Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership

[Lionel Dricot <ploum ploum net>]

On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:03:47 +0100, Dave Neary <dneary gnome org> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Lionel Dricot wrote:
>> How often do we have to deal with offended people? What energy will we
>> spend to deal with each case on a case by case basis? Answer is A.
>> 
>> How much energy will we spend to try to design a law/rule that might
fit
>> every use case and will be discussed each time we have a case? Answer
is
>> B.
>> 
>> I expect A << B by at least one order of magnitude.
> 
> You forget "how much energy is lost forever to the community because
> good people walk away after an unpleasant experience?"
> 
> It is telling that the main reason departing editors give when signing
> off Wikipedia is: "Wikipedia is becoming a more hostile environment,"
> contends Mr. Ortega, a project manager at Libresoft, a research group at
> the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. "Many people are getting
> burnt out when they have to debate about the contents of certain
> articles again and again."
> 
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125893981183759969.html
> 
> They have concrete measurements of participation, we don't. So we don't
> know how many developers are inactive now, and were formerly active, or
> why they left. But we certainly have anecdotal evidence of people who
> have publicly left because they could no longer work in the GNOME
> environment. I can give you 10 names off the top of my head.
> 
> You don't think that's a problem?


I had exactly the same problem with wikipedia :
http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?222-why-i-don-t-contribute-to-wikipedia-anymore


And you know what? The problem is that there is too much rules. So people
feel empowered and don't think anymore about the situation, they stick to
the rule. The more you add rules, the more you will increase hostility
against newcomers.

Do you think that many people were turned out of the GNOME community
because of an hostile experience? I don't think so.  (I might be wrong, I
just never met anybody that has a bad experience).

Wikipedia is probably the project with the most rules and you see what
happens.

Lionel