I'm not going to get into the minutia and details of how the code of conduct is or isn't good to work in your repo, that's a separate discussion that I won't participate in by choice right now.
I am simply pointing out that your own points made a declaration about how working in the space you are in looks like.
In the gerrit commit that started this thing, you, yourself, publicly wrote this:
*"The Site Settings extension uses a bunch of WMF tools and services for its development, including hosting. If some random person sends me a patch for Site Settings by email, and I email them back and say "Your code sucks, you nitwit" (or worse), am I violating the Wikimedia Code of Conduct?"* https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/mediawiki/extensions/SiteSettings/+/43755...
This statement, the question itself, and the fact you are asking whether this violates the CoC means, to me, and others who are unwilling to work in a hostile environment, that you're unsure whether this is acceptable at all. You might see this question as an innocent attempt to nitpick over the specific details of whether by regulation something needs to happen. I see it as a hint that you might **actually** think this is an acceptable thing to do. I don't know if you do. You might think it's not a bad response, but rather a funny one. You might think it's acceptable because the original code **was** stupid. I know people who think that, and that, for *their* spaces, is valid.
But then I choose not to spend time in that space. That's valid too. Which is why when Amir said he won't get near your code, he wasn't making a personal attack. He was making a conclusion based on what you wrote about the way your space operates.
That's not a personal attack no matter how much you try to shift the goal post and talk about red herrings. That's a consequence, and a reason of why the code of conduct was needed to begin with.
You might accept this consequence as acceptable. That's your choice in your space. But don't throw that on others as if by making a conscious choice to avoid spaces that have a danger of being toxic, they're personally attacking you.
Let's go back to the actual discussion at hand, instead.
Moriel
On Mon, Jun 11, 2018, 11:05 AM Yaron Koren yaron@wikiworks.com wrote:
Hi,
Moriel Schottlender <mschottlender at wikimedia.org> wrote:
Quite frankly, I don't blame people who regularly experience harassment online to avoid spaces where the code of conduct is consciously only enforced in parts of the space. I, too, don't feel comfortable in joining that space, even for
considering
potential interactions that I might encounter, and knowing that these interactions, depending where they happen, may not be dealt with to my personal ideal of what such space should be.
Neither I nor any other extension developers are "enforcing" the code of conduct - that's up to a committee to do.
You stated that as far as you're concerned, there are interactions you purposefully don't see as being governed by the CoC.
I don't know what "purposefully" means there. There are interactions that are not governed by the CoC - how's that?
Some developers decide that they purposefully, in their repos, assume it governs all interactions related to to work on the repo, and some, apparently, do not.
If anyone is "deciding" that, they're making an incorrect decision. Meaning, you can certainly say that you will not tolerate harassment, discrimination, etc. in personal emails as specified by the Wikimedia Code of Conduct - but as far as enforcement, you're on your own, unlike with the real CoC.
Also, given that every extension had this file added in, how is a potential contributor to know who "decided" to embrace this file's statement and who didn't? Given the threat of harassment, it seems awfully risky to assume that everyone who didn't delete the file supports it.
-Yaron
On Mon, Jun 11, 2018 at 1:23 PM Yaron Koren yaron@wikiworks.com wrote:
Hi,
Moriel Schottlender <mschottlender at wikimedia.org> wrote:
This isn't a personal attack, it's a consequence to your earlier email.
You stated yourself, that one of the reasons you don't think a COC.md
file
should exist in your repository is because not all interactions are
covered
by it. While that might be true technically-speaking, it does make a statement to potential contributors about what they might expect in
terms
of feeling safe and secure with a CoC in place.
For those of us who "bad interaction online" are a norm rather than an
edge
case, a statement that the CoC is not fully covering a space means we
don't
go to that space if we can help it.
Saying that one does not intend on touching a space where the
maintainer
clearly stated the CoC is only partially in effect is not a personal
attack
-- it's a consequence of what you said. A consequence that is also shared by others who may feel less
comfortable
speaking up on public threads, but would avoid going into such spaces
all
the same. Not because of who you are personally, but because of what
your
statement about how your space is governed means.
Whatever other claims and discussion is going on in this and the other thread, let's not try to make it sound like there's a personal attack
going
on here.
No, I still think it's a personal attack. I think we've already established that the CoC does not cover all interactions, and that the CoC.md file is thus giving false information. Some people have stated
that
clearly, some have grudgingly admitted it, but no one has really argued against it. Even you note that it's "technically" true, whatever exactly that means.
And of course, this file was put in place by a few developers - it wasn't an opt-in choice. (It's still not 100% clear that it's even an "opt-out" choice, though at this point it seems to be.)
Given those two things, the presence of a CoC.md file in an extension directory tells a potential contributor nothing - nothing about
additional
security they're getting, and nothing really about the extension's developers. Actually, it's worse than nothing, because it gives potential contributors false comfort as far as the protections they'll have. If, as you say, some people face a real danger of harassment everywhere not covered by a code of conduct, then it's all the more reason to either remove that file, or reword it, everywhere - so people know what they're actually getting into.
So, why should Amir want to avoid dealing with my code specifically? Is
it
because he would have fewer protections? Clearly, no. It must be
something
about me personally that would make him treat my code differently from everyone else's.
-Yaron
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