a disparaging personal remark. "This code is stupid" != "you are stupid".

[blowmage (Mike Moore)]

I have a great deal of respect for Coraline revising her original document to address many of the concerns raised on this issue. I look forward to reading Matz's thoughts on it. I am optimistic a compromise can be reached.

Thanks to all that have, and will, participate on this issue in good faith.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

Mike Moore wrote:

I have a great deal of respect for Coraline revising her original document to address many of the concerns raised on this issue. I look forward to reading Matz's thoughts on it. I am optimistic a compromise can be reached.

Thanks to all that have, and will, participate on this issue in good faith.

I agree, it definitely reads a lot nicer, and much respect for taking consideration of criticism and returning with a much more suitable version.

I do still feel the terseness of the code of conduct put forth by Jeremy Evans is much more suitable, although I acknowledge that perhaps a mention of a way to address or remediate grievances whilst maintaining confidentiality is worth including.

Edit:

I also feel that whatever is chosen is still called a code of conduct. Enforcement not being a requirement of such a code. As Jeremy argued before this is a "no true scotsman" fallacy to discount any of the proposed code of conducts, as not.

Lastly, I still feel a harsh enforcement mechanism is like supplying firearms to an otherwise peaceful community. I would like to suggest remediation of grievences be offered, but even then I dont think our esteemed Japanese partners in the community are suitable at this.

Therefore I still feel it best for Jeremy Evans code of conduct be chosen, and let's revisit this at a later time, perhaps 3 months to 1 year later. I feel we will come to the conclusion that enforcement and punitive measures are not warranted.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Suggested draft for community guidelines. I've tried to incorporate language that other people have suggested without losing any context or important criteria.

--

== Ruby Community Guidelines ==

As part of our collective culture we believe that the Ruby community should be open and welcoming to everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

What on earth is "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" ?

If english is not the language to be used, I would suggest we switch to Japanese.
Using the language of the legitimate creators and owners of Ruby would seem appropriate and
help filter the discussion from outsiders wanting to impose outside constraints.

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for people engaging with and contributing to to the Ruby community. It applies to all collaborative spaces and documents, including mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, big reports, and pull requests.

Who said providing a "safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place" was more a priority now than yesterday ?
Who says that those guidelines provide a "safer, respectfuler, productiver, and collaborativer place"
than not having them ?

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

What about "Audience must ensure that their ears only listen to language and actions which they
deem to be free of personnel attacks" ?

Ruby is a programming language. There is no specific reason to be taking extra care apart from what is
normally taken and to which everyone, in Ruby or not is entitled.
That protection is given by the law. Any action you will take against the law will
be punished by the law. We have no right to craft legislation on our own.

• Participants must agree that the use of sexual imagery, sexual language, and sexual
  advances are not conducive to a professional environment and must be avoided.

Again, those points have nothing to do with Ruby.
In Europe, breast in public at the beach are not considered sexual.
Among the victorian society you represent, it is considered so.
Now Ruby should have an opinion too ?

If that was not enough, the subtle and understandable distinction you
make yourself of "gender" VS "gender expression" VS "gender other",
guarantee byzantine discussion as to what is sexual and what is not.

And honestly, your opinion on those subject are irrelevant to
Ruby the language in the first place. Take them with you, and tell them
to interested people, not to a technical community.

Should you persist on perturbing this technical community with your
political ideas, it will be perfectly warranted to take positive action
unambiguously opposite of the ones you are promoting, in order to
disincentive you to persist on imposing your crazy ideas.

• Participants must not publish non-public contact information about other members of the community, including physical addresses or other private information.
• Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a pattern of behaviour which could reasonably be considered harassment will not be tolerated.

What about animal cruelty and pedophilia ?
What makes those subjects unrelated to Ruby less worthy than the other subject
unrelated to Ruby that you want to introduce here ?

• Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.

I ask you to stop your unacceptable behavior.
Please comply immediately.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by sending an email to [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Respondents are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

Please stop abusing this technical community by polluting it with your political ideas.
Please stop considering you entitled to be able to judge anyone.
Please be respectful of others, and the collective effort they have put in having
such a wonderful language.
Please be humble enough to not think they were waiting for you to start respecting other.

We believe that by thoughtfully abiding by these community guidelines, we help Ruby fulfill its promise to make people happy and to put the needs of the community first.

You believe many things that the rest of the world does not believe

Mike Moore wrote:

I have a great deal of respect for Coraline revising her original document to address many of the concerns raised on this issue. I look forward to reading Matz's thoughts on it. I am optimistic a compromise can be reached.

Thanks to all that have, and will, participate on this issue in good faith.

You are thankful about being stoned with small rocks instead of big ones ?
The concern is the code of conduct itself.

It is : 1- morally a bad idea 2- intellectually a very bad idea and 3- legally an
extremely bad idea, as decision taken will be susceptible to be challenged
in court with damage liabilities..

Ruby is a programing language, not a legislative body, and it is unwise and deluded
to believe otherwise.

Let's protect Ruby at once

Robert Klemme wrote:

That means some form of institution, however small or informal, needs to be created and run by one or more persons.
I am highlighting this because I think that would be a consequence of adopting a text as CoC which includes that section of which everybody should be aware.

Right, so listen Robert, you think about creating an institution to police people's behavior.
You. among all the people in the world.

Not only are you not mandated to do so, but should you ever be, there
are some other institutions which have been crafted over the centuries
to protect the rights, both individuals and collective, of everyone.

It is everyone's gift at birth to have the right to be protected against all
the people in the world with their strange ideas and desire to force others.

So I wish you good luck in your journey to discovery. May be you genuinely
believe in what you say. Bell curve have proven well grounded concepts,
and everyone desserve respect for who they are.

But the uselessness to bring those trouble to Ruby, a programming language, is
quite clear.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Should you persist on perturbing this technical community with your
political ideas, it will be perfectly warranted to take positive action
unambiguously opposite of the ones you are promoting, in order to
disincentive you to persist on imposing your crazy ideas.

It's hard not to read this as a threat.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

ph ph wrote:

What on earth is "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" ?

If english is not the language to be used, I would suggest we switch to Japanese.
Using the language of the legitimate creators and owners of Ruby would seem appropriate and
help filter the discussion from outsiders wanting to impose outside constraints.

I will chime in on this topic.

Gender identity is what a person feels like they are, male, female or the third sex from the Asian aspect. In the US we have non-English gender identities which fall outside of those three.

Gender on the other hand isn't appropriate for any legal framework or code of conduct. Many people on the SJW side have attempted to hijack the conversation to equate gender to biological sex.

What Coraline probably means is "biological sex" as in what your DNA is constructed. This is different than secondary sexual characteristics, which many on the SJW side attempt to hijack for their own political views even though it's in contract with science in the same way religious people attempt to bash science for their own political purposes.

TL;DR
gender is wrong. She means to use "Biological sex"
gender identity is what a person identifies as in life.

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

ph ph wrote:

What on earth is "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" ?

The American Psychological Association has a short PDF that defines those terms and how they relate to each other: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexuality-definitions.pdf

Ruby Dino wrote:

She means to use "Biological sex"

I think Caroline is perfectly capable to say the words that she means. I appreciate your attempt to clarify, but please don't attempt to speak for other people.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Benton Barnett wrote:

ph ph wrote:

What on earth is "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" ?

The American Psychological Association has a short PDF that defines those terms and how they relate to each other: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexuality-definitions.pdf

Ruby Dino wrote:

She means to use "Biological sex"

So, if those are the facts as to what are used for official diagnosis guidelines, then sex needs to be added to Coraline's "Ruby Community Guidelines"

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

ph ph wrote:

Robert Klemme wrote:

That means some form of institution, however small or informal, needs to be created and run by one or more persons.
I am highlighting this because I think that would be a consequence of adopting a text as CoC which includes that section of which everybody should be aware.

Right, so listen Robert, you think about creating an institution to police people's behavior.
You. among all the people in the world.

I don't know what makes you believe I am thinking about doing that - certainly not my comments here. Apparently you are misreading me or have not been reading my earlier comments. You are addressing that to the wrong person.

Please take a break.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It's hard not to read this as a threat.

It could certainly be read that way, but given english isn't PH's first language he should be given a chance to clarify.

PH you and I share similar opinions on the value of politically laden CoCs and you've made some excellent points regarding the US centric nature of the social justice movement, but let's keep it sporting my friend (if you did let passion get away on you).

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Suggested draft for community guidelines. I've tried to incorporate language that other people have suggested without losing any context or important criteria.

--

== Ruby Community Guidelines ==

As part of our collective culture we believe that the Ruby community should be open and welcoming to everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for people engaging with and contributing to to the Ruby community. It applies to all collaborative spaces and documents, including mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, big reports, and pull requests.

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

• Participants must agree that the use of sexual imagery, sexual language, and sexual
  advances are not conducive to a professional environment and must be avoided.

• Participants must not publish non-public contact information about other members of the community, including physical addresses or other private information.

• Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a pattern of behaviour which could reasonably be considered harassment will not be tolerated.

• Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by sending an email to [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Respondents are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

We believe that by thoughtfully abiding by these community guidelines, we help Ruby fulfill its promise to make people happy and to put the needs of the community first.

I see the following disadvantages of these "community guidelines":

1. Enumerates protected characteristics, making some protected
   characteristics (e.g. gender, gender identity) seeming more
   important than other characteristics (e.g. economic status, criminal
   history).

2. Contains ambiguous terms. Specifically "otherwise unacceptable
   behavior" and "disrupt the collaborative space" are ambiguous and
   prone to selective enforcement.

3. The final statement implies a promise and belief that I don't believe
   has been made.

4. The section about sexual imagery/language requires that participants
   agree to something, not merely that they don't post them.

5. Expecting "immediate" compliance can have issues for the mailing lists,
   where the posting asking to stop unacceptable behavior can appear before
   other posts, even though it was sent after.

6. Enforces obligations on the people responding to complaints, which can
   cause issues if the process is abused.

7. The posting of sexual imagery/language and the posting of non-public
   contact information can already be reasonably considered harassment,
   so listing them specifically is unnecessary.

8. Is not a "code of conduct". Since this ticket is about establishing a
   code of conduct, that should disqualify it.

The revised code of conduct I proposed in comment 329 does not suffer
from these issues, and is significantly shorter.

[bentonbarnett (Benton Barnett)]

I agree with many of the points you brought up, Jeremy. Thank you for taking the time to be so thorough. I did have two things I wanted to bring up:

Jeremy Evans wrote:

7. The posting of sexual imagery/language and the posting of non-public
   contact information can already be reasonably considered harassment,
   so listing them specifically is unnecessary.

I've encountered a fair number of people who don't consider sexual imagery/language to be harassment. Personally, I think that it would be beneficial for a code of conduct to explicitly mention that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.

Jeremy Evans wrote:

8. Is not a "code of conduct". Since this ticket is about establishing a
   code of conduct, that should disqualify it.

I don't think we should disqualify a draft from consideration due to a semantics issue, especially since these community guidelines accomplish very similar goals as the other codes of conduct mentioned in this ticket.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Benton Barnett wrote:

I've encountered a fair number of people who don't consider sexual imagery/language to be harassment. Personally, I think that it would be beneficial for a code of conduct to explicitly mention that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.

I'll have to disagree here as one may construed a person from a different cultural background where sexuality isn't so fragile. I talk about sexual topics on occasion, including animal and fantasy dildos from Bad-Dragon. I usually talk about such things when discussing 3d design and programs which utilize Python as the capable rendering language. This also includes 3d designs using the Python language to make bondage equipment as well. Though as I stated earlier if talking about topics on one to one and someone asks, I do take it in to a private channel.

Americans tend to have a fragile aspect of sexuality, but not everyone does. If you want to be respectful of people's sex, gender, identity and expression, then you also need to be respectful of people's other mental health regarding sexual topics of nature which are appropriate.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 5:13 PM, [e-mail] wrote:

Issue #12004 has been updated by Benton Barnett.

ph ph wrote:

What on earth is "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" ?

The American Psychological Association has a short PDF that defines those terms and how they relate to each other: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexuality-definitions.pdf

Thank you for clarifying. But I feel you explained they are accurate
but not good word for an international community.
If some non-native speaker complains "hey! it's hard to understand",
It might be time to reconsider to take another and easy word because
of the purpose of the document.

[shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)]

I'm not sure about other languages but in Japanese language, there do exist corresponding words for biological sex and gender identity. Switching to Japanese does not solve the difficulty to understand those concepts.

[shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)]

I read Coraline's Ruby Community Guidelines again. Now I feel it deserves a nod. Definitely well thought-out, respectful to our conversation in this thread, with languages carefully chosen. I see those differences between Jeremy's are non-essential (rather it smells a bit like bikeshed).

We have kept this thread open for a week now and I start feeling we need a landing point. A Code of Conduct (or a Guideline, whichever) needs to be revised on occasions anyways so I'd like to propose merging either Jeremy's or Coraline's which Matz feels better. Then start improving that. Ideas?

[dblock (Daniel Doubrovkine)]

Ruby Grape has adopted a code of conduct, adapted from the Contributor Covenant, http://www.ruby-grape.org/code_of_conduct. I support having one for Ruby itself.

[kivikakk (Asherah Connor)]

The new guidelines look good. I support Shyouhei's suggestion to leave the final decision up to Matz.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

I'm glad we're getting a community guideline.

I'll be happier when we also get a code of conduct.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

i support Jeremy's objections to Coraline's latest revision as detailed in #362. There is too much opportunity for mischief by meddlesome bureaucrats (whether formal or otherwise).

I also look forward to Matz wrapping this up one way or the other :)

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

Hey Gordon,

Can you give us any examples your fears (any) happening in (any) projects?

Specifically let us know if your fears (well detailed in this thread) have happened in:

• Rails
• Rust
• Swift
• Elixir
• Diaspora
• Discourse
• Eclipse
• RSpec
• RVM
• Rubygems (any)
• VCR
• Spree
• ActiveAdmin
• Atom
• Babel
• Celluloid
• Crystal
• Gitlab

Because those are all Contributor Covenant users and I haven't heard any of them deciding to get rid of it.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Shyouhei Urabe wrote:

I read Coraline's Ruby Community Guidelines again. Now I feel it deserves a nod. Definitely well thought-out, respectful to our conversation in this thread, with languages carefully chosen. I see those differences between Jeremy's are non-essential (rather it smells a bit like bikeshed).

We have kept this thread open for a week now and I start feeling we need a landing point. A Code of Conduct (or a Guideline, whichever) needs to be revised on occasions anyways so I'd like to propose merging either Jeremy's or Coraline's which Matz feels better. Then start improving that. Ideas?

I agree wholeheartedly. I personally prefer Coraline's revisions but the differences, at this point, feel like bikeshedding to me as well. Either choice would be welcome, so I look forward to Matz' final decision!

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Irrelevant Kurtis.

"And frankly, as @yukihiro_matz has stated he doesn't feel like being responsible for helping people feel safe then fuck his leadership."

I don't want people like you, who can't deal honourably with their political opponents, using vitriol and bad-faith summation of views even in such a low-stakes arena as a technical programming community, anywhere near any form of judgement about what is appropriate behaviour. Passionate, inflamed activists like yourself inevitably end up as both prosecutor and judge once the laws are codified. Eventually people like me just leave, and only people like you remain. I'm sure many are happy with that outcome, but I find it a tragedy that yet another sphere of civil society is rent by political division.

[sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada)]

Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:

I'm glad we're getting a community guideline.

I'll be happier when we also get a code of conduct.

Wasn't this website powered by Redmine? How was it possible for this guy to post without using Redmine
(Cf. https://twitter.com/krainboltgreene/status/690773954810613760)? Does anyone know?

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It applies to all collaborative spaces and documents, including mailing lists, IRC, submitted patches, big reports, and pull requests.

If it list up spaces, it should explicitly the area the guideline governs. for example

• *.ruby-lang.org
• GitHub ruby project
• Mailing lists: ruby-core, ruby-talk, ruby-dev, ruby-list

• Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.

• Participants must agree that the use of sexual imagery, sexual language, and sexual
  advances are not conducive to a professional environment and must be avoided.

• Participants must not publish non-public contact information about other members of the community, including physical addresses or other private information.

• Participants who disrupt the collaborative space, or participate in a pattern of behaviour which could reasonably be considered harassment will not be tolerated.

These descriptions are too long for non native.
Could you describe like Go?
Add cite for each words for example Wikipedia is more helpful.

• Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behavior is expected to comply immediately.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by sending an email to [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances. Respondents are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

s/complaints/issues/g seems good.

[normalperson (Eric Wong)]

[e-mail] wrote:

Wasn't this website powered by Redmine? How was it possible for this guy to be able to post without using Redmine

Redmine is integrated with the ruby-core mailing list. All issue posts
on Redmine hit the ruby-core ML and replies via ruby-core go to Redmine.

I would not have bothered to participate in the dozens of Ruby discussions
over the years if it were not for this mailing list integration. I cannot
stand filling out form inputs on HTML.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

[I'm only writing this as my personal opinion, not speaking for Matz or anybody else.]

Ary Borenszweig wrote:

My personal belief is that the issue with these CoCs is who enforces them. It seems Matz and other members don't want to spend part of their time in thinking and judging "Is this comment harassment? Should I ban this member? Should I remove this comment?". That is, spending that time in addition to already spending time on the project: code, issues, pull requests, etc, which, if you ever managed an open source project, takes a huge amount of time.

I don't think anybody would want to spend time on such issues if they could avoid it. There are many more fun activities to spend your time on.

However, I think that Matz and others up to now have shown that they care for the community, and that if necessary, they will take some action. MINASWAN wasn't born out of a vacum, it came from how Matz was and is leading the community. Also, having a look at some of Matz's invited talks at conferences will show that he cares a lot for the community.

As such, I see an additional document not so much as a set of new rules, and much more as a clarification of things that in one way or another have been in practice all along already.

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

Yui NARUSE wrote:

These descriptions are too long for non native.

One of the very positive features of Contributor Covenant is that it has already been translated in 10 languages so far (with Japanese on the way, as Coraline mentioned earlier). I don't know how widely the other proposals have or can been translated, but this seems a relevant point for anyone concerned that non-simple English would be a detriment to the phrasing of a code of conduct.

ruby-lang.org is currently translated in 16 different languages. If Ruby's website and news can be translated in 16 languages, it's stands to reason that its code of conduct could be as well.

I'm sure any proposed text could be eventually translated into all 16 currently supported languages, but this would obviously some time and effort.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Should you persist on perturbing this technical community with your
political ideas, it will be perfectly warranted to take positive action
unambiguously opposite of the ones you are promoting, in order to
disincentive you to persist on imposing your crazy ideas.

It's hard not to read this as a threat.

It is a threat. A threat against your ideas.
But your reaction by calling this a general threat, implicitly meaning
against you as a person, proves once again your straightforward
political agenda, and what it will bring to Ruby.

Your argumentation is based on half truths just like you mention the
fact that we are "a community". We are not a community.
we are a technical community. Not a national community, or a
any community which should take extra precaution compared to
the rest of the people : if you feel something is to be done for
a cause you care, it has nothing specific to do with the Ruby
technical community.

Going back to the threat. It is a threat. But a threat against your
idea and how you believe you have nothing to loose in trying to
impose them.

If you continue to promote your political ideas in the technical
realm, we will, on principle, attack your ideas, to provide you with
the necessary incentives to stop.

It has nothing personal, nor is it linked to the ideas themselves you are
promoting. It is just on principle.

You want to impose nothing sexual
despite the fact that :

• you are willing to introduce a fringe psychological distinction of
  "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression"
• different cultures consider different things sexual

Clearly this is a bound to fail even in theory, and this trainwreck should
be stopped.

All this has nothing to do with Ruby a programming language,
everything about your political ideas and will to impose them,
and promise nothing good but trouble as has now been evidenced.

Benton Barnett wrote:

ph ph wrote:

What on earth is "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" ?

The American Psychological Association has a short PDF that defines those terms and how they relate to each other: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexuality-definitions.pdf

Ruby Dino wrote:

She means to use "Biological sex"

I think Caroline is perfectly capable to say the words that she means. I appreciate your attempt to clarify, but please don't attempt to speak for other people.

It would be even better if said other people would keep their
ideas among their friends from the "psychological association"
of united states of america.

And not bother technical circles with them.

Especially of diverse worldwide cultures beyond their english
background.

I would suggest you go on a trip around the globe to explain your
"gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" concept
of which I intend to remain blissfully ignorant.

That said, if you find a bug in ruby after you come back, please
open a case.

Robert A. Heiler wrote:

The above code proposal is not good
for many reasons, it is very vague such as "Other unethical or unprofessional
conduct" because who defines what is a "professional conduct"? People are
different, cultures are different.

This blur is not a bug it's a feature to impose one's will
You can see that in action here.

"technical community" is replaced by "community", with the implicit
idea that it needs to have social rules. no it doesn't. society deals with
social rules.

"threat to your idea" is replaced with "threat" whit the implicit meaning
that there is a physical threat against a person.

etc, etc, etc....

Ruby Amateur wrote:

Based on Matz's responses, and the general response of the community, I think it would be more helpful if we steered the conversation towards choosing which code of conduct we'd like to see implemented.

I agree. It is nearly a week and I believe everyone has had their input. I think the next step is for Matz to choose the CoC that he finds appropriate.

Or not, because he could feel he does not have to have his agenda set up
that way, or he think a CoC, or he understands there are many troubled
people out there who might then read this as an instruction manual to
disrupt Ruby with their querulous paranoia *

• medical condition recognized by the American Psychiatry Association (not
  psychology....). just saying.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

ph ph wrote:

• medical condition recognized by the American Psychiatry Association (not
  psychology....). just saying.

Not to detract the conversation, but what is the difference? The American Psychiatry Association publishes the DSM manual. They're responsible for a diagnosis manual for the purposes of defining mental health conditions. I'm glad the other person pointed me to it, as I missed this update. I'm all about facts and science, no matter the end result. The distinction between terms are extremely important to me, as is the English language.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

The more I contemplate the revised code of conduct (or "community guidelines") by Caroline Ada Ehmke, on one hand I like the idea of allowing confidential addressing of grievences. However, I don't fully understand how the moderation of the Ruby community can be handled. First of all it requires infrastructure and policy to implement even the most basic grievence handling. Furthermore, I feel if left to Matz and his Japanese delegates (due to enforcing local laws), either side of a complaint can skillfully feign ignorance due to language barrier (and I acknowledge that I might be completely off base here). It also places a lot of mental burden deciding and judging what complies with the code of conduct and what doesn't. Lastly, I feel like code of conducts with enforcement and punitive measures is like giving delegates of a community firearms when the community was safe and peaceful for 20 years.

On the other hand, Jeremy Evan's proposed Code of Conduct in #329 is far simpler, easier to understand, and doesn't burden the project and community. I also think we can consider addressing grievences, punitive measuers, and enforcement at a later time. I just don't see the need to future proof these policies today, especially during a heated discussion where people are upset. I think if the community has proper data points collected to warrant enforcement and punitive measures, we should consider it.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

Can we please get some moderation?

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Suggested draft for community guidelines. I've tried to incorporate language that other people have suggested without losing any context or important criteria.

Thank you for taking the time to rework this Coraline, doing that work is much more constructive than most of this debate... I acknowledge that you find this new one a compromise, but this should be a process, not an unthinking "YES", whatever the new document is called in the end.

Before commenting on it myself, I would like to let your proposal settle in to see where Matz and the core team stand on it compared to other proposals. (I like Jeremy's version too.) I do think this one can be improved, but no blockers. Let me just say: it's much better.

Let me also make it very clear here that I would like us to respect each other professionally, even when we disagree. I still stand against any assertion that we need this, but I've already made my case for that. Count my vote against, but that's done. I'm not so stubborn that if something is very likely going to be accepted, that I would continue working against the process.

Please read the rest if you care to understand my original disagreement more clearly. I might not convince you of anything, but I would appreciate if you take the time.

The way the text of your original CoC was proposed here implies that ruby-core has problems that nobody in the group can see. It's insulting to imply we are somehow harboring terrible people without it. The whole thing has become a tempest in a teapot when people loudly insist this is so very necessary out of a clear blue sky.

I knew of your CoC previously because of the Opal.rb drama. And then, CoC 1.3.0 is supposedly even better because it covers spaces outside the project, like Twitter. You claim anyone who disagrees with this kind of CoC just wants to continue harassing vulnerable people online. No, that's twisting things. Speaking for myself, I don't want to have my work destroyed and be shamed over an overheard "dongle joke" or something equally stupid. It's too easy to happen when a CoC makes it anyone's whim to do something like that, especially when you round up a shaming brigade and amplify it. So many seemingly innocuous things these days are "obviously" racist or sexist to a certain part of the American audience. I'd like to try and protect good people and good projects from that kind of abuse.

I'm also going to defend myself when I'm unfairly attacked. Outside of this thread, I have seen words like "wolves", "assholes", threats of ostracism from the greater community, and probably worse applied to anyone who didn't outright say "YES" enthusiastically to the CoC. Some of these negative comments are from people whose software we pay real $$ for, and software that many of us (including myself) have freely contributed work for. THAT is also deeply insulting. Even if it wasn't directed at me personally, I've lost some respect for people because of it.

I've been part of the ruby community for 10 years, taking part by helping newcomers on IRC, mailing lists, StackOverflow, tutoring new coders as well as peers, (never mind the more technical side of patching & maintaining gems, and a few times here in MRI ruby too). I don't want a medal for this, but if I just get abuse for that, why should I still care about OSS? I'll tell you: it's because of the other good people in the ruby community, and I will stand up for their rights too.

Your supporters are calling me and others who disagree politely names for debating your proposal and the whole ball of ideology that comes with it. How could we respect your proposal at all when that is happening? Everyone has the right to say "NO".

You have a lot of influence with some section of the community, so would you please tell your followers to act by the spirit of your own Code of Conduct and respect people outside of your social group?

Finally, yes I know there are trolls on this topic, and it's unfortunate. They do get removed (eventually), but maybe they also need to hear "please stop" from peers they respect before it escalates. (I like to think we respect each other as peers here, so hopefully that carries some weight.) I've always just ignored the trolls myself (I am not a moderator), but I should also do my part to signal that isn't welcome here. I can promise to do at least that when I see it. Thank you to others I've seen above who have done that.

So,

I want to keep my right to debate doubtful claims and ideas (inside or outside any project) without being unfairly attacked: challenge my ideas, not my character.

While I disagree with you, I've never called you or anyone else here names, so please don't do it back or enable others when they do it. It only erodes the level of respect for your CoC.

Disagreement means we have diversity: I think these are both important values and I want to protect both, maybe just differently than you. Can we at least shake hands on that?

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:

Can we please get some moderation?

If we have any moderation, it will be the removal of yourself.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

I've found a good CoC everyone who isn't trying to push an agenda may find acceptable.

https://github.com/amacgregor/Pragmatists-Code-of-Conduct/blob/master/Prag-Code-of-Conduct.md

The Pragmatists Code of Conduct
1.- Ideas considered equally and must stand on it's own merit and not the reputation of the proponent.

2.- This code of conduct only governs the technical process of the project.

3.- All comments, contributions and interactions are assumed in good faith unless obvious evidence of contrary.

4.- While interacting with other project contributors in any of the official channels you are expected to show others civility and courtesy.

5.- The project creator and maintainers reserver the right to remove anyone that is deemed as acting on bad faith.

6.- This code of conduct is limited to only the official project spaces as defined by the project creator/maintainers.

7.- The project creator has final say in every decision of the project, technical or otherwise, including overruling previous decisions. There are no limitations to this decisional power.

8.- We only care about your contributions to the project, personal identifiers, including but not limited to, gender, sexual preference, religion, nationality, political preference, race, ethnicity, age, body type or disabilities are not relevant to your contributions or to the discussion.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

I state my opinion as one of administrators of bugs.ruby-lang.org.
This is not a consensus of the administrators, merely my opinion.
That said, as long as I have the administrative authority, the content of the following is valid.

Currently, in order to maintain the integrity of the discussion in this issue, creating new accounts have been suspended.
This means that we considered that this issue may be important, and this issue is occurring some hindrance to the development of Ruby.
I hope that everyone who comments to this issue understands that.

After this issue was opened, many new accounts are created.
Most of such accounts only commented to this issue.
Normally new comers are welcomed, but in this case, sorry, I am watching such accounts with distrust.
Therefore, I ask all of you to be careful with your words. Be gentle.

I'm sorry to interrupt the discussion.
Please continue the constructive discussion.

Ruby Dino wrote:

ph ph wrote:

• medical condition recognized by the American Psychiatry Association (not
  psychology....). just saying.

Not to detract the conversation, but what is the difference?

Psychology is to psychiatry what astrology is to astrophysics.
Now everyone is entitled to believe in astrology, many people do.

But thats another level of not having anything to do with a programming
language.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Usaku NAKAMURA wrote:

After this issue was opened, many new accounts are created.
Most of such accounts only commented to this issue.
Normally new comers are welcomed, but in this case, sorry, I am watching such accounts with distrust.

I hope you understand some of us who've created new accounts have done so for our own safety. The people trying to push the "Contributor's Covenant" have been known to successfully harass employers to get people fired, falsely report them to the police where they come in to the home with rifles (see "swatting"), spam the person's email and phone.

You shouldn't immediately distrust, some of us will gladly verify with you we've been in the community.

Usaku NAKAMURA wrote:

This means that we considered that this issue may be important, and

More precisely, you got coerced into considering this issue.

But if you deem it important, I am afraid that this will validate a strategy
and attract more issues unrelated to Ruby at the table. Today all those
gender variation, tomorrow another good cause for children, etc, etc..

this issue is occurring some hindrance to the development of Ruby.

Anything not related to Ruby is by definition causing hindrance to
the development of Ruby. That is the reason why only Ruby related
matters should be considered on the Ruby bugs list.

I hope that everyone who comments to this issue understands that.

After this issue was opened, many new accounts are created.
Most of such accounts only commented to this issue.
Normally new comers are welcomed, but in this case, sorry, I am watching such accounts with distrust.
Therefore, I ask all of you to be careful with your words. Be gentle.

I'm sorry to interrupt the discussion.
Please continue the constructive discussion.

Unfortunately the idea that there can be a constructive discussion on the
ruby bug list about a subject which has nothing to do with ruby is ill conceived.

There are many zannen people and the only wise thing to do is to keep
everything which does not belong to Ruby out of it.

It is wise and it is the most gentle thing to do for everyone.

Japanese maintainers can probably be trusted to reach a consensus by themselves,
but imagining that some isolated american can impose its views to the world
when what they are saying is not even understandable by its very own people is
ludicrous.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

You shouldn't immediately distrust, some of us will gladly verify with you we've been in the community.

Ah, "distrust" may be wrong word.
I simply want to say that you new comers are put at a disadvantage in my impression.
Be careful.

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

ph ph wrote:

Anything not related to Ruby is by definition causing hindrance to
the development of Ruby. That is the reason why only Ruby related
matters should be considered on the Ruby bugs list.

Matz commented to this issue already.
It means that this issue has been accepted.

Usaku NAKAMURA wrote:

I state my opinion as one of administrators of bugs.ruby-lang.org.
This is not a consensus of the administrators, merely my opinion.

Nakamura-san, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion.
But to get a communication going with, you need to have
enough shared vocabulary, common values and understanding.

And the difference is striking here : whereas the proposer comes
and slams its insulting "code of conduct" onto us, you are
apologizing for expressing your legitimate opinion with precaution.

That is why we can only hope to aim at a shared understanding and
mutual respect by doing things, by coding Ruby.

And by sidestepping the byzantine discussions at once.

One could highlight how wrong it would be to ever take as a
point of reference for moral authority some modern ideology
produced in a decadent society with a tainted history.

Far from being universal, it could on the contrary only have been
produced now and there. That makes it totally unfit to be applied
worldwide and dismissive of the diversity of cultures.

This is obvious even to them as they like to highlight notion
which did not exist a few years back and that constitute their
pride

But ultimately, arguing this is itself a danger and a waste of time.
The only wise rule is to have the Ruby technical community care about
Ruby, and only about Ruby. This is the best environment to care for
everyone, and the best we can do.

We can only aim for understanding, not listen to false prophets of peace,
accept limitations, both ours and the one outside us, and as Plato - a more
trusty occidental reference.. - walk the walk.

Usaku NAKAMURA wrote:

ph ph wrote:

Anything not related to Ruby is by definition causing hindrance to
the development of Ruby. That is the reason why only Ruby related
matters should be considered on the Ruby bugs list.

Matz commented to this issue already.
It means that this issue has been accepted.

Acknowledged. Which is wise considering many languages and project
have been the target of such action. He was probably waiting for it
sooner or later. This is not つくば市 anymore ..

His concerns are pretty fundamental :

"undefined or ambiguous terms", "what is the community after all", "some of us may not want", "contains.. punishment", "mean.. hurting individuals"
"covers activities/conversations out of "the community"" (his quotes) .....

Which only highlight how good he is, as I would not phrase them as nicely as he does

[Gedrovits (Vjatseslav Gedrovits)]

OK, let's step back and see the bigger picture.

What is proposed is some kind of regulatory document, with consequences, focused on rights on few specific groups.
Mentions the harassment word, which should be cautiously used in terms of legal law.
If Ruby tech community will decide adopt something like proposed Covenant, it will approve that we have problems described in the document, which is not true.

What's the problem with current state of Ruby tech community?
You can do pull requests, discuss the issues and nobody cares who you are or what you do in real life.
Do we have cases where pull request was rejected because of race?
Do we have cases where issues were rejected because was posted by someone of 'alternative' sex?

What is proposed here is code, which will benefit few specific groups, who will then eradicate others who don't belong in 'their' world.
This is not integration for those few group into, but force takeover. Like was said by person who proposed that on Twitter: (https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690334282607378432)
Read this like: we need some other, 'org' to manage Ruby tech community, someone who 'knows better' I suppose than we are?

I am in Ruby community for a few years now and not ever encountered any problems because of nationality, gender or whatever. If you read the Internet you see a lot of negative reaction against our people. Does this makes me harassed? Should I go and silently cry on Uncle Putin's shoulder? No. People are people. They may have opinions not same as yours. This is normal, unless they try to force their opinion as the only one truthy.

Returning to the point of proposed document. Group here is trying to force the conduct, which can be valid in some countries and societies. Ruby projects are international. There is no single country, which must dictate own rules about this.
As an example, even mentioning this "gender" VS "gender identity" VS "gender expression" stuff is forbidden by the law in Russia and other countries, who are also part of this tech community.

Accepting conduct which is valid in US is like yelling: we don't care about the others, we care only about rules existing in specific country.
Trying to adopt all possible countries laws will lead to fail and bureaucracy.
I can be insulted by things not appropriate in our country, nation or whatever, but who cares about us, yeah? We must make this group happy, because of what reason again?
"Build it and they will come"? Thousands of new contributors, who can't currently send issues and pull requests because of what? They are being harrased on every step? Bullish.

Tech community doesn't care about all that, you write good code, improve workflow and make better software - nobody cares who you are in real life. Just do what you can to improve, that's all you need to do.

Michael Jackson was considered pedophile, did people listen to his music less? No, because art != person created it.
OJ Simpson killed his wife because of 'race issues', does this makes 'Naked Gun' less funny movie? No, because art != person created it.
SASS was developed by Natalie Weizenbaum (https://twitter.com/nex3), does this makes SASS less popular? (Pun not intended) No, because no one cares about identity of developer who done something great.

Software is art in some way, we are not 100% tech writers, as mentioned DHH, but in some points it really resembles art.
Technical communities can happily live and prosper without forcing rules of specific groups.
Personal life of people should not even be mentioned in OS tech community. They already contribute their own time and do great things. Any type of specifics described in current Covenant will lead only to less adoption, more load on contributors and a lot of controversies and witch hunts performed by group, who are forcing it now.

The real victims of witch hunts:
Matt Taylor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Taylor_(scientist)) was accused by other radical group and for what? For the thing which is not even related to his work. This is just a shirt, ffs. In other countries people don't care about stuff like that.
Linus Torvalds (http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/04/feminists-are-trying-to-frame-linus-torvalds-for-sexual-assault-claims-open-source-industry-veteran/)
Brendan Eich (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10767104/Mozilla-appoints-new-CEO-after-gay-marriage-controversy.html)
"master" / "slave" thing... (https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/26k5la/django_replaces_masterslave_terminology_with/)

This list can go on and on. Those SJW groups force other people to suffer, and they like it very much. Why? Because the can, because they are allowed to do so.

Do Ruby contributors can't live without this CoC?
Are YOU ready just to throw own thoughts, opinions, beliefs, feelings in a trash can, because someone thinks 'we have problems'?
Filter own every word, think about what will or will not 'hurt' someone else? Not on code, but in personal life, social networks, everywhere there is agents of those 'groups' who wait silently for you to do something they will consider harmful / harassment. And they do, as topic starter dug the Twitter of contributors and turned this into an example.

This is troubling that people just adopt the text, without thinking about consequences and what it leads to. We are nice guys, follow us. Bundler on gem generation now even by default suggests to add this document to the gems, so some people can just press 'y' without reading it, because Bundler can't suggest wrong thing, right?

If there still people who think our tech community can't live without someone pointing the 'right way', and MINASWAN is not enough, then this one looks promising:

Postulate 1: People are people and have a diverse set of beliefs, behaviors, identities, and thoughts
Postulate 2: Many of these factors should not and will not play into contributing to an open source project.
Postulate 3: If they do, there may be repercussions or, in certain cases, support can be offered.
Postulate 4: Behavior, expression of beliefs, expression of identity, etc OUTSIDE THE PROJECT has no bearing on any of this.

Respect each other and do what we do best - code.

P.S. Sorry for my English, there may be mistakes.

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

Vjatseslav Gedrovits wrote:

What's the problem with current state of Ruby tech community?

I also asked a similar question but did not notice a reply to that yet. I am suspecting there might not be an issue that needs fixing. My impression is that this falls into the category "looks like a good idea on first sight - but probably is not".

[sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada)]

Vjatseslav Gedrovits, thank you for reminding us of the nature of the poster of this thread by linking to: (https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690334282607378432). It may be redundant, but to emphasize, and just in case it gets deleted, let me quote Coraline's words from there:

Thoughts on leaving technical mgmt of Ruby to Matz and delegating community mgmt to a separate org?

which clearly indicates the nature/real goal of her act: force takeover of Ruby.

If I were Matz, I would be shouting "何様のつもりか" (although I am not, and so I can't). Not all but non-negligible portion of the U.S. population tend to think the world belongs to them and they (should) rule the world. The Japanese have been suffering such people's attacks since Matthew C. Perry.

Matz and people, let's not be fooled by Coraline's superficially friendly attitude, but understand her real intent.

[eylerwerve (Jonathan Eyler-Werve)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Should you persist on perturbing this technical community with your
political ideas, it will be perfectly warranted to take positive action
unambiguously opposite of the ones you are promoting, in order to
disincentive you to persist on imposing your crazy ideas.

It's hard not to read this as a threat.

If I were moderating this exchange, I think a clear set of guidelines for participation with clear enforcement policies would be useful right now. And in the unfortunate cases where moderation was necessary, it'd get us to fair, transparent and consistent determinations more often than a hand-waving "be nice" policy.

Our busiest commenters say (paraphrasing) that technical communities should only discuss technical things. I'd suggest instead that technology is made by people, and ignoring the realities of working with people leads to bad technical outcomes.

[meta (mathew murphy)]

Jonathan Eyler-Werve wrote:

If I were moderating this exchange, I think a clear set of guidelines for participation with clear enforcement policies would be useful right now.

Exactly. All discussions of Codes of Conduct eventually demonstrate the need for a Code of Conduct.

Also, I can't help chuckling at the argument that Ruby has been safe and peaceful without a CoC and hence doesn't need one -- just do a Google search for 'ruby drama'.

Anyhow, speaking as someone who isn't a sockpuppet, I feel the Contributor Covenant is a perfectly acceptable Code of Conduct. Some other CoC would probably also work, of course.

The problem I see with the PostgreSQL CoC in particular is that it says collaboration should be "free of personal attacks and disparaging remarks of any kind", but doesn't explain what it means by those terms. My experience suggests that if you don't set out in plain language a list of things that are unacceptable, people will say "But #{epithet} isn't disparaging, it's purely descriptive!" and start sealioning dictionary definitions. And sure, you can't build an exhaustive list, but some list works better than no list.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Jonathan Eyler-Werve wrote:

Our busiest commenters say (paraphrasing) that technical communities should only discuss technical things. I'd suggest instead that technology is made by people, and ignoring the realities of working with people leads to bad technical outcomes.

The reality is certain people feel like they need a shield, especially when bringing up their own personal politics in the community. These politics are brought up, people get irritated due to person bringing an issue. It's sort of like the gay flamer dressed so flamboyantly going around telling people he's gay. Such people are a disease in the LGBT community and make us all look bad.

If you feel the need to discuss such issues in the technical community, then you should't be surprised if you get flack for it.

We are a community yes, but we are here to make the world a better place, not shield people from politics.

[kgerrard (Ken Gerrard)]

It’s bizarre and appalling to me that Vjatseslav Gedrovits lists an alleged pedophile and a murderer alongside the creator of Sass in an attempt to make a point that Ruby doesn’t need a code of conduct. How are these things at all related? The subtext is that Natalie Wizenbaum, as a trans woman, is a deviant. Despicable.

It's sort of like the gay flamer dressed so flamboyantly going around telling people he's gay. Such people are a disease in the LGBT community and make us all look bad.

This is blatant homophobia, Ruby Dino. Yes, bisexual people can be homophobic.

Pretending that software is outside the realm of politics is naïve and primarily the province of the most privileged.

How can we end this thread? It’s just terrible and traumatic for so many people, who you don’t hear from here because of the epic and horrifying trolling.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Ken Gerrard wrote:

It's sort of like the gay flamer dressed so flamboyantly going around telling people he's gay. Such people are a disease in the LGBT community and make us all look bad.

This is blatant homophobia, Ruby Dino. Yes, bisexual people can be homophobic.

It's not homophobic, as the situation I listed can be applied to many types of people. People don't give a fuck if a person is gay, straight, bisexual or trans but when a person /constantly/ has to remind people of it and make others uncomfortable like always being super flamboyant or annoying, then it becomes a problem. The previous stated situation also becomes a problem when said person is made unwelcome by others then goes on a "you're homophobic" tirade.

I don't want to be an ablest or use mental health disorders to bash here, but when I see people like that, I think of Autism memes.

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

Ken Gerrard wrote:

Ruby Dino wrote:

It's sort of like the gay flamer dressed so flamboyantly going around telling people he's gay. Such people are a disease in the LGBT community and make us all look bad.

This is blatant homophobia, Ruby Dino. Yes, bisexual people can be homophobic.

It's not homophobic, as the situation I listed can be applied to many types of people. People don't give a fuck if a person is gay, straight, bisexual or trans but when a person /constantly/ has to remind people of it and make others uncomfortable like always being super flamboyant or annoying, then it becomes a problem. The previous stated situation also becomes a problem when said person is made unwelcome by others then goes on a "you're homophobic" tirade.

I don't want to be an ablest or use mental health disorders to bash here, but when I see people like that, I think of Autism memes.

Yyyyyeah. I think I'd like for this to stop, please.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

David Celis wrote:

Yyyyyeah. I think I'd like for this to stop, please.

Why, do you fit the scenario of having to shove your sexual orientation in to everyones face?

[normalperson (Eric Wong)]

[e-mail] wrote:

I state my opinion as one of administrators of bugs.ruby-lang.org.
This is not a consensus of the administrators, merely my opinion.

I am not an administrator, but I disagree with your action to suspend
new accounts.

Individual readers should be trusted to determine with their own mind
which users' opinions they value and which to filter out. My opinion is
that administrators should only interfere when there is illegal
activity.

I share your frustration at some posters on this thread; but I have
also chosen to ignore/distrust them in my own mind.

Vjatseslav Gedrovits wrote:

OK, let's step back and see the bigger picture.

I will kiss you three times whenever.
The voice of reason is the true voice of love.

There is more diversity tolerance in one Dostoievesky's book
from the 70's than in all the modern logorrhea of those
modern mindless drones.

Those skin deep communists are only so because
they mistake it with everything which was wrong in it
and are either ignorant or dismissive of the positive aspect
it could have had like education.

Their ideology ignore people, tramp their past histories,
jeopardize their future aspiration and destinies, to the benefit
of their fake world failing a bit more every passing day.

Jonathan Eyler-Werve wrote:

Our busiest commenters say (paraphrasing) that technical communities should only discuss technical things. I'd suggest instead that technology is made by people, and ignoring the realities of working with people leads to bad technical outcomes.

That's because the question of "people working with people" is of broad reach
and not specific to ruby that even barely civilized countries stealing land from
native people have common organisation called "law" claiming to give "justice".

Even they only apply to their own sad local context and are humble enough to
not slam it over other people, despite their bold statement that they are legitimate
to rule a land not theirs.

That said, I am sure pioneers would dare to overdo them.

Ken Gerrard wrote:

It’s bizarre and appalling to me that Vjatseslav Gedrovits lists an alleged pedophile and a murderer alongside the creator of Sass in an attempt to make a point that Ruby doesn’t need a code of conduct. How are these things at all related?

How would you best illustrates the distinction between a creator
and its creation than by picking up appaling people who realized
nice things ?

It's hard to fathom anything simpler.
You must be doing it on purpose.

His entire post is wise and worthy of attention and he gets excellent
and reasonable points through.

Whatever the opinion described here, this is how the world think
when they see blatant defeat of rational thinking.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

All discussions of Codes of Conduct firearms eventually demonstrate the need for a Code of Conduct firearms.

Please, let's stop using this absurd fallacy already; I think it is appropriate to keep outside of this thread and leave it on twitter; it serves no purpose in discussing the merits of a code of conduct or none at all, except as rhetoric to have people acquiesce.

Edit:

Also here is discussion of a code of conduct can be unwelcoming. In this twitter exchange, Caroline Ada says that if someone feels unsafe or persecuted by a code of conduct, then they should avoid those projects. Yet we continue to hear the same rhetoric that a code of conduct is meant to make people safe and welcome. I'm going to state that I don't feel unsafe by a code of conduct, nor would I stop contributing to a project with a code of conduct (of any degree), but to only point out that a harsh code of conduct can make people feel unwelcome.

Ruby Dino wrote:

If you feel the need to discuss such issues in the technical community, then you should't be surprised if you get flack for it.

Absolutely. One can be sympathetic to the "cause", but on sheer principle,
one should not be surprised to get flack for making a problem where there
previously was a non problem.

If this is allowed why next ? Free Tibet ? Children work ? Pol-Pot ? Germans ?
Atomic bomb ?

On principle, this has no say here. and one can not expect to reach
a consensus although everyone has their opinion on it, or unfortunately blood
shed in those follies.

If people can't make the difference between a programming language
and those issues, then that's a problem they have to deal on their own.

But of course the issues are beyond as this is really obvious to a 5 year old.
The issue is that some weak and oversensitive people would half-trust this kind of
argument. then it's just a matter of repeating the operation.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Relevant: https://subfictional.com/2016/01/25/the-complex-reality-of-adopting-a-meaningful-code-of-conduct/

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

Ken Gerrard wrote:

It’s bizarre and appalling to me that Vjatseslav Gedrovits lists an alleged pedophile and a murderer alongside the creator of Sass in an attempt to make a point that Ruby doesn’t need a code of conduct. How are these things at all related? The subtext is that Natalie Wizenbaum, as a trans woman, is a deviant. Despicable.

Please don't falsely put words in people's mouths. You're causing defamation of some one's character by changing what was said. It's clearly written in each sentence "art != person created it" and "no one cares about identity of developer who done something great." The CONTEXT is clear and the 3 separate subjects are not being related beyond the point of authors/creators work being valued by people regardless of one's life style/choices.

The subtext you are insinuating isn't there at all. If he had simply referred to Joe the plumber (who was audited for taxes) it would make the same point. The art of their work is enjoyed by people regardless of the identity and choices of the author/creator.

[carlosjennings (Carlos Jennings)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Relevant: https://subfictional.com/2016/01/25/the-complex-reality-of-adopting-a-meaningful-code-of-conduct/

I just skimmed through it but it's trivially falsifiable. This bit:

There are a handful of folks (example) who keep playing the dog whistle of impending fascism in response to their community’s proposal of a adopting a code of conduct. This assertion simply has no merit and serves mostly to distract and derail.

is wrong, it's been done before. See how Lars Hupel hijacked the scalaz library from its inventor, Tony Morris, by unilaterally creating a code of conduct and using it as a club to sanction him, ex post facto style:

https://gist.github.com/ekmett/81a507f50d857345691c
https://twitter.com/puffnfresh/status/519887926327390209

Lars wanted to go as far as completely banning Tony from speaking in public about the library he invented, ever. Pure crazytown.

The people who brought up pedophilia as an example are right to do so. As a parent, I find it disturbing that known pedophile Sarah Nyberg is a figurehead in the social circles that are pushing for these CoCs. The fact that she gets a pass from a certain group of people here since she's part of their political ingroup should tell you a lot; they quite simply save their venom and outrage for a predictable demographic.

[lubyamateur (Ruby Amateur)]

I want to point out another code of conduct similar to Jeremy Evan's PostgreSQL inspired version. It is that of the Fedora community:

The Fedora community is made up of a mixture of professionals and volunteers from all over the world, working on every aspect of the distribution from coding through to marketing. Diversity is one of our huge strengths, but it can also lead to communication issues and unhappiness. To that end, we have a few ground rules that we ask people to adhere to when they're using project resources.

This isn't an exhaustive list of things that you can't do. Rather, take it in the spirit in which it's intended - a guide to make it easier to be excellent to each other.

* Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people, and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and colleagues, and you should take those consequences into account when making decisions.

* Be respectful. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. Members of the Fedora community should be respectful when dealing with other contributors as well as with people outside the Fedora community and with users of Fedora.

* When we disagree, we try to understand why. Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time and Fedora is no exception. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively.

Remember that we're different. The strength of Fedora comes from its varied community, people from a wide range of backgrounds. Different people have different perspectives on issues. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint doesn't mean that they're wrong. Don't forget that it is human to err and blaming each other doesn't get us anywhere, rather offer to help resolving issues and to help learn from mistakes.

The above doesn't have any of the burdens and obligations or requires any delegation in the community, but is a defining statement that shapes how we would like to see a community. I did have a hard time changing it to encompass Ruby, but when simply translating I found it odd to say "Ruby community" because the Ruby language community isn't exactly the "Ruby community." I just wanted to put it out there as an alternative. The only other criticism I have with it: it is long.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Carlos Jennings wrote:

is wrong, it's been done before. See how Lars Hupel hijacked the scalaz library from its inventor, Tony Morris, by unilaterally creating a code of conduct and using it as a club to sanction him, ex post facto style:

https://gist.github.com/ekmett/81a507f50d857345691c
https://twitter.com/puffnfresh/status/519887926327390209

This is also worth a read regarding Scalaz:

http://irrequietus.eu/entry/d4ee1f4d-3766-4750-8bf7-a351b02ed8b4

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Tsuyoshi Sawada wrote:

Vjatseslav Gedrovits, thank you for reminding us of the nature of the poster of this thread by linking to: (https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690334282607378432). It may be redundant, but to emphasize, and just in case it gets deleted, let me quote Coraline's words from there:

Thoughts on leaving technical mgmt of Ruby to Matz and delegating community mgmt to a separate org?

which clearly indicates the nature/real goal of her act: force takeover of Ruby.

If I were Matz, I would be shouting "何様のつもりか" (although I am not, and so I can't). Not all but non-negligible portion of the U.S. population tend to think the world belongs to them and they (should) rule the world. The Japanese have been suffering such people's attacks since Matthew C. Perry.

Matz and people, let's not be fooled by Coraline's superficially friendly attitude, but understand her real intent.

Don't be emotional.

[sam.saffron (Sam Saffron)]

@naruse (Yui NARUSE)

Can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE prune out all the hitler bullshit and fake account bullshit from this public artefact. (and delete this comment while at it)

#170 #179 etc... I can not see anything but red when reading this topic knowing that as a community we are OK having this kind of stuff in our bug tracker as public permanent record.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Olivier Lacan wrote:

Yui NARUSE wrote:

These descriptions are too long for non native.

One of the very positive features of Contributor Covenant is that it has already been translated in 10 languages so far (with Japanese on the way, as Coraline mentioned earlier). I don't know how widely the other proposals have or can been translated, but this seems a relevant point for anyone concerned that non-simple English would be a detriment to the phrasing of a code of conduct.

ruby-lang.org is currently translated in 16 different languages. If Ruby's website and news can be translated in 16 languages, it's stands to reason that its code of conduct could be as well.

I'm sure any proposed text could be eventually translated into all 16 currently supported languages, but this would obviously some time and effort.

I believe translations doesn't help issues related laws even if it helps rough understanding.

Moreover I don't trust Contributor Covenant because of such loose attitude about translations.
Creative Commons provides more strictly even if it was version 1.0.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Sam Saffron wrote:

@naruse (Yui NARUSE)

Can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE prune out all the hitler bullshit and fake account bullshit from this public artefact. (and delete this comment while at it)

#170 #179 etc... I can not see anything but red when reading this topic knowing that as a community we are OK having this kind of stuff in our bug tracker as public permanent record.

Removed #179.

Comments by fake accounts are also distributed through ML.
So I thought it should be kept to clarify it is fake at this time.
How do you think, Coraline?

[usa (Usaku NAKAMURA)]

Eric Wong wrote:

I am not an administrator, but I disagree with your action to suspend
new accounts.

I also disagree :)
It's not my decision, but, of course, I respect other administrators' decision.

Individual readers should be trusted to determine with their own mind
which users' opinions they value and which to filter out. My opinion is
that administrators should only interfere when there is illegal
activity.

I share your frustration at some posters on this thread; but I have
also chosen to ignore/distrust them in my own mind.

Yes, I perfectly agree with you.
But I have to warn to all excited members, because I have a certain amount of responsibility.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

ph ph wrote:

Vjatseslav Gedrovits wrote:

OK, let's step back and see the bigger picture.

I will kiss you three times whenever.

Please don't use kiss you or hug you or such kind of expression in an international community like here.
These words are ok (e.g. In my understanding, Russian people kiss each other for greeting like handshake) in some country and not ok in other
(In US, there is wide consensus it's not ok).
I don't ask your gender nor nationality. Instead, I'll ask you just don't do that. I don't recommend any of sexual word even if it is widely used as an idiom.

I understand you have no evil intention and I don't think this message should be deleted, but please choose your word carefully a bit more.

Thanks.

Disclaimer: this is not a warning from an admin. this is just my opinion.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

Yui NARUSE wrote:

Olivier Lacan wrote:

Yui NARUSE wrote:

These descriptions are too long for non native.

One of the very positive features of Contributor Covenant is that it has already been translated in 10 languages so far (with Japanese on the way, as Coraline mentioned earlier). I don't know how widely the other proposals have or can been translated, but this seems a relevant point for anyone concerned that non-simple English would be a detriment to the phrasing of a code of conduct.

ruby-lang.org is currently translated in 16 different languages. If Ruby's website and news can be translated in 16 languages, it's stands to reason that its code of conduct could be as well.

I'm sure any proposed text could be eventually translated into all 16 currently supported languages, but this would obviously some time and effort.

I believe translations doesn't help issues related laws even if it helps rough understanding.

Agreed.

If a document need to be understand 100% accurate, translation doesn't help. For example, Ruby uses MIT license and we always recommend to read an original English document
instead of a translated one because everybody need to understand it accurately.
Why? In natural language, every word has multiple meanings and cannot make 100% accurate translation.

If we accept a translated document as formal instead of informative, someone can claim "Hey! my behavior is acceptable in Swahili (put any prefer language here) version" in the future. That's what I don't want.

Moreover, www.ruby-lang.org has a translation does NOT mean www.ruby-lang.org is an acceptable place to use an uncareful word.

Moreover I don't trust Contributor Covenant because of such loose attitude about translations.
Creative Commons provides more strictly even if it was version 1.0.

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

Tsuyoshi Sawada wrote:

Vjatseslav Gedrovits, thank you for reminding us of the nature of the poster of this thread by linking to: (https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690334282607378432). It may be redundant, but to emphasize, and just in case it gets deleted, let me quote Coraline's words from there:

Thoughts on leaving technical mgmt of Ruby to Matz and delegating community mgmt to a separate org?

which clearly indicates the nature/real goal of her act: force takeover of Ruby.

Please don't insult an another person. Your opinion was based on a guess. Be gentle, please.

Thanks.

never assume malice when stupidity will suffice. - Hanlon's razor

If I were Matz, I would be shouting "何様のつもりか" (although I am not, and so I can't). Not all but non-negligible portion of the U.S. population tend to think the world belongs to them and they (should) rule the world. The Japanese have been suffering such people's attacks since Matthew C. Perry.

Matz and people, let's not be fooled by Coraline's superficially friendly attitude, but understand her real intent.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

On 2016/01/26 01:32, Austin Ziegler wrote:

I’m sorry, but this, like the code of merit, is merely a derailing tactic.
People have been pushing the myth of meritocracy in OSS for years, but it
just isn’t so. Ignore the fact that meritocracy as a term was coined in
1958 in a satirical work
condemning the concept, if you must,

The proposal you cited (The Pragmatists Code of Conduct) doesn't use the
actual term. Also, there are many words in many languages that may have
doubtful origins long ago, but nevertheless are used without such
connotations in present-day language.

but consider the following articles
which talk about the problems with—and some offer solutions to—the problems
with assuming that “Merit” is an appropriate measure:

For lack of time, I haven't read them all. Those that I have read point
out that 'meritocracy' (or whatever we want to call it) isn't perfect. I
too agree that it would not be good to assume that any 'meritocracy' is
perfect.

But let's make an analogy, a word with the same ending: Democracy.
One of the famous sayings about it is "democracy is the worst form of
Government except for all those other forms" (short form). I wouldn't
know a democracy where one couldn't point out some shortcomings. And
there are countries, even some that carry the word "democratic" in their
name, where "democracy" is practiced in a way that would make it very
easy to discredit the overall concept. But that doesn't mean that it's
not the best form of government available, only that where necessary and
possible, we should work on improving it. (This is of course not
something for the Ruby community, but totally separate and up to each
individual.)

In my opinion, there are similar aspects in 'meritocracy'. Judging
contributions on technical merit is extremely important for a successful
open source project. That doesn't mean that it should be the only
criterion; being rude to somebody because they sent in 'bad' code isn't
a good idea.

• Is Tech a Meritocracy—this has a lot of
  links to more stories.

[other links removed, please see earlier in the thread]

If you read these with an open mind, you will perhaps start to understand
why some folks, including myself, think that Codes of Conduct are more
positive than negative or dangerous. You don’t need to agree, but
understanding that we are coming from a place where we believe the myth of
meritocracy to be actively harmful will help.

I personally don't think that Codes of Conduct are negative or dangerous
if appropriately worded and applied.

A "myth of meritocracy" may definitely be harmful, but acknowledging
that striving for technical excellence is part of the Ruby (specifically
(C)Ruby Core) community shouldn't be harmful.

[Gedrovits (Vjatseslav Gedrovits)]

Please don't use kiss you or hug you or such kind of expression in an international community like here.
These words are ok (e.g. In my understanding, Russian people kiss each other for greeting like handshake) in some country and not ok in other
(In US, there is wide consensus it's not ok).
I don't ask your gender nor nationality. Instead, I'll ask you just don't do that. I don't recommend any of sexual word even if it is widely used as an idiom.

I understand you have no evil intention and I don't think this message should be deleted, but please choose your word carefully a bit more.

Thanks.

Disclaimer: this is not a warning from an admin. this is just my opinion.

This is one of the reasons. Different cultures, laws and definition of normal. In proposed document there are specific privileged groups, who will benefit from that.
In our lore this just means: 'I agree with you. You like took words from my mouth.' It's nothing to do with physical kisses of person.
So if this will be done, someone (contributors, maintainers) will need to decide who is right (and in this document we know who are). This leads to censorship and bureucracy.
To what can this lead? To the same thing, which happens in some (no direct names here, guess country by dialog below) countries.

Current proposal looks like this:
sarcasm start ->

1. Hey! You need democracy (insert what 1 needs, CoC in this case) guys! It's fun, we can do that for you.
2. No, we don't. Please go away and try build democracy (insert what 1 need, CoC in this case) in other places.
3. Nah, you just (insert X) and (insert Y). You can't have own opinion. We will deliver democracy to you, and set people who understand it's meaning in charge.
4. WTF?
   ... After razing other country to ashes and thousands of people lives ...
5. Hey! You see how good this country become with democracy? Our people rule gentle and good, you must be grateful!

<- sarcasm end

You can also look at this from a different view. This CoC group is like union (miners union, teachers union, etc). What union does? It forces and pushes things what benefit the union members. You can see this from the proposed document itself. People before pointed out this before, so no need to go on this. Look even on first message:

RubyTogether also adopted a policy to only fund Ruby projects that had a solid code of conduct in place.

This mean, regardless of you paying to org, if your thoughts and opinions not agree with CoC they will not fund you. Isn't this a form of censorship? Isn't it too obvious?

Our community prides itself on niceness. What a code of conduct does is define what we mean by nice. It states clearly that we value openness, courtesy, and compassion. That we care about and want contributions from people who may be different from us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINASWAN It even states that we are nice.

That we pledge to respect all contributors regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other factors. And it makes it clear that we are prepared to follow through on these values with action when and if an incident arises.

Why listing properties of contributors? This is again forced by union. Knowing those groups, this means that race must be non-white, gender non-male and sexual orientation non-hetero. So voila, they will have 'law' which must be 'forced' to oppose the people they don't like. The union, remember?

As contributors and maintainers of this project, and in the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we pledge to respect all people who contribute through reporting issues, posting feature requests, updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches, and other activities.

This looks not bad.

But next paragraph tries to describe properties of people, which ruins a whole point of 'all people who contribute' this already includes all listed 'features'.
The word harassment is used again. Stop using this already, it's not even close to real world examples of harassment: SWATing, stalking, etc. The maximum what you can get on Internet is someone, who swears or writes something you don't like. This is not harassment. Harassment term overused by specific groups nowadays.

We are committed to making participation in this project a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, or nationality.

So we get list of unions protected, but we are not stopping, we continue to tighten the unions:

The use of sexualized language or imagery

This is abstract, look the case of scientist shirt. It was totally OK in most countries, but not in one. Man have 4 kids, good family and he lost his job and reputation because of cowards in management, who just scared of 'rage' of groups felt 'harrased'.

Personal attacks

Read the swearing part. This can be interpreted quite wildly. It's hard to separate this from feelings.

Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments

Trolling is not good, but this is not thing to decline. Sometimes it's even fun to read.
Insults varies on different people cultures. So again, without making someone sad, this should not be forced to match needs of few groups.

Public or private harassment

Cases of real harassment should be handled by the laws of the country of victim. This is not for tech community to decide. Someone really harrases you? You can use your country laws on other citizens of your country.

Publishing other's private information, such as physical or electronic addresses, without explicit permission

What is considered private in our days? If it can be found in Internet, this means you left this info to public and this is not private. Otherwise it must be governed by your country law on citizens of YOUR country, where law can be used.

Other unethical or unprofessional conduct

This is good enough point, which is already covered in MINASWAN.

Project maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

Moderators have right currently to do so without CoC too.
What will be added here, just additional work on trying to understand what is wrong, offensive or whatever. Time will be lost, which can be used on a OSS project.
Look at the 'they' part, unions, remember?

By adopting this Code of Conduct, project maintainers commit themselves to fairly and consistently applying these principles to every aspect of managing this project. Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of Conduct may be permanently removed from the project team.

In theory, by this rule Matz itself can be removed from the project, if will not follow / enforce this document. Yes, there is 'may' word, but who really cares about that? This can be forced in every case or by occasion, depends on union needs, remember?

This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community.

This has 'representing' part, but really, how you separate this? Matz known in Ruby world, who must decide when he is presenting or not? Union decides, right? When you say something they don't like, they just go witch hunt on you.

People who accepted this CoC gifting their rights to express themselves as they want outside the projects, to 3rd party which will decide good / wrong.
That they can't express something not 'popular' in places outside the project, without having risk to be removed from project, because unions can consider this as an insult to them.
This lead to a situation, where posters here adding the 'I don't represent the community, this is my opinion', bla bla bla thing, to be protected from that.
Anything that you say is de facto IMHO, you don't need to apologize for that or choose wording trying to make happy every possible union groups.

Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported by contacting a project maintainer at [INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response that is deemed necessary and appropriate to the circumstances.

All will be reviewed, investigated and result in 'necessary' action. Anyone wants to play Zeus here? Throw some lighting at people if you seem necessary.

Maintainers are obligated to maintain confidentiality with regard to the reporter of an incident.

And this last part protects union members from being public. This is called 'whistleblowing'.
There was time in Soviet history, when government thought this is good idea, to catch the spies, neighboor watch and all this.
This resulted in a lot of people sending 'reports' on each other. With a quite human reasons. I don't like him. I want his apartment. I want his work place. He is X (insert other personal reason).
Private 'whistleblowing' leads to abuse of the systems and those 'whistleblowers' can feel themselves safe.
The CoC can't protect them from it, does it? They don't want that people know who made this person disappear from the community and why. Because they are... scared?

George Orwell wrote good book, Animal Farm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm)
So I want to finish this with quote from it:

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

If Matz will decide to have some specific rules, they should definitely not be based and/or linked to proposed CoC.

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

ph ph wrote:

I will kiss you three times whenever.

Please don't use kiss you or hug you or such kind of expression in an international community like here.
These words are ok (e.g. In my understanding, Russian people kiss each other for greeting like handshake) in some country and not ok in other
(In US, there is wide consensus it's not ok).
I don't ask your gender nor nationality. Instead, I'll ask you just don't do that. I don't recommend any of sexual word even if it is widely used as an idiom.

I understand you have no evil intention and I don't think this message should be deleted, but please choose your word carefully a bit more.

Oh, it has started already.

If we start policing language on that level then we are forcing people into what they will consider a straitjacket. Some may leave, but what will be worse is the tone set and the removal of irony and witty remarks. People are likely to start censoring themselves etc. - in general communication will be less rich. This is why CoC looks like a good idea initially (who could be against banning harassment?) but may turn out to be a really bad one.

[olivierlacan (Olivier Lacan)]

Can someone from Ruby Core or Matz himself please prioritize the resolution and closure of this issue?

It has been going on for 8 days now, and I'm afraid to see how much more this thread can devolve given one more week.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Olivier Lacan wrote:

Can someone from Ruby Core or Matz himself please prioritize the resolution and closure of this issue?

It has been going on for 8 days now, and I'm afraid to see how much more this thread can devolve given one more week.

There's no devolving of the conversation. People are conversing on the issue. Just because you don't like what others have to stay, getting "triggered" or don't like the path of the conversation doesn't mean it's devolved.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

On 2016-01-26 7:39 AM, Austin Ziegler wrote:

Ideas [are] considered equally and must stand on [their] own merit and
not the reputation of the proponent

I just can't see what is wrong with this important principle. This is
the ideal, even when you think it's not always the reality.

I don't think you understand what we mean by "meritocracy":

• If the proponent is a high-status maintainer, their idea SHOULD NOT
  carry any MORE weight.
• If the proponent has low status, their idea SHOULD NOT carry any LESS
  weight.

Isn't this what everyone is asking for? To leave social status outside
and treat everyone equally?

[cremes (Chuck Remes)]

In #371, Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene listed several projects that have adopted the CoC and asked if any of the feared downsides of a CoC have arisen. I think we should ask an opposite question. Have any of those projects seen an increase in participation? Have any marginalized peoples suddenly joined the community and contributed (via code, bug reports, documentation, etc)? And if there is an increase, is it statistically measurable on an on-going basis or just a one-off?

I'm too lazy to do the work to prove this out one way or the other, but then again the burden of proof to adopt a CoC is on its proponents. They should do the work to prove a CoC's value particularly since it will create more work for the core team.

I'm going to go on a short tangent. I am a long time member of the Zeromq community. Several years ago there was a falling out between two core contributors and one of them ended up leaving the project (to start XS and Nano projects). The arguments and split were handled very well without any CoC in place at all.

The core contributor learned quite a bit from that experience. He ended up devising a new process for contributors and community participants. After some evolution, he made a nice post on it and calls it the C4.1 process. See here for details: http://hintjens.com/blog:93

Furthermore, his efforts to grow the community were wildly successful. The community absolutely exploded in the months following the personnel change. Code contributions and bug reports came from a whole group of new people who had never participated before because the guideline (NOT a CoC) lowered the barriers for participation. The community was vibrant before the project fork but afterwards it was vibrant X 10.

This community renewal all occurred without a CoC.

It could be argued that the Ruby community is already stronger than the zeromq community but there is always room for improvement. Perhaps it should look to the C4.1 process as a potential way for improving interest and participation?

At minimum, the CoC proponents should prove via some metric (community participation, more/better PRs, bug reports, etc) that adopting a CoC will benefit this project. They have a whole list of projects that adopted a CoC that they can use for proving this out. However, so far adopting a CoC just sounds like more work for Core.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

I'm too lazy to do the work to prove this out one way or the other

Yeah, that seems to be happening a lot in this thread.

but then again the burden of proof to adopt a CoC is on its proponents.

Done. See: Backlog.

[cremes (Chuck Remes)]

#433 Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene wrote:
Done. See: Backlog.

No. NOT done. I've read this entire thread and I haven't seen any proponent of a CoC provide a single, solid shred of evidence that a CoC will improve the project. There have been plenty of heated opinions flying around but very little data.

For it to make sense for the Core team to take on MORE WORK, there should be a DEFINED BENEFIT for that choice. And it should be MEASURABLE. We apparently have over a dozen projects that have adopted a CoC so there should be plenty of data available to make this case. And make no mistake... this is your case to make.

If you think this Is "done" and has been answered, then I look forward to your list of message numbers that lay out this proof.

[mperham (Mike Perham)]

Adding my vote in favor of a CoC. I'm fully in support of adopting CC 1.3.

[krainboltgreene (Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene)]

Yet another prominent member of our community, working on a large project with many contributors, who supports adopting CC.

At some point the leaders of Ruby have to decide who the ruby community is: The people asking for guidelines on behavior and protocols for enforcement or those who decide to ignore all evidence and suggest those asking for it are "like flamboyant gays".

[stephencelis (Stephen Celis)]

I'd like to add my vote in favor of a CoC, too. The Swift team put a lot of thought into its community and currently adopts CC 1.3.

[sandal (Gregory Brown)]

I also support adopting a Code of Conduct.

I believe CC 1.3 is a good base to work from simply because it is already used on many well known projects. #275 provides the best outline I've seen of specifically what CC does that's important... but any other similar CoC that meets most of those points would probably do.

I dislike identity politics and I dislike the formal, harsh wording of CoC in general. I dislike the feeling of taking on the responsibility of consistently monitoring and enforcing these things in my own projects. I dislike that I had to spend a bit of time every week for a year making connections, doing research, and building trust with people from underrepresented groups just to begin hearing their personal stories about harassment, many of which would never have shared their story in public out of fear of further harm.

I grew up in a "thick skin" internet age myself, so I personally prefer the "deal with it, fight back, or killfile" approach. That said, I live on top of a giant mountain of privilege. For my projects, I feel that I have a greater responsibility than simply serving my personal ideology.

Few people in this thread have the leadership responsibilities to understand that aspect of things, so it makes sense for them to talk about what they personally prefer. Actual leaders of community projects need to think more carefully than that.

For me, I wasn't quick to decide that adding a code of conduct to a project was a good thing, and I shared many of the concerns expressed by the non-troll commenters on this thread.

But the net effect of actually taking the time to listen and learn, not just to those active in social justice, but everyday people from many different backgrounds, was to find out... yes, this is a real problem. Sending a signal of support to those who have experienced that problem elsewhere in a way that's loud and clear is worth doing. A CoC is one of the basic tools that can set the stage for accomplishing that, and if we trust the maintainers of this project, that trust will be preserved even after a CoC is implemented.

However, if the core team decides not to act on this, or acts on this in a way that's half baked and idealistic, or acts in way that's meant to preserve the "nice" attitude rather than making an effective decision -- you will lose the trust of many who have come to realize that community management involves a lot more than the purely technical aspect of things. There are people in this thread that I've totally lost respect for already, who I've collaborated with before and previously thought of as very insightful voices in Ruby.

Matz, if you don't feel very well informed on this issue, or if you aren't well prepared to make a decision on your own -- please seek advice from those you trust that do understand these problems. This thread creates (IMO) a false dilemma because very few people who are against introducing a CoC carry the same responsibility that you do as a leader of a very important project. Talk to other leaders you respect, who have had to make these decisions. See why they did what they did, and how they did it.

Don't let pressure from either social justice activists or those who would oppose them force your hand on this. If you get to the root of the issue, you'll be able to make a decision that is right for Ruby from your own heart. But please, on this issue, don't prioritize being nice over getting it right.

[rubyhubie (Hubie Fuller)]

Can we have the Contributor Covenant utilize the alphabetical order of 'age, body size, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual orientation' as seen in #346? Having an arbitrary ordering removes any implication that a given personal characteristic or attribute is more important than another, which could be implied from v1.3.

Additionally, Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene your hyperbolic statements are not helping our cause.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Hubie Fuller wrote:

Can we have the Contributor Covenant utilize the alphabetical order of 'age, body size, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual orientation' as seen in #346? Having an arbitrary ordering removes any implication that a given personal characteristic or attribute is more important than another, which could be implied from v1.3.

See version 1.4, currently up for public review: https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/pull/226

[rubyhubie (Hubie Fuller)]

woops, was totally blind when looking at the branches. looks good! thanks!

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Gregory Brown wrote:

Few people in this thread have the leadership responsibilities to understand that aspect of things

Few people in this thread have the age and experience to understand that aspect of things.

Few people in this thread are sufficiently educated to understand that aspect of things.

Gregory you write thoughtfully and sincerely but in the end its an appeal to authority, specifically your own. Perhaps you're indulging in post purchase rationalization; having bought into it, "I sure am clever for having done so".

Most people as they go through life accumulate some experience in leading something, be it a gaming faction or a Fortune 500 company. Explaining to people that 'leaders have to think of others' is a little condescending. And while "for my projects, I feel that I have a greater responsibility than simply serving my personal ideology." that's a personal decision, and not necessarily a guiding principle others need follow. Perhaps you could be a little more selfish and others are welcome to fork your work to date if they don't like the direction its taking. Perhaps if your own money was involved in an enterprise, you might feel differently about the consideration granted to other stakeholders in the project.

You write "I live on top of a giant mountain of privilege". I'd submit that every single person participating in this thread sits on top of a giant mountain of privilege and the differences, if any, are microscopic in the grand scheme of things.

Where's the evidence this will make any positive difference to ruby?

Where's the evidence it's made any positive difference to your project? Who joined because you had it? Who left because you had it? Who didn't join because you did or didn't have one?

The claims for the benefits of a CoC are impossible to prove, but the handful of abuses committed because of them, are all too real.

[Hanmac (Hans Mackowiak)]

what my problem is about such "PC" is:
first: i am from a country where law is: "innocent until proven wrong" (means that even if you did something wrong, the other side does need to proof that) thats why what if such CoC is misused from a minority for their political course? lets say (for example) a female person does have something personal against me, and does use the fact that she is female against me and use the CoC to kick me out of a project. does the persons with the leadership responsibilities use their time to proof every case to see what is wrong with it? or i am "guilty until proven wrong" because a female (in this example) said so? Do i get a chance to proof my "innocent" or will i automatically banned?
second: what happen if someone does lie about some facts (like in my example above) will the person get punished or will her doing without consequences?

for example "sexual harassment": there are too many cases where the woman is interested in the man, but the man is not into her. So she says she is "sexual harassment" (lying in this example) by him and he loses everything (live, job, family, etc)
in very few cases the woman (in this example) is proven wrong, and in even fewer cases the man get (something) of his life back.

until showing that something like that doesn't/shouldn't happen with this, i am voting against it.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

All of these scaremongering posts about a Ruby CoC being abused reveals a deep distrust of the leadership in the Ruby community. Who do you think would be enforcing the code of conduct? Do you trust them to be fair or not?

Matz, as you read through these posts, I hope that you will distinguish between those who have legitimate concerns (on either side of the issue) and those with irrational, knee-jerk reactions to the idea that writing down our values and enforcing them as a community is a good idea.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

our values

Right here lies the problem. Your values aren't internationally recognized, as many have brought up including the Japanese and Russian participants in the community.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Right here lies the problem. Your values aren't internationally recognized, as many have brought up including the Japanese and Russian participants in the community.

It's not about my values, it's about our shared values. I'm encouraging us to figure them out, write them down, and enforce them.

If we can't even agree on a common set of values then we're not really a community at all. And that makes me sad.

[Hanmac (Hans Mackowiak)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

All of these scaremongering posts about a Ruby CoC being abused reveals a deep distrust of the leadership in the Ruby community. Who do you think would be enforcing the code of conduct? Do you trust them to be fair or not?

Matz, as you read through these posts, I hope that you will distinguish between those who have legitimate concerns (on either side of the issue) and those with irrational, knee-jerk reactions to the idea that writing down our values and enforcing them as a community is a good idea.

like RubyDino says above with "our values", are you in the thinking that your values are more value than others values? (similar to the movie Animal Farm where some animals are more equal than others)
don't get me wrong, i am pro equality for everyone, but i am against it if a group does use "their values" to rule about "other values" and that is what (extreme)Feminists and SJW do.

from the CoC point of view, will i get banned because i have different values, and you feel discriminated?

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It's not about my values, it's about our shared values. I'm encouraging us to figure them out, write them down, and enforce them.

If we can't even agree on a common set of values then we're not really a community at all. And that makes me sad.

Our shared values and goals are to enhance the lives of others through technology, not sociology.

definition of community: a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

Our particular characteristic is Ruby, not people. While I'm getting the gist of what you're trying to accomplish, I believe it's better to set up a different area for what you're trying to accomplish just as there are meetings and groups set up for a particular cultural subset.

[gordon_king (Gordon King)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

All of these scaremongering posts about a Ruby CoC being abused reveals a deep distrust of the leadership in the Ruby community.

Wrong. It reveals a deep distrust about those who would like to be judge.

And given the number of tweets from CoC advocates recommending the division of ruby into technical and management branches so 'properly trained people' can manage code complaints, attempting to bait and switch Matz into the role of 'distrusted' enforcer is dishonest dealing.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Ruby Dino wrote:

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

our values

Right here lies the problem. Your values aren't internationally recognized, as many have brought up including the Japanese and Russian participants in the community.

This seems to touch PC, but anyway some other people may also feel like that.

Japanese has good Constitution and curriculum in compulsory education made by U.S. for 70 years.
Therefore Japanese understand the portable version of such values.
("portable" means that it doesn't assume God)

[davidcelis (David Celis)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

Thank you.

[elight (Evan Light)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

Yes, thank you.

[rubydino (Ruby Dino)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

Thank you.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

I would just like to add that I think CoC version 1.4.0 is a good improvement: it better defines the "scope" of what it means to be representing the project, and what circumstances one is liable to be under the CoC.

If we do decide on this one, I would feel more comfortable if there is a clause on "limitations" or "abuse" of the CoC. That is to say, while it defines specific protections, I would like to see things like "personal twitter accounts" and "quotations out of context" also specifically exempted, with some due process like a right to respond.

[lisa-beld (Lisa Beld)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

I would recommend the Contributor Covenant. People complaining that it includes harassment in public spaces are most likely just guilty of doing so. Just because the harassment occurs outside the scope of the project does not make it any more ok!

It's quite obvious from this thread alone how toxic this community is, I can't believe so many people are essentially saying they don't want to stop harassing people by coming up with silly excuses as if a CoC was somehow implementing communism.

The responsibility of enforcing the code of conduct should be handed to a committee comprised of people who have more experience with harassment which is often not recognised by people with more privilege. As well as that, what if Matz or one of the maintainers themselves were to violate the code of conduct? Nobody could stop them, therefore the CoC enforcement task should be carried out members of minority groups who will not violate the CoC. Nobody, not Matz or any maintainers should be exempt from consequences like demotion and banning. And as Matz has already stated, he will probably not have the time or willingness to deal with peoples reports of unacceptable behaviour.

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

Lisa Beld wrote:

I would recommend the Contributor Covenant. People complaining that it includes harassment in public spaces are most likely just guilty of doing so.

Please do not jump to conclusions! This is an assumption which is not warranted by evidence and which I strongly reject. And btw., this kind of thinking is exactly what many arguing against a CoC seem to see coming - and leading to bad results.

Just because the harassment occurs outside the scope of the project does not make it any more ok!

I do not think anybody has said that. But I personally find it problematic at best that a project tries to police behavior outside its own scope. There are various issues:

• For many areas there are rules already (for example laws).
• This can lead to a violation in one scope expunging someone from a lot of communities.
• Whoever will be responsible for monitoring CoC adherence or dealing with CoC violations now also needs to deal with potential issues in other areas; areas where they might not have good access to or no access at all.

It's quite obvious from this thread alone how toxic this community is, I can't believe so many people are essentially saying they don't want to stop harassing people by coming up with silly excuses as if a CoC was somehow implementing communism.

I do not see any people saying they want to keep harassing other people. The fact that someone rejects the idea of having a CoC does not imply that she is harassing or intends to do so. And please do not argue that we need not fear anything if we do not harass anyway. That would be the same pattern of argument that advocates of mass surveillance put forward - and it is as flawed there as it is here.

The responsibility of enforcing the code of conduct should be handed to a committee comprised of people who have more experience with harassment which is often not recognised by people with more privilege. As well as that, what if Matz or one of the maintainers themselves were to violate the code of conduct? Nobody could stop them, therefore the CoC enforcement task should be carried out members of minority groups who will not violate the CoC. Nobody, not Matz or any maintainers should be exempt from consequences like demotion and banning. And as Matz has already stated, he will probably not have the time or willingness to deal with peoples reports of unacceptable behavior.

"minority groups who will not violate the CoC"? There is no way I will start to believe that this makes them better people in general who are bulletproof against abusive behavior. I am sorry, but assuming that people who have experienced harassment are not susceptible to harass or violate a CoC in other ways themselves is naive.

I can see that certain groups have more "experience with harassment" and that this makes them mores sensitive to the issue. Should people from these groups be in such a committee? Definitively! Should this committee be comprised solely of members of these groups of society? No way. Even, if only to avoid too homogeneous views on a case. Putting a homogeneous group in control removes one level of checks that usually helps in coming to better conclusions.

I do assume that you made your suggestions in the best of intentions, but it seems you did not look at all the consequences.

Kind regards

robert

[iced (Andrew Kirilenko)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

What about this one https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Also, if any of you are not sure what's going on and who are all these nice people, please read http://www.voxday.net/mart/SJW_Attack_Survival_Guide.pdf

I'd like to remind you that Coraline already clearly stated her intentions - https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/690334282607378432

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

Thank you Matz for letting us know.

Something I'd like people to keep in mind is that a majority of people will contribute to projects without first reading any conduct guidelines. So I encourage the assumption of good intent first, and possible ignorance second, before any action is considered a violation.

If any remark seems to offend you then I ask that you first ask for clarification and intent behind the remark before assuming ill intent. As is seen in this very thread when people speak in a language that is not their native language things can be misconstrued.

[jaen (Tomek Mańko)]

I've noticed new accounts can register again, so I guess I'll add my two cents.

I understand the need for CoCs - the Internet is a place where no matter how
much you wish, you can't expect all people to act nice. It is quite unfortunate,
considering what the Ruby motto is, but that's just how it is when you give
people anonimity and freedom from repercussions.

A CoC can serve as guidelines on how to consistently deal with arseholes
you will invariably meet on the Internet. It's good to be able to say "our
rules are thus and we that's how we will deal with those that break them"
because if the rules are written down and consistently enforced, then no-one
can plead the arbitary treatment card.
And that's good - if you can tell people this is how we will act in case
something bad happens they will feel safer and more confident in leadership.
This also fosters atmosphere that's conductive to people just learning to
program - if you can feel welcome, then it's certainly easier to start
asking questions and learning.

Maybe the reason that Ruby core has so far have steered clear of those issues
is because it stands a bit apart from the mainstream international Rails
community which is the biggest strand of Rubyists currently.
Maybe language and cultural barriers played some part in it (I, for one, would
be somewhat discouraged to report Ruby core issues because I neither know
Japanese enough to communicate in it, nor would I be 100% sure I can get the
message across unambiguosly in English that's understandable to all Japanese
contributors).
Maybe it's because the issues are to be reported in redmine and not github
(something like this can be observed in Clojure to - their use of JIRA dissuades
people from reporting issues and writing patches somewhat in my opinion).

Thus Matsumoto-san feels there's little need for a CoC - this little peaceful
community experienced none of the issues the wider international programming
communities face due to it's small size. That's true but it is also no reason
to not adopt a guidelines on how to deal with bad actors - a CoC as it were.

That said I too, as some in this issue, am afraid of the potential of abuse of
a CoC. And not just FUD-ishly afraid, but afraid due to legitimate reasons.

Consider for example - already mentioned in this thread - the case of the Opal
contributor Elia Schito.
Coraline (the OP of this issue) learned of his discussion with someone
re: transpeople issues and took offence to his views even though they were not
directed at her. She then decided to take the issue with the fact that he is
one of primary contributors to Opal and demanded his removal from the project
(https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941).
He neither attacked her personally nor harrased her, yet she decided it is
within her rights to oust him from a project she didn't even contribute to.
Because what, he is a catholic christian and has opinions on certain topics
that are in line with his faith? Did he ever bring those issues into
discuession about Opal? No. Coraline brought his discussion on issues not
related into Opal to the project, and demanded him removed. She did even bring
a brigade of her friends, including our dear bigoted friend Kurtis
Rainbolt-Greene to campaign for removing Elia.
Had he been doing it in the scope of project communications?
Surely, that would be something to take umbrage to, bringing unrelated politics
into discussion about merit of code, issues, pull requests and whatnot.
But he didn't - it was Coraline that brought her politics into a project she
possibly didn't even use (or at least didn't contribute to) with explicit aim
of removing a person she didn't like.
Yes, I understand that such subject might be personal and touchy to a
transperson, because as I am led to believe (I don't have any friends of such
persuasion that could attest that to me personally) their lives are tough
because they are different, but going out of her way to punish someone who
bore her specifically no ill will?
To me this is entirely unacceptable.

I also would like to highlight this bit of hypocrisy:
Our dear bigoted friend Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene is in favour of Coraline's CoC,
just like he was for removal of Elia and introduction of CoC to Opal.
Let's then see how Coraline's CoC would apply to him, shall we?
Observe this tweet - https://archive.is/TjFtG - quoted here for convenience:

And frankly, as @yukihiro_matz has stated he doesn't feel like being
responsible for helping people feel safe then fuck his leadership.

Let's see, that could be classified (using Contributor Covenant 1.3.0) as:

• Personal attacks
• Trolling or insulting/derogatory comments
• Other unethical or unprofessional conduct

and he can be quite reasonably construed as representing the project or its community in public spaces since he seems - by his admission at least - to
be a maintainer of vcr, hamster, and rubygems.
Yet he seems to push for CoC as if it didn't concern him. Why? Does he feel
he's allowed to act against the CoC he promotes because he has the privilege
of having the right politics and friends? Does he expect his inexcusable
behaviour to be excused?
I don't think such people should be in charge of proposing and/or enforcing
CoCs if they think their right politics make them above the laws they want to
instate. Because just as soon it would stop being a tool to deal with real
arseholes in a community, but to a weapon to bar people they deem unpersons
from projects.

Therefore I humbly submit to Matsumoto-san and the Ruby core to look at any
proposed code of conduct from this perspective - it is something you need to
fall back to when passing judgement, so that people can feel there are solid
rules for handling bad actors in the community they can rely on when something
bad happens, BUT it also need to be written in a way that protects the
integrity of the project from people like Kurtis or Coraline that only wish
to punish those, whot think differently than them, even outside the project.
Thus I think Contributor Covenant shouldn't qualify, at least not if the
clause about behaviour external to the project is modified.

I come from a country where I have seen things like this used for the last
8 years to discredit the political opposition by the ruling party, painting
half of the country with broad strokes as enemies of democracy. In the end
people have seen through that and voted them out both from the parliament and
from the presidency - and that happened a post-soviet country where propaganda
machine like that should've been blindingly obvious. So I just feel compelled
to point out what I see here as just that, because I'm not eager to see Ruby
torn apart.

In my opinion PostgreSQL CoC sounds likes something that would be a perfect
fit - both laying out the guidelines for behaviour and handling of bad actors,
but at the same time guarding the integrity of the project - but of course I
understand that the final decision lies with Matsumoto-san and the core team.

I just hope that the Ruby project won't be worse off due to the choice.
While I may have mostly moved to Clojure now, I've been coding Ruby for almost
five years (so yeah, good job pulling that rando card) and I can confidently
say that - while I don't think I will want to come back to imperative, mutable,
object-oriented programming - Ruby is the best and most pleasant OO language I
have ever programmed in and Rails is a great framework for fast website
prototyping built on top of it - and thank you a lot Matsumoto-san for having
invented it. If you didn't I would probably have had to become a Java
programmer D :

I hope Ruby core will make the best possible decision to not squander all that,
but to make it continue thriving.

それはいじょうです

DISCLAIMERS:
Oh, and before Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene feels he needs to pull the GG card as is
his usual deflective ad hominem style - yes, I read r/KotakuInAction (and came
to a conclusion that they are not the hate mob everyone purports them to be,
just the usual kind of Internet crude) and I have posted there a couple of
times, once even to annoy our dear bigoted friend because he seems to troll
KiA from time to time being his usual bigoted self.

If I formatted something wrong then sorry - first time using redmine.

Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

OK, that's enough.

We will set up some form of CoC in the future. Let me think for a while which one we are going to choose.

Matz.

For over 5 years now, I've been a Ruby developer. This discussion has to be on of the most disruptive topics I have ever read from the Ruby Community. In all of the other email threads and help posts, the Ruby Community has proven itself to be one of the nicest, most dedicated group of people I have had the honor to be a part of. And it is extremely disheartening to me to see how this conversation has devolved into personal attacks and attempts of discrediting one another. I can't help but find it ironic that everything the proposed CoC intends to solve, has manifested itself as part of the discussion.

Matz: I love Ruby. It is a fantastic language that I use every chance I get. I love the passion that I find in this community, and their willingness to write helpful blog posts to get new people to learn how to Ruby with the best of them. There seems to be no end of examples on how to deal with difficult problems. And it seems like for every big problem that "there's a Gem for that." You could say that I came for the language, and stayed for the community.

But that is also part of why I have never felt that Ruby needs any sort of CoC. At the end of the day, we are a technical community. We come from all walks of life to work on software together. It is that software that I see as the key to overcoming any adversity we face. If we can come together to write awesome code, then surely we have gotten passed the bigotry, politics, and idiocracy of the modern world to do so. And I don't see how any set of rules can serve to improve that. If we introduce rules, it should be to protect the great community we have today from becoming like the rest of the world.

It seems to me that any of the codes of conduct that have been presented only end up dividing us through labels which are completely insignificant to the code we are here to write. There are plenty of other communities for tackling the issues of society, and to me Ruby is not one of them. We are here to work, to learn, to teach, and even play. And I think that's more than enough.

Now, if we are to develop a set of guidelines for the Ruby Community, then I think it should look something like this:

Ruby Community Guidelines

1. We are a technical community that is here to solve technical problems, not to solve the problems of society.
2. We are a diverse group of people from all walks of life who have come together to contribute to this community as students, teachers, collaborators, and developers. The only label we need is "Rubyist".
3. Discussion should be related to the Ruby language, programming, or software development.
4. Moderators are here to facilitate these discussions by keeping them civil and on topic. They are expected to take action appropriate to the situation, and may be held accountable if these actions are viewed by the community as overzealous or unnecessary.

Isn't this enough?

~B

[angularjays (Jay S)]

First off, thank you to mods for re-opening account registration. I would like to jump in and comment on this, since I was not able to before.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It's not about my values, it's about our shared values. I'm encouraging us to figure them out, write them down, and enforce them.

I am okay with writing down our values. I believe that a document that codifies "MINASWAN" would not in itself be a controversial thing to add to Ruby core. I've seen other projects and communities on the internet write down and let people know the things they stand for.

But here's the thing: writing down your values is a "mission statement", not a "code of conduct". Coraline's CoC does not lay out "values". Reading through the Contributor Covenant, all I see is the policing of, and proposed enforcement of, various behaviors. I would ask Coraline the following question: exactly what are the values proposed by her CoC? Noting that "harassment-free" is not a "value".

This is why really like the Fedora mission statement-- it actually discusses a code in terms of real values, and not in terms of how they are policed. Please pick one that looks like Fedora's.

If Ruby adopts some kind of document expressing its values, I would not want to see the added burden of describing enforcement of those who fail to follow these values. There are many reasons why I would not want to see this:

1. YAGNI - we can cross the bridge of encoding rules of enforcement when we get there. There is no strong evidence to suggest that moderators of this community will not be able to keep out bad actors without any enforcement guidelines.

2. Moreover, we have already seen that moderators can enforce guidelines when necessary, and it doesn't even require a CoC to do it. As evidenced in this very thread, troll accounts were successfully removed when overtly trolling. Note that no other behavior in this thread was policed except for the troll account, which is what we would have expected to happen, even with a CoC,

3. This leads me to my last point: it avoids selective enforcement and abuse. Any encoding of enforcement rules brings about many opportunities for abuse. I've read this entire thread, and without putting words in anyone's mouths, I'm fairly confident that there were a number of occasions when participants like Coraline and Kurtis would have loved to yell "ban this user, they broke rule X!" simply because they did not like what was being said. The reality is that an objective read-through of this thread shows no overt malice (outside of the intentionally malicious troll account, which was banned without the need for CoC), simply rational beings having passionate disagreements. There were a couple of incidents where parties (on both sides of the discussion) were skating on pretty thin ice, but this isn't a justification for a CoC, but rather, a reason for not having such a document.

Matz, I'm not sure if you agree, but let me back up and say that I do not believe anybody who has participated in this thread so far deserves to be exiled from the Ruby community. I don't even believe anybody needs to attend some sort of "educational seminar to remind them of their cultural privilege" for the things they said. This very discussion shows that Ruby thrives as a MINASWAN community without the need of enforcement. Although passionate, everybody on here was able to restrain themselves, stay on topic, and if this didn't happen, other helpful folks guided things in the right direction. This was done completely without the need for some layer of management-type oversight.

Quite simply: nobody on Ruby's mailing list has been harassed or marginalized. Not in this thread, and not in any thread to date. I've been on the mailing list for quite some time as a lurker. I have seen many very heated exchanges, but I've never seen anything that came close to requiring any form of moderator action. It's great to have a document to point people at to remind them of the etiquette of a mailing list / issue tracker, but nobody has overtly (or repeatedly) violated the etiquette without it being rectified in the very thread.

I believe that if a CoC (with enforcable penalties) had existed prior to this discussion, you would have seen a number of requests to enforce such a CoC on both ends for this thread. If you agree with the above, you would also believe that these requests would be knee-jerk reactions to statements that others would have misinterpreted as malicious when they were not. Again: no CoC rules (even as per Coraline's listing) have actually been broken here.

Finally, Matz, I want to make a specific point about the very fundamental concept of enforceability, something you have raised yourself. At the very least, I would make a request:

If enforcement is added to the CoC, please be very specific about what the boundaries of what "the community" entails. Specifically, I ask that you list the code repositories and/or websites in which enforcement can occur. I would imagine that for Ruby it would be:

• http://*.ruby-lang.org
• http://github.com/ruby/*

No other venue should fall under the jurisdiction of this CoC, because quite simply, you do not act as admin for any other property besides these two places. This means that any enforced rules on this issue tracker, for instance, should not apply to a community member's ability to publish RubyGems. These are two separate organizations. Again, if you choose to add enforcement (please don't), at least codify where they can be enforced.

That said, and here lies the problem, you can't actually stop anyone from publishing RubyGems, just as you can't stop anyone from submitting a PR to Ruby or commenting on issues, as is the reality the internet we live in. I don't see how saying, "Emily P. is no longer allowed to contribute code to Ruby" is going to stop Emily P. from committing to Ruby if she chose to do so under an alias. Because of this simple fact, I can only conclude that the goal of enforcement for Coraline is to give her the ability to publicly shame those she disagrees with by virtue of having "Emily P. cannot contribute to Ruby" as part of the public record. It doesn't actually change Emily's abilities to contribute in any real terms, it just allows for people like Coraline and her Twitter followers to use the enforcement as a badge for their cause.

Quite simply, I don't see how enforcement would actually work. YAGNI.

[einhverfr (Chris Travers)]

Hi everyone;

First, in scope I recognize the discussion as to whether to have a code of conduct is over. Ruby has done well so far and I trust that Matz will act with wisdom and inclusion on this issue, and not exclude other cultural value systems.

The rest of this comment provides my view as one culturally liminal to the US on what is going on here and how to have a truly open and inclusive community (something I think both sides of this discussion want). In particular, this is a post about why we need to be willing to work with people even when we vehemently disagree with eachother on cultural, social, and political issues.

The US is in transition towards greater gay rights, and having lost a sense of liminality there is a view that we should be liberating people from the constraints of gender. There is a tendency in the American way of thinking to see these changes as universally applicable and therefore things to be spread to other cultures. The primarily argument I see above is free speech (one right) vs these changes (views of other rights). These conflict and are an argument that is going on in the US today, but I don't think this is particularly helpful in understanding what this means for a global project.

I have programmed with Ruby on and off for some time (mostly small projects). I maintain some larger open source projects in Perl. I have spent most of my life in my birth country of the US, but I have now lived and worked on three continents and can therefore share some cultural viewpoints that I think Americans miss in the hope of greater understanding and sympathy across global projects.

For those of you who maintain projects using the Contributor Covenant, I hope this post provides some reason why the jump to protect certain classes and not others feels exclusionary to many of us, though with the inclusion of culture as a protected category, these are so watered down as to be harmless (keep in mind, if culture is a protected category, then sides in a culture war are protected too).

Culture doesn't only include art, food, and so forth. It also includes ways one views topics like sexuality, family structures, and the like. If gender is understood to be in part a cultural construct as well, it also includes concepts of gender. In fact any concept of a shared reality is necessarily in part cultural and therefore there is no guarantee that, as an open source software project, we have a shared view of these deeply cultural institutions.

For example: There are legitimate reasons why corporate economies in the US and the West are moving towards recognizing same-sex marriage, but there are equally legitimate reasons why people in SE Asia see people pushing such agendas as hostile to their way of life. As maintainers of open source projects we have to keep the peace and maintaining an open and welcoming environment for all requires valuing the socially conservative Hindu from India neither more nor less than the gay or transgender programmer from San Francisco. We must recognize that different places have different social and cultural realities, and we must be willing to work with people we vehemently disagree with. If people are willing to refuse to contribute because of political disagreement over cultural issues (including family, views on sexuality or gender, etc), then the choice becomes whether to let these people dictate a political orthodoxy which the project must impose, or whether to welcome the much larger groups of people worldwide who would be excluded by such an orthodoxy. I think all successful open source communities will end up favoring the latter.

I want to thank Coraline for being open to adding culture to the list of protected categories. With the protection of culture comes the protection of political viewpoints relating to sexuality and gender and these are perhaps the most touchy issues today in terms of worldwide participation. Given the rest of the discussion I am not sure she would be happy with the result, but it is a nice step regarding compromise and it does leave space for disagreement on these issues.

In her comment on Opalgate, Coraline asked whether transsexuals would feel comfortable contributing to a project where a maintainer expressed views that were understood to be transphobic. But there is another side to this question too. For those who live in places (like India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and much of the rest fo the world) where procreative marriage is the foundation not only of the transmission of culture to the next generation but also of the business economy, should such people feel comfortable even using software if the community takes a political position that their way of life is not legitimate? Issues involving gender, sexual orientation, etc don't always have the same implications in all cultures, and I think there is a need to understand that we all have to work with people we vehemently disagree with.

I have a blog post specifically addressing this, the PostgreSQL Code of Conduct issues, and cross-cultural projects at http://ledgersmbdev.blogspot.se/2016/01/on-contributor-codes-of-conduct-and.html which mentions a lot of the dicussions going on about Opalgate and others. I hope this is not considered spam but I think it really is relevant for different sides on this discussion to come together and work leaving room for disagreement on hot button issues.

[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Lisa Beld wrote:

I would recommend the Contributor Covenant. People complaining that it includes harassment in public spaces are most likely just guilty of doing so. Just because the harassment occurs outside the scope of the project does not make it any more ok!

Please don't accuse people like me of harassing in public spaces without evidence, just because I disagree. That's not nice. My reasons are fairness and openness for everyone.

No, the real reason is that something happening outside of THIS project space and unrelated to it (let's say on Twitter) is not the responsibility of every other project I contribute to. Assuming I contribute to a dozen different gems, plus ruby, and basically some unknown number of projects that follow an open-ended CoC:

• Which project should an accuser take their grievance to? The most high-profile one, for the best drama?
• Which project should take enforcement up with me? Should I get ejected from all online spaces?
• Which project's rules am I bound by, should they be different between projects?
• Should all other projects I am part of be required to show solidarity with one project's resolution?

It's a misplaced sense of authority.

It's quite obvious from this thread alone how toxic this community is, I can't believe so many people are essentially saying they don't want to stop harassing people by coming up with silly excuses as if a CoC was somehow implementing communism.

Disagreeing with a badly formulated policy is not "toxic". It's important to understand and agree to the contracts you enter before signing them. I'm sorry you feel it's toxic, but this is the first issue you've participated in here, and it's a huge detour from normal business.

Since you bring up communism, that's just the identity politics behind this movement (special protections for underclasses)... "Formally, it may even be taken back to Marx's earliest statements about a class becoming conscious of itself and developing a class identity." are just recycled bad ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics

It's a philosophical stance. I'd rather just deal with the specifics, but the rhetoric is all mixed up into this too.

The responsibility of enforcing the code of conduct should be handed to a committee comprised of people who have more experience with harassment which is often not recognised by people with more privilege.

I don't believe in the religion of "privilege" and identity politics. Actually, I would argue that it's the most harmful idea in social relations in the last few years. We've gone astray from "a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character", to making race and sex a primary concern, and started class wars over it. That is sad.

But, since I'm too "privileged" to understand, here's someone else's perspective on this, she explains this better than I could anyway:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software

[shyouhei (Shyouhei Urabe)]

On 01/30/2016 05:39 AM, Matthew Kerwin wrote:

Please take the rest of this discussion off the tracker and mailing list. Matz said it was enough days ago.

It is rather clear to me that these people still posting to this thread are deliberately ignoring previous discussions. At this point I think it is a good idea to moderate them being troll.

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[avit (Andrew Vit)]

Shlomo Shekelstein wrote:

...

Please stop: this is unprofessional. Everyone has made their points and it is done here. If you wish to continue, suggest another venue for discussion.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

It should be noted that the leaders of the Postgres project rejected the language in the proposed CoC and have decided to consult with professionals on developing an appropriate code of conduct for their community. In light of that I don't think that we should be considering their draft as a possibility. Details are here: http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail]

I'd also like to suggest reading over the latest version of the Contributor Covenant, v1.4, which I worked with critics on to address what some people saw as far-reaching aspects of the code. You can find it here: https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/blob/v1_4/version/latest/code_of_conduct.md

Thank you for your consideration,

[rklemme (Robert Klemme)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It should be noted that the leaders of the Postgres project rejected the language in the proposed CoC

I cannot see that from the email you referred to. On the contrary the first item of the list mentions that the exploration committee will look at the current draft as well as other texts.

and have decided to consult with professionals on developing an appropriate code of conduct for their community. In light of that I don't think that we should be considering their draft as a possibility. Details are here: http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail]

Eventually each community will have to come up with a CoC that suits it. Nevertheless, I do not see a reason to rule out the PG draft.

I'd also like to suggest reading over the latest version of the Contributor Covenant, v1.4, which I worked with critics on to address what some people saw as far-reaching aspects of the code. You can find it here: https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/blob/v1_4/version/latest/code_of_conduct.md

The link at the end http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/ leads to a 404.

Thank you for your consideration,

You're welcome.

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It should be noted that the leaders of the Postgres project rejected the language in the proposed CoC and have decided to consult with professionals on developing an appropriate code of conduct for their community. In light of that I don't think that we should be considering their draft as a possibility. Details are here: http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail]

They didn't reject the language. From the email: "The Core Team will appoint an exploration committee which will look at various proposals (including the one drafted on pgsql-general) for CoCs and discuss them." Implying that the PostgreSQL Core team disagrees with the language of the draft is disingenuous. Just as Matz is doing, they are taking some time to decide on an appropriate one. It could end up looking similar to the draft, it could end up looking completely different.

In any case, whether or not PostgreSQL ends up using the language in the draft should not affect Matz's decision on a CoC for Ruby. Arguing otherwise is simply an appeal to authority. Though considering the language used to open the issue, maybe Coraline doesn't consider that a problem.

[jaen (Tomek Mańko)]

I must say I'm actually positively surprised by Contributor Covenenant 1.4.
I'm no fan of Coraline or SJWs, but I think she did a really bang up job with
her version 1.4. This feels and reads like an even-handed document centred
on dealing with actual arseholes and not something that could be used as a
weapon to oust people for disgreements on politics or worldviews.
I actually would have little-to-none objection with accepting that wording, my
issues with previous behaviour of the CoC proponents notwithstanding.

project rejected the language in the proposed CoC

If we're generous and look at it as a simplification of what the ML posts says
this is close to being true - this was being considered as the PostgreSQL CoC,
but the current wording was rejected in favour of due process (hah, that's
really in the spirit of PostgreSQL; how long did they work out how they want
to implement upserts properly). So a simplification, but I don't think it's
entirely untrue - and I understand objections to using that wording, mind you.

And also, can we get the troll removed, please? Whether or not jewish Illuminati
rule the world is irrelevant to the topic.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

Since I posted that version 1.4 has been merged into master. You can find the final version here:

http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

• File deleted (1362181286eb3305_l.png)

[kosaki (Motohiro KOSAKI)]

And also, can we get the troll removed, please? Whether or not jewish Illuminati
rule the world is irrelevant to the topic.

Done.

The reason is not being troll, the reason is ethnic insult. Trolling
is obviously wrong behavior, but unclear how much wrong.
Then we typically warn them first. But race, gender, and ethnic
harassment are completely different topic and severity. we will give
them a red flag and take an action immediately.

Thank you for cooperating and understanding.

[einhverfr (Chris Travers)]

Just some clarification of context on this for the record. Again, my goal is not to debate whether we need a CoC but to make sure that perspectives are on the table.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

It should be noted that the leaders of the Postgres project rejected the language in the proposed CoC and have decided to consult with professionals on developing an appropriate code of conduct for their community. In light of that I don't think that we should be considering their draft as a possibility. Details are here: http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[e-mail]

This is somewhat true and somewhat false. They didn't entirely reject it. They considered the text among others, as presumably Matz is doing here. I am actually impressed by how the process appears to be occurring in a very parallel way.

Also one point about the PostgreSQL community is that we didn't see the major division that is happening here, and the individual who most favored the Contributor's Covenant showed himself to be very willing to consider the problems this would pose for a global project. Based on the conversations across the spectrum, there is no chance that PostgreSQL will choose a code of conduct which compromises a general political neutrality in the community (there is total consensus that political agendas do not belong in the code of conduct).

I am sure when this is done, we in the Ruby community, will all come together again as a community and any rifts will be quickly healed.

[kevinburke (Kevin Burke)]

Hi, for what it's worth at this point, I strongly support both adopting a code of conduct, and adopting the Contributor Covenant. Thanks everyone for your work and leadership on a difficult topic.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

FYI I just got doxed for my role in proposing a code of conduct for the Ruby community. In case you don't know, this means that my private contact information was researched and publicized for the sake of encouraging offline threats and harassment. These are the lengths that some people will go to in order to support the status quo. I'm not looking for sympathy or support, I just want you to be aware that this kind of crap happens and it's happening now in direct response to this thread. MINASWAN.

[danielpclark (Daniel P. Clark)]

I'm genuinely sorry you're experiencing that Caroline and I pray no further unfriendly action occurs.

One thing to consider. Before this proposal how many kinds of these issues came up? Now with the proposal; what's the best strategy for those who want to make this a reality? It has occurred to me that (possibly) some of the people who would like to see this in action would create the very same problems this is intended to address. Like swearing against Matz on twitter could have been intended to invoke an emotional reaction and further enforce the purpose of this topic - seeing as he (the one who swore) is for it.

I'm not saying that's what has happened here. But if you look at the track record before this was proposed and what's happening now I find it very suspicious.

[CoralineAda (Coraline Ada Ehmke)]

One thing to consider. Before this proposal how many kinds of these issues came up? [...] But if you look at the track record before this was proposed and what's happening now I find it very suspicious.

An uncharitable reading of your comment suggests that we should not talk about harassment, diversity, and inclusivity because it brings out the worst in people. As someone who works for change in tech and open source I can tell you that this is always the consequence of challenging the establishment. The question you should be asking is why people will fight so violently for the status quo. People with greater advantage are openly hostile toward underrepresented people and that's somehow our fault because we dared to point it out?

[Ayaka (Charles Ayaka)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

FYI I just got doxed for my role in proposing a code of conduct for the Ruby community. In case you don't know, this means that my private contact information was researched and publicized for the sake of encouraging offline threats and harassment. These are the lengths that some people will go to in order to support the status quo. I'm not looking for sympathy or support, I just want you to be aware that this kind of crap happens and it's happening now in direct response to this thread. MINASWAN.

That's unfortunate and I'm sorry that this is happening to you.

What you might not be aware of is that your approach to all of this might not be the best way. You and your followers are publicly criticizing and shaming the project leaders on Twitter, which is only inviting the toxic elements to this thread. Matz has stated that he intends to implement a code of conduct, so why does that not satisfy you? People have genuine concerns over this and that does not mean they should be shamed or labeled as harassers, to do that is to be every bit as exclusionary and intolerant as the actions you are trying to prevent.

Frankly, as a newcomer I do not feel this community is welcoming because of this very thread. I do not want to see anyone harassed in any community that I am a part of, but I also want everyone to have a right to their own views and the right to express them respectfully. That, in my mind should be the first value in your code of conduct.

~A

[spatulasnout (B Kelly)]

[e-mail] wrote:

FYI I just got doxed for my role in proposing a code of conduct for the Ruby community.
In case you don't know, this means that my private contact information was researched
and publicized for the sake of encouraging offline threats and harassment. These are
the lengths that some people will go to in order to support the status quo.

Might we perhaps begin on a point of agreement, that the actions described above are not
those of reasonable people?

[...] I can tell you that this is always the consequence of challenging the establishment.
The question you should be asking is why people will fight so violently for the status quo.

When you put it that way, one wonders if you might somehow be blissfully unaware of the
acres of archived posts and videos from social justice proponents, harassing and doxxing
their opponents? And the string of credible bomb threats called in disrupting multiple
events which were simply peaceful gatherings of social libertarians? Or the bomb threat
that succeeded in disrupting the Society of Professional Journalists AirPlay event, which
was a peaceful debate with GamerGate supporters on questions of journalistic ethics?

I'd suggest the takeaway here is that unreasonable people seem to be distributed
throughout the Internet.

And I'd hope that reasonable people might find common cause in condemning unreasonable
actions and behavior, regardless from which 'camp' it originates. (As indeed I would
condemn your being doxxed.)

Reasonable people can disagree peaceably.

(A recent such example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5-oG0L6ZnU )

Regards,

Bill

[Hanmac (Hans Mackowiak)]

Question: if i get called a "irrational, knee-jerk" (that does harass hurt my feelings) does that violate the CoC and result in Banning of that user?
Quote: "Public or private harassment Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks"

if not than this shows how "Double Standard" this whole discussion is.

Edit:
while harassment might not be the right word (a look on Wikipedia shows some info about Cyberbullying, which is isn't yet) it does fit into the category of insulting comments

[yuricson (Yuri Leikind)]

Disclaimer: Yes, this is a new account, but I am not new in the Ruby community, and I am not hiding my identity.

I am for a Code of Conduct.

I am also for a CoC equally applying to everyone equally. In this regard I have a few questions for Coraline:

1. You tweeted recently:

You know what’s not ‘nice’? Not moderating a CoC discussion featuring racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, and impersonation." https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/692214992263856130 .

There was indeed ugly impersonation. But what about the rest? I am confused. Could you please specify which comments included

a) racism
b) sexism
c) transphobia
d) homophobia

I would appreciate a list of comment numbers, at least one per point. Or are you accusing everyone who disagrees with you in this thread of racism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia? If so, this is sad.

2. Do you approve of this tweet and its tone: https://twitter.com/krainboltgreene/status/690437246059556864 (the first response to this tweet is from me). Of course you are not responsible for what others say, but I would very much like to know your opinion. Do you find this tweet inappropriate? Does it contradict Contributor Covenant?

3. In the heat of discussions in this thread you retweeted this: https://twitter.com/ashedryden/status/690974412112158720

"It’s not a “diversity problem”. It’s a racist, cissexist, misogynist, toxic masculinity, greedy, self-absorbed asshole problem.".

Is it related somehow to this discussion? Do you really consider people who disagree with you in this thread racist cissexist misogynist greedy self-absorbed assholes?

4. You tweeted

"Amended screenshot for full context: Someone just referenced GAE with a straight face on the Ruby CoC issue." https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/691007711824089088 .

As far as I know Gregory Alan Elliott was recently found not guilty. What is criminal in mentioning him, could you please elaborate?

5. Don't you think that instead of accusing people of certain vices in your personal twitter it would be more honest to do it in this thread? Say, if there is really homophobia here, as you said, why not call it out here?

6. Do you realize that anyone can read your twitter and that the twitter Caroline is quite different from the Caroline in this thread? Do you understand that that twitter Caroline is actually hurting your cause as much as Opalgate?

Thank you. May the {force,peace} be with you.

So I would like to begin this by stating that I am actually afraid that I will loose my job and reputation by responding to this in a negative way. I have made a new account to protect myself (though if anyone gets the joke of my name, you probably have talked to me over xmpp). I have been using and contributing to ruby on another account for a very long time (my first interest came from those many fun hours with metasploit in highschool), and I have been programming with C for much longer. I am a female and a "poc" (read: black), so technically I am shielded from harm under these types of things, but in reality I can prove that the only people who benefit from this document are the people who wrote it in the first place.

The idea of a code of conduct is a seemingly good idea. It prevents people from being assholes, and in theory it makes your community nicer. This is all very good until you realize that the people who made the code of conduct are shielded from its rules, and have the ability to start witch hunts against anyone that they don't like. The idea that one or two out-of-taste jokes or the fact that you don't accept someone's code because of who they are in the outside world is a very scary one.

The only reason this specific code of conduct has been able to "infect" so many projects is because it basically calls anyone who disagrees with it bigoted. Point in case happens to be this (https://a.pomf.cat/uimnqm.png). Did they ever consider that the libraries might have been poorly written?

As a black woman in code, I am afraid to speak out against people like the above posters who speak out against "bullying" and "harassment" when they are the bullies and harassers themselves. I know there are others who have the same opinions as me out there, but I will never know them, because if they did speak out they would get fired.

Have a good day.

Edit: Just in case I get this again, many would love to claim that the awesome-django ticket event is fake. Anyone with a brain and archive tools will see that it is not (http://archive.is/dgilk). You can't lie forever.

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

FYI I just got doxed for my role in proposing a code of conduct for the Ruby community. In case you don't know, this means that my private contact information was researched and publicized for the sake of encouraging offline threats and harassment. These are the lengths that some people will go to in order to support the status quo. I'm not looking for sympathy or support, I just want you to be aware that this kind of crap happens and it's happening now in direct response to this thread. MINASWAN.

Can you prove this? To be honest it has no effect on how valid your ideas are, and it is just a poisoning the well logical fallacy.

[jaen (Tomek Mańko)]

In the interest of fairness I feel compelled to point out that the awesome-django ticket - while not fake - is quite probably just a troll, not someone who did that sincerely. The way they communicate feels like an artifice to match the stereotype of the Offended Brigade, rather than what a real person would have written. Of course YMMV, but I just felt that was done just to drum up the controversy.

But - in the tradition of "starting a conversation" so popular in certain circles - I think that this still raises an interesting point. Namely that such attitude is conceivable and - while a stereotyped exaggeration - would mesh with what SJWs do in practice. You can just look at the way Opalgate was handled by Coraline with all the rhetorical questions, appeals to emotions and well poisoning. This is not a rational discussion most of the time, but a lukewarm war of sorts.

Motohiro KOSAKI wrote:

ph ph wrote:

Vjatseslav Gedrovits wrote:

OK, let's step back and see the bigger picture.

I will kiss you three times whenever.

Please don't use kiss you or hug you or such kind of expression in an international community like here.

The message is not directed to you. The recipient perfectly understand it.
Although what you want to do good, what you end up with is bad irrelevant personnel opinion and censorship.

These words are ok (e.g. In my understanding, Russian people kiss each other for greeting like handshake) in some country

In many countries it is the case, notably in what constitute "Europe", loosely described
as the joint experience of the Greco-Roman civilisation, Christianity, and the Enlightenment.

It existed for thousands of years, and will exist for thousands of years.
it would be a good idea to get used to the idea that they have distinct custom
which you may not understand or agree with, but which will nonetheless withstand,
at any cost, and whatever you consider legitimate or not, any attempt to shut them.

and not ok in other (In US, there is wide consensus it's not ok).

Please do not enforce your mix of american values onto me.
No one asked what american or afghanis consider sexual or not.

Please keep it for yourself, and let other live the life they want.

I don't ask your gender nor nationality. Instead, I'll ask you just don't do that. I don't recommend any of sexual word even if it is widely used as an idiom.

I don't ask you for your reaction or your opinion.

I understand you have no evil intention and I don't think this message should be deleted, but please choose your word carefully a bit more.

You are so kind to everyone.
Please keep your kindness to you and people around you.

Thanks.

It is me who thank you very respectfully

[jakedaywilliams (Jake Day Williams)]

I'm taking a moment to appreciate programmers trying to fix an error by adding comments.

(deleted by hsbt)

[einhverfr (Chris Travers)]

Tomek Mańko wrote:

This is not a rational discussion most of the time, but a lukewarm war of sorts.

And that is what must be avoided at all costs in my view in an international project.

They call it a culture war for a reason. And in a global project, that is a very dangerous thing

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

• Status changed from Assigned to Closed

We have set our Code of Conduct.

https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/conduct/

I hope it works. We may upgrade it if something happens.

Matz.

[listrophy (Brad Grzesiak)]

I'm not a fan of the published document. I do not believe it adequately defines the qualities of a hospitable community. I assert that a reasonable Code of Conduct requires 4 things:

1. Sufficiently specific and mostly comprehensive definition of unacceptable behavior.
2. List of potential consequences of engaging in unacceptable behavior.
3. Preferred mechanism for reporting unacceptable behavior.
4. Rough definition of the process to be followed by leaders.

Applying this document against these four requirements, we observe that it fails all four:

1. Ignoring the fact that the document does not provide an example (though obviously never exhaustive) list of unacceptable harassment behaviors, it constrains the definition of unacceptable behavior to a one-on-one interaction, effectively allowing contributors to be broadly insolent (e.g., sexist, racist, etc) as long as the remarks are not aimed at an individual.
2. The document is entirely lacking in potential consequences. Saying something "will not be tolerated" is not a consequence.
3. The document is entirely lacking in instructing the reader how to report violations.
4. The document is entirely lacking in transparency as to how violations will be handled.

Furthermore, I know a number of individuals in and around the Ruby community. By and large, they are wonderful people. But for a few bad individuals, to "always assume good intentions" is to forget that these people have serially acted in bad faith in the past.

A Code of Conduct has two reasons for existing: to show newcomers that we are a welcoming community, actively reprimanding harmful individuals; and to provide a framework for actually performing the reprimanding. This document provides neither quality.

If this document is in force when the next act of harassment occurs, I expect the recipient of the harassment to feel quite abandoned.

In the meantime, please change the title of the document from "Ruby Community Code of Conduct" to "CRuby Core Conduct Policy" or "CRuby Core Code of Conduct."

[matt_d (Matt D)]

Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:

Since people are repeatedly bringing up Opal as a reason not to adopt a code of conduct, I'd like to point to a blog post giving my perspective on what happened. It includes a quote by the project owner, Adam Beynon: "Your efforts are very much appreciated and needed, and I still think you did the right thing in speaking out where you saw discriminatory comments."

http://where.coraline.codes/blog/on-opalgate/

With all due respect, aren't you in technical violation of your own Contributor Covenant by not respecting Elia's differing viewpoints and experiences?

Brad Grzesiak wrote:

I'm not a fan of the published document. I do not believe it adequately defines the qualities of a hospitable community. I assert that a reasonable Code of Conduct requires 4 things:

you assert. I assert otherwise.
you should respect other people opinion, and not try to impose your views.

1. Sufficiently specific and mostly comprehensive definition of unacceptable behavior.

that is funny, as I as a non native speaker, actually understand this "code of conduct"
although I assert that we do not need any, and we are not legitimate to replace the law.
and actually even if we were legitimate, well, we just won't replace the law

on the other end, I can't begin to understand all the hidden messages and various
obviously slippery and polysemic word like "sexual language". since when there
is a definition of what is sexual or not ?
If you ask an american, an afghan, or other similar people, naked breast is
sexual. if you ask another one, making a kiss is sexual.

So that other code of conduct is full of exactly what you reproach : uncomprehensive
if I have to master your language and bow to your cultural prejudice, I will politely
ask you to go away with your so called "code". you dont codify people.
If you attempt it, dont be surprised if people try to codify you instead.

2. List of potential consequences of engaging in unacceptable behavior

I will tell you a potential consequence if you act in unlawful manner : you get sued.
and it is what people have decided to be legitimate practice.
bear that in mind before acting on your own fantasy legal system.

3. Preferred mechanism for reporting unacceptable behavior.

I find your attempt at policing the world absolutely unacceptable.
Do I need to have a mechanism to report it ? No.

4. Rough definition of the process to be followed by leaders.

I agree with this one. the more rough, the better.
We need to assert that we will never be fair or even attempt to
be fair with anyone. otherwise, there is always someone, somewhere
who will complain.

The best is to BE fair, and to CLAIM you are the worst.
Anything else leads to poison.

Applying this document against these four requirements, we observe that it fails all four:

1. Ignoring the fact that the document does not provide an example (though obviously never exhaustive) list of unacceptable harassment behaviors, it constrains the definition of unacceptable behavior to a one-on-one interaction, effectively allowing contributors to be broadly insolent (e.g., sexist, racist, etc) as long as the remarks are not aimed at an individual.

Coming from a culturalist from an english slave colony unable to recognize the concepts used
(racist, sexist) have very different definitions in different part of the world, that assertion is hilarious.

2. The document is entirely lacking in potential consequences. Saying something "will not be tolerated" is not a consequence.

It actually is. That's just factual and not yours to opine or not.
unless we read something different in this simple sentence, which can happen, and why
laws take time and are hard to write let alone implement, and why any code of conduct
is a bad idea apart from being a potential legal liability because of the insistance of
laws to be, you know, applied, as it's hard enough to come up with them in the first
place.

But based on my reading of it, this is an actual consequence and as a matter of fact
absolutely not yours to say it is not.

3. The document is entirely lacking in instructing the reader how to report violations.

write me here, I'll take care of your violations

4. The document is entirely lacking in transparency as to how violations will be handled.

That is an excellent thing. Because there are some bad people trying
to impose their worldview (I dont need to say who, dont I ?) we should BE good
and not promise anything about it, and maybe CLAIM that we will handle things
in the worst possible way.

Otherwise some professional activist will poison everything

To illustrate that point to the extreme, we can see Russians sometimes seemingly
making a point in not being deterred by putting hostages lives in danger themselves,
thereby effectively removing the incentive for their ennemies to take such hostages.

Whilst it is a debatable practice, it certainly underlines the point that we don't
live in the rosy world of "code of conduct" lalaland. People pretending to believe
in such obviously inexistent world only have motivation not found in their insulting
pink colored sheet of paper.

Furthermore, I know a number of individuals in and around the Ruby community. By and large, they are wonderful people. But for a few bad individuals, to "always assume good intentions" is to forget that these people have serially acted in bad faith in the past.

Why you are considering bad people. this is a technical community. a language.
you are not in a mission to correct "bad people". if so, become a cop. or a judge.
do something. don't go on a technical forum of a programming language explaining
how you want to expurge the world out of its "bad people" according to your
english slave colony's member apologetic feelings. get real.

A Code of Conduct has two reasons for existing: to show newcomers that we are a welcoming community, actively reprimanding harmful individuals; and to provide a framework for actually performing the reprimanding. This document provides neither quality.

You really sounds like a BDSM kinkster. honestly that really sounds like you get
a sexual kick at it. All this "framework" to actually "performing" the "reprimanding",
and how that one is bad for having no "quality"...

That specific case is pretty universally not at its place in a technical forum.

If this document is in force when the next act of harassment occurs, I expect the recipient of the harassment to feel quite abandoned.

Now it's not about "the community", you actually go further away from technical
discussion and venture about "feeling" !?

How on earth is that supposed to concern anyone here ?
Do you want to know my feelings when I read about fictional laws written by loonies in a technical forum ?

In the meantime, please change the title of the document from "Ruby Community Code of Conduct" to "CRuby Core Conduct Policy" or "CRuby Core Code of Conduct."

Ruby the language is used in many ruby project.

You attempt to frame what does not satisfy you as "just one" code of conduct when
it should let everyone free to build anything on top illustrates agin how imperialistic
you are.

The insistance that your very specific ideas, only understandable by very specific people
from your very specific (not universally liked) culture demonstrates your propensity to
put yourself in situation which can never be satisfied by construction

Being dangerous for yourself, you need to be protected from, and you are certainly unqualified
to devise on how to protect others.

[Oceanomare (Oceano Mare)]

I think that this https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/issues/278 and how Coraline will reply is and will be very relevant.

[pat (Pat Allan)]

Given this issue has been closed by Matz, is it possible to block further posts from all non-admins? Leaving it as a forum for people to push personal vendettas is, at the very least, unhelpful and off-topic.

[gkop (Gabe Kopley)]

matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) wrote:

We have set our Code of Conduct.

https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/conduct/

I hope it works. We may upgrade it if something happens.

Matz.

Let's upgrade it, Matz.

[spatulasnout (B Kelly)]

[e-mail] wrote:

Issue #12004 has been updated by gkop (Gabe Kopley).

matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) wrote:

We have set our Code of Conduct.

https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/conduct/

I hope it works. We may upgrade it if something happens.

Matz.

Let's upgrade it, Matz.

Something happened?