[melbourne-pug] [pyconau-orgs] Permanent links to Code of Conduct

[Chris Neugebauer]

On 9 April 2015 at 04:06, Joshua Hesketh <josh at nitrotech.org> wrote:
>
> The code of conduct isn't hard coded into the source but rather supplied as
> part of the content management system built into zookeepr. This year the URL
> is here: http://2015.pycon-au.org/register/code_of_conduct
>
>
> I'm actually surprised PyCon AU hasn't moved to Linux Australia's one which
> has had a lot of work put into it and been exercised at multiple different
> events (including debconf and others outside of just Linux Australia). I
> understand less people of MPUG may have seen it, but I personally don't see
> that as a reason not to use it.
>
> There is no obvious license on the pyconau 2015 code of conduct so I'll
> leave that to others to reply.

Javier,

Some explanation as to the current code of conduct; some detailed
reasons as to why you shouldn't adopt it; and some reasons if you do
decide to adopt it, why you shouldn't link back to PyCon AU's instance
of it.

A large part of the reason why PyCon AU has continued to use the older
CoC is inertia -- many PyCon sponsors (especially the Python Software
Foundation themselves) have required a declaration that a conference
would adopt a code of conduct before agreeing to sponsor. Pointing
back at an old Code of Conduct (which has been used successfully for
some years now) has been sufficient for that.

Certainly when I was directly involved in the day-to-day running of
the conference, I was hesitant to change the code after telling the
sponsor what our decision was.

This year I've been responding with the historical code and the LA
code. I've flagged with Clinton the intention of using the Linux
Australia code of conduct, and I believe consideration has been given
to this.

My view is that MPUG should be adopting a LA's code of conduct, or a
variant thereof, rather than the historical PyCon AU one:

- It is more detailed than PyCon AU's, but it covers all of the
provisions of the old PyCon AU code of conduct.
- Likewise, the LA code of conduct, written after PyCon AU's contains
many of identical provisions: enforcement rules, and the preamble,
were taken almost identically from the PyCon AU 2011 code.
- It is not location-specific -- PyCon AU's code specifies things
specific to the location of the conference. MPUG would need to fork
PyCon AU's code of conduct in order to make it appropriate to their
place of meeting.
- PyCon AU's code of conduct specifies in detail expected behaviour of
presenters[0], but much less so for delegates
- LA's code of conduct has been iterated by several organisations
other than LA, including Debconf, which has resulted in amending
language where the code has proved problematic to enforce [1][2].

As for whether you should be linking to PyCon AU's code directly, I
also say no:
- If you adopt the 2014 version, you'll be telling your members that
you'll alert Queensland police to incidents.
- the code will not remain static over the years. The current code
requires minor changes every two years.
- There is also the chance that we'll change the code completely (i.e.
to adopt LA's code of conduct).

--Chris

[0] A large part of this is, in my opinion, due to when the code was
written, and the concerns of the community at the time
[1] https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/commit/b8dfbb633bdb7ad1d16dee39f746345b2b85cfd8
[2] https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/commit/043e78288a33615f8dca775ce0857c37e6a7f660

-- 
--Christopher Neugebauer

Jabber: chrisjrn at gmail.com -- IRC: chrisjrn on irc.freenode.net --
WWW: http://chris.neugebauer.id.au -- Twitter: @chrisjrn