[OT] LLVM Community Code of Conduct

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 29 October 2015 at 23:49:08 UTC, Jakob Bornecrantz 
wrote:
> On Wednesday, 28 October 2015 at 17:36:03 UTC, Walter Bright 
> wrote:
>> On 10/28/2015 2:12 AM, Jakob Bornecrantz wrote:
>>> You are not in good company tho. Even the page you link to 
>>> says
>>> nobody else could or should say stuff like that.
>>>
>>> And attitudes like that will only disurage people from trying 
>>> to
>>> improve this community.
>>>
>>> http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
>>> https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/38136.html
>>>
>>> These are different times.
>>
>> I did not mean that absence of a Code of Conduct is license to 
>> abuse others. Just that a CoC is itself insulting, 
>> paternalistic, and not a solution.
>
> Fair enough. Its a shame you see it as insulting.
>
> I pose you this question: if I as a new person coming to this
> community and felt that I was being treated unfairly, badly or
> any other form where should I turn to? Is this documented 
> somewhere?

What do you expect to be done about it?  A code of conduct might 
make sense for a more formal organization like a business, where 
you can actually fire someone, but what power do you think 
anybody has over this completely volunteer community?  The forum 
is completely open, which has the benefit of engaging people from 
all over the world combined with the drawback of occasional bad 
behavior or spam.

This community is small and remarkably friendly while still 
containing withering criticism over technical issues, that's a 
fantastic and difficult mix that the early contributors have set 
the tone for.  You're trying to solve a problem that doesn't 
exist.  If you simply want someone to complain to if treated 
badly, it's well known that Walter runs the show here.

> Building onto that how should I expect to be treated, you
> mentioned decent, how do you define decent?

How could this possibly be defined, especially in an 
international community with many varied norms?  What you may 
find insulting, others may find mildly pejorative.  Worse, you 
will never be able to peg something so subjective as "insulting 
language" under legalese from a code of conduct.  All such a code 
provides is cover for those wanting to punish someone, while it 
will almost always be subjective if the actual behavior fits the 
legalese of the code.

The only possibility where a code of conduct might apply is the 
one Lattner mentioned for llvm, long before they ever had a code, 
where "an active contributor... was treating many people in an 
unacceptable way."  In that case, there is real punishment 
possible, excising the contributor as they did.  I don't think D 
has had that problem yet, nor would it be difficult to enforce 
for an open-source project where nobody's paid for contribution.  
Worst case, if there's an entire faction being abusive or 
supporting one abusive contributor, you tell them to fork.