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

[Pauli Virtanen]

Ralf Gommers kirjoitti 11.09.2017 klo 10:44:
[clip]
> There's also the Apache one (
> https://www.apache.org/foundation/policies/conduct.html, thanks to
> Stefan
> for the suggestion), which is also clear and concise, and has a much
> friendlier tone than the Contributor Covenant.

If we look at the content, there seem to be differences between
(A)pache to the (C)ontributor Covenant:

- (A) talks about good behavior in detail, including how to write good
emails, communication expected when resigning from projects, etc.
- (A) suggests to try to deal with the issues by reminding about the
CoC.
- (C) promises maintainers will consider and take fair action on
complaints if necessary. (A) does not promise someone will do
something.
- (C) gives examples of possible actions taken, (A) not.

So it seems that the promises are weaker, and I think the content of
the text is here important.

    ***

It seems to me that these documents generally try to do both (1)
outline community guidelines for "good professional behavior", and (2)
lay out anti-harassment/discrimination/trolling/etc rules. Here, it
appears to me (A) is more about (1), and (C) is mainly about (2). The
tone probably different because of this.

I think Scipy has benefited from being a fairly technical project where
contributors often have professional and academic background, with
existing norms about collegial behavior and communication, and I like
to think that this has been reflected in the discussions.

It can of course be useful to think about writing such things down
explicitly to produce a document explaining (1), and I think the Apache
one gives good hints for keeping things productive. But it is less
clear to me this is something for which formal moderator action would
be necessary.

However, if I understand correctly, the reason why people want these
things is more about (2). Indeed, this is standard stuff in the
workplace and in moderation of internet forums (usually in "Rules" in
the latter). It seems a good idea to structure this part so that it
does not fail if someone acts in bad faith, and so that the moderation
plan is reasonable to the reader and possible to implement.

	Pauli