Re: Code of Conduct final draft?

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Thu, 2006-08-03 at 10:42 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:

> > I dislike standards for persons, behaviour or personalities. There's no
> > such thing as a standard for personalities, behaviour and persons.

> Anarchies don't function very well. Try Rousseau's social contract if you
> want to get philisophical about it. Groups of people just choose different
> contracts, with differing tradeoffs of liberty versus freedom, usually
> with checks and balances to tradeoff at a sensible point.

I agree

> Abuse and aggression is also incredibly ineffective even if you think you
> might (theoretically, and maybe I've misunderstood you) think that it's
> useful sometimes.

First .. (on the core principles and rules of our community)

I do think you can, as a community, forbid aggression, abuse, lying
about people or trying to discredit somebody by making false statements.

Everything that is a personal attack on somebody can in my opinion be
forbidden.

Question: How will be define what is and what isn't a personal attack?

Second .. (on the content, as some people asked here)

My opinion on how the content should be used, is as a 'guide' for people
who join our community. I agree that therefore the naming "code" is a
bit misplaced.

I would call it "a guide to a community with people that respect each
other". I think we can trust 99% of the people to try hard to follow
this guide without having to call it a "code".

Given that these are the current core points:

  o. Be respectful and considerate
  o. Be patient and generous
  o. Assume people mean well
  o. Try to be concise

> I, and many others, do not take part in communities which are clearly
> unpleasant or ineffective.

I'm often unpleasant myself, yet I share your opinion on this. To be
"patient and generous" should also apply to people who are pro this
code. Therefore I propose to add this point:

o. Be pragmatic about this code:

People usually have good intentions. Sometimes they make a mistake and
don't follow this code. This doesn't mean that the person in question
can't be a member of our community. It simply means he made a mistake.
It's human nature. Forgive people as they would forgive you.

(And no, I'm not inspired by Christianity. I simply agree with it)


If that point would be added, I would switch sides and would agree that
the code is a good idea.

[cut - I agree]



-- 
Philip Van Hoof, software developer at x-tend 
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
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