Re: CoC [Final v2]

On 01/24/2016 12:28 PM, Chris Travers wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Joshua D. Drake
> <jd@commandprompt.com <mailto:jd@commandprompt.com>> wrote: On
> 01/24/2016 08:13 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>
> If I could make one proposal for an additional clause:
>
> * PostgreSQL is a community project and takes no position on any
> political question aside from its usage in the public sector (which
> we support).  We expect communication in community fora to respect
> this need.  The community is neither competent nor interested in
> resolving more general social or political questions.
>
> That won't work. The community does take positions. A good example is
> when -core denounced the topless dancers at the Russian conference.
> That position was taken without consideration that at a lot of this
> community doesn't care, won't care, or agrees with the right for the
> Russian conference to have those dancers. It was done so because
> -core wants all people to feel welcome.
>
> I don't know that this is really a political resolution though (aside
> from being the politics of community governance).    I don't see the
> PostgreSQL core committee taking a position on the question of
> topless dancing, just that it would be inappropriate for some
> participants and therefore unwelcome.  And that is position is
> reasonable.
>
> So trying a slightly better wording:
>
> * PostgreSQL is a community project and takes no position on any
> political question aside from its usage in the public sector (which
> we support). We expect communication in community fora to respect
> this need. The community is neither competent nor interested in
> resolving more general social or political questions. Nonetheless
> the core team does make an effort at ensuring an atmosphere where
> all people, regardless of background feel generally welcome.

I too strongly think the CoC needs something like this.  But two nits:

1) I don't understand what you mean by

 > ...aside from its usage in the public sector (which we support)

2) I don't think "neither competent nor interested" sounds right.
 a) Nobody is "competent" in the sense of an engineering problem.
    These issues are "solved" by one side gathering sufficient
    political support to impose their solution on the other
    (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse).
 b) While the "community as some sort of abstract entity may not be
    "interested", many members of that community certainly are...
    perhaps sometimes to the detriment of the community's primary
    purpose.

Perhaps replacing

 > The community is neither competent nor interested in
 > resolving more general social or political questions.

with something like

 > Such general social or political questions are often highly
 > divisive particularly given the diverse membership we strive
 > to attract.

would be better?