6 ms·

> Individual characteristics, including but not limited to, body, sex, sexual preference, race, language, religion, nationality, or political preferences are ir

by mabbo 8y ago

> Individual characteristics, including but not limited to, body, sex, sexual preference, race, language, religion, nationality, or political preferences are irrelevant in the scope of the project and will not be taken into account concerning your value or that of your contribution to the project. This sounds good, but a clause like this can easily backfire. What happens if a high ranking member is (whether they know it or not) a bigot or sexist? Anytime someone tries to challenge them calling out their behavior, they're likely to point to this Code and say "stop making this about gender/race as that violates the code of merit". They can use the very rules meant to stop them as a weapon to silence those who would criticize. The document presumes good intentions by all those participating. Good intentions don't work- mechanisms do. I see no mechanisms here.

pjc50 8y ago
I'd assumed that was the intent: if someone says "my contributions are not being taken seriously because I'm a woman" or "I sent in a patch request and the maintainer asked for nudes", this code facilitates banning the complainer from the project.
- VonGallifrey 8y ago
  I would say that this is the most negative interpretation possible that you have there. It can also be interpreted in the way that the maintainer is breaking this code of merit if the maintainer is evaluating the contribution on anything other then merit. It certainly does not sound to me like this Code of Merit is specifically for supporting sexism like you imply here. It is just specifically against the Idea that Merit or Meritocracy is "dead" which is a common view of those pushing for the usual Code of Conduct stuff.
- ergo14 8y ago
  What you just wrote makes no sense, I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.
delinka 8y ago
"Anytime someone tries to challenge them calling out their behavior..." Where is this happening? The CoM says it can't happen on the project mailing list, or the project forum, or the project issues page ... Doing it on Twitter? Not within the project and fair game.
- geofft 8y ago
  If a senior contributor is systematically making time to read PRs by green-skinned people but not PRs by purple-skinned people, but hasn't said out loud that they're doing so, are you allowed to say anything about it? Also, why is "fair game" a concept that applies to whether misbehavior can be challenged and not to the misbehavior itself? If the contributor tweets, "Ew, all these incompetent purples keep making trash PRs," why should that itself not be considered outside the bounds of "fair game"?
  - delinka 8y ago
    "...are you allowed to say anything about it?" Of course. But away from the project. In the project, I'd say you're free to ask "has this been reviewed? why hasn't it been?" in an attempt to get things moving. If, in the project, the maintainer makes it about non-technical things, have the wherewithal to take it public and not continue polluting the the project's technical history. People are free to express their dislike of the Greens or Purples on Twitter. And they'll catch the fallout on Twitter. Why should these conversations pollute the project documentation? If the lead maintainer shows its true colors and refuses to become a decent human being, people will leave the project. If the project is truly important, someone will fork it and create a new project with a new community. Personally (and selfishly), it comes down to this: years later, when I'm looking for a solution to a problem and $SEARCH_ENGINE returns an email thread, I don't want to sift through dozens of messages about the drama between the Greens and the Purples to find exactly the single line of script that solves my problem. "Also, why is "fair game" a concept that applies..." I don't understand. Either you've misread me, or you're bringing in topics that I didn't address so I don't know what this is about.
  - VonGallifrey 8y ago
    I might be missing something here, but I don't think that someone being racist grants you the right to oust them. They don't owe you their time to review your work and at the same time you don't have to contribute to a project that you think is racist or any other reason. What do you think gives you the right to demand inclusion?
brobdingnagians 8y ago
I assume that if a maintainer explicitly said "I won't accept it because you are X" from that list, then that would violate the Code of Merit anyways, if they don't say that, then everyone can look at the commit to decide if it stands on its own. The only proof that matters is the exact written proof as it is. If all of the other maintainers decide the commit is good, then the commit goes in anyways. Then we can avoid having an HR department for every open source project.
- geofft 8y ago
  OK, I think I understand something major now. The Code of Merit, ZeroMQ's C4.1 "must accept" process, etc. are all designed around the goal of, how do we accept pull requests/patches that are good. The Contributor Covenant and similar CoCs are designed around the goal of, how do we produce a vibrant community. These are different goals, and the former is sufficient if you don't necessarily want a community (e.g. it's a corporate code drop) or you see some reason why people will produce patches regardless. But it's the wrong priority for major open-source projects created by decentralized, often volunteer teams. Those projects need active bug reporting, design review, thinking about future goals, feedback on existing designs, shared visions, etc. A process that simply lets you accept correct patches, should they somehow show up, won't get you there. This is the process that Rust core team member Aaron Turon calls "pluralism and positive-sum thinking" https://aturon.github.io/2018/06/02/listening-part-2/ https://aturon.github.io/2018/06/02/listening-part-2/ , and former Linux kernel contributor Valerie Aurora calls, interestingly, "feminist" https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2014/10/03/operating-systems-war-story-how-feminism-helped-me-solve-one-of-file-systems-oldest-conundrums/ https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2014/10/03/operating-systems-... . But whatever you call it, it's very different from a process that just answers "is this patch being reviewed with sound reasoning." Such a process would have soundly rejected v1 of the patches implementing all the things requested in those articles and likely discouraged contributors (again, for sound reasons, not out of bigotry), and not produced technically better and more meritorious work.
cabraca 8y ago
you have to assume good intentions. otherwise it will end in a mexican standoff, everyone with weapons drawn and waiting for someone to fire first. but to get to your point: on a merit based system every reason to decline a contribution should be based on the contribution, not on the contributer. everyone should be able to validate those reasons. if you got a sexist and he declines your contribution with a sexist reason that should lead to consequences for him. thats what your quoted line entails. the high ranking member violated it because he took your sex/gender into account when considiering your contribution. did he decline with racist remarks? he violated it again because he took your race into account. for me that would be a far better system because it does not put the control in the hands of the few maintainers, it puts the control in the hands of the whole community.
- detaro 8y ago
  What consequences does the maintainers violation of the "Code of Merit" have? It explicitly does not take such things in consideration for standing in the project.
  - cabraca 8y ago
    thats up to the project, depending on the severity of the violation.
- geofft 8y ago
  What are "sexist remarks"? Is allowing men to be rude because that's the social stereotype of productive men, and telling equally rude women that they're shrill and need to tone it down and be less emotional, a sexist remark? It only overtly references the individual contributor, not their gender.
  - cabraca 8y ago
    why allow someone to be rude? we are professionals, we should not be rude to another. > Is [...] telling [...] women that they're shrill and need to tone it down and be less emotional, a sexist remark? if it targets all women i would say yes. if its in a discussion and alice IS too emotional and shrill i would say no (but its badly phrased). everyone should be able to take a step back from a discussion and reflect. am i too emotional? did i maybe take a wrong turn? dont take everything personal. sometimes text does sound angry and agressive, but wasn't meant to be. people are not good at communication. allow some room for misinterpretation.

by mabbo 8y ago

pjc50 8y ago

I'd assumed that was the intent: if someone says "my contributions are not being taken seriously because I'm a woman" or "I sent in a patch request and the maintainer asked for nudes", this code facilitates banning the complainer from the project.

VonGallifrey 8y ago
I would say that this is the most negative interpretation possible that you have there. It can also be interpreted in the way that the maintainer is breaking this code of merit if the maintainer is evaluating the contribution on anything other then merit. It certainly does not sound to me like this Code of Merit is specifically for supporting sexism like you imply here. It is just specifically against the Idea that Merit or Meritocracy is "dead" which is a common view of those pushing for the usual Code of Conduct stuff.
ergo14 8y ago
What you just wrote makes no sense, I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.

delinka 8y ago

"Anytime someone tries to challenge them calling out their behavior..." Where is this happening? The CoM says it can't happen on the project mailing list, or the project forum, or the project issues page ... Doing it on Twitter? Not within the project and fair game.

geofft 8y ago
If a senior contributor is systematically making time to read PRs by green-skinned people but not PRs by purple-skinned people, but hasn't said out loud that they're doing so, are you allowed to say anything about it? Also, why is "fair game" a concept that applies to whether misbehavior can be challenged and not to the misbehavior itself? If the contributor tweets, "Ew, all these incompetent purples keep making trash PRs," why should that itself not be considered outside the bounds of "fair game"?
- delinka 8y ago
  "...are you allowed to say anything about it?" Of course. But away from the project. In the project, I'd say you're free to ask "has this been reviewed? why hasn't it been?" in an attempt to get things moving. If, in the project, the maintainer makes it about non-technical things, have the wherewithal to take it public and not continue polluting the the project's technical history. People are free to express their dislike of the Greens or Purples on Twitter. And they'll catch the fallout on Twitter. Why should these conversations pollute the project documentation? If the lead maintainer shows its true colors and refuses to become a decent human being, people will leave the project. If the project is truly important, someone will fork it and create a new project with a new community. Personally (and selfishly), it comes down to this: years later, when I'm looking for a solution to a problem and $SEARCH_ENGINE returns an email thread, I don't want to sift through dozens of messages about the drama between the Greens and the Purples to find exactly the single line of script that solves my problem. "Also, why is "fair game" a concept that applies..." I don't understand. Either you've misread me, or you're bringing in topics that I didn't address so I don't know what this is about.
- VonGallifrey 8y ago
  I might be missing something here, but I don't think that someone being racist grants you the right to oust them. They don't owe you their time to review your work and at the same time you don't have to contribute to a project that you think is racist or any other reason. What do you think gives you the right to demand inclusion?

brobdingnagians 8y ago

I assume that if a maintainer explicitly said "I won't accept it because you are X" from that list, then that would violate the Code of Merit anyways, if they don't say that, then everyone can look at the commit to decide if it stands on its own. The only proof that matters is the exact written proof as it is. If all of the other maintainers decide the commit is good, then the commit goes in anyways. Then we can avoid having an HR department for every open source project.

geofft 8y ago
OK, I think I understand something major now. The Code of Merit, ZeroMQ's C4.1 "must accept" process, etc. are all designed around the goal of, how do we accept pull requests/patches that are good. The Contributor Covenant and similar CoCs are designed around the goal of, how do we produce a vibrant community. These are different goals, and the former is sufficient if you don't necessarily want a community (e.g. it's a corporate code drop) or you see some reason why people will produce patches regardless. But it's the wrong priority for major open-source projects created by decentralized, often volunteer teams. Those projects need active bug reporting, design review, thinking about future goals, feedback on existing designs, shared visions, etc. A process that simply lets you accept correct patches, should they somehow show up, won't get you there. This is the process that Rust core team member Aaron Turon calls "pluralism and positive-sum thinking" https://aturon.github.io/2018/06/02/listening-part-2/ https://aturon.github.io/2018/06/02/listening-part-2/ , and former Linux kernel contributor Valerie Aurora calls, interestingly, "feminist" https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2014/10/03/operating-systems-war-story-how-feminism-helped-me-solve-one-of-file-systems-oldest-conundrums/ https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2014/10/03/operating-systems-... . But whatever you call it, it's very different from a process that just answers "is this patch being reviewed with sound reasoning." Such a process would have soundly rejected v1 of the patches implementing all the things requested in those articles and likely discouraged contributors (again, for sound reasons, not out of bigotry), and not produced technically better and more meritorious work.

cabraca 8y ago

you have to assume good intentions. otherwise it will end in a mexican standoff, everyone with weapons drawn and waiting for someone to fire first. but to get to your point: on a merit based system every reason to decline a contribution should be based on the contribution, not on the contributer. everyone should be able to validate those reasons. if you got a sexist and he declines your contribution with a sexist reason that should lead to consequences for him. thats what your quoted line entails. the high ranking member violated it because he took your sex/gender into account when considiering your contribution. did he decline with racist remarks? he violated it again because he took your race into account. for me that would be a far better system because it does not put the control in the hands of the few maintainers, it puts the control in the hands of the whole community.

detaro 8y ago
What consequences does the maintainers violation of the "Code of Merit" have? It explicitly does not take such things in consideration for standing in the project.
- cabraca 8y ago
  thats up to the project, depending on the severity of the violation.
geofft 8y ago
What are "sexist remarks"? Is allowing men to be rude because that's the social stereotype of productive men, and telling equally rude women that they're shrill and need to tone it down and be less emotional, a sexist remark? It only overtly references the individual contributor, not their gender.
- cabraca 8y ago
  why allow someone to be rude? we are professionals, we should not be rude to another. > Is [...] telling [...] women that they're shrill and need to tone it down and be less emotional, a sexist remark? if it targets all women i would say yes. if its in a discussion and alice IS too emotional and shrill i would say no (but its badly phrased). everyone should be able to take a step back from a discussion and reflect. am i too emotional? did i maybe take a wrong turn? dont take everything personal. sometimes text does sound angry and agressive, but wasn't meant to be. people are not good at communication. allow some room for misinterpretation.