> The coc sounds like a Washington politics play, but as long as the best
> still engage
> in this forum, I could care less. The list serves its purpose without
> overhead...a rare
> resource in today's flood of incoherent technical chatter.
Beyond "Hey! Look at us! We're telling people to play nice" What would a
Code of Conduct actually get the community? Is not having a formal "play
nice" document actually keeping developers away?
However, what happens if I break the CoC? Email addresses and IRC
handles are cheap. I can still continue to use PostgreSQL. If I say an
incredibly racist, sexist, or just plain rude thing, then what do I
loose? What do we do when someone harasses someone else in private?
That said, I would capitulate that a document stating the behavior we
expect of each other as a useful way in helping us tell people to stand
down. However, we have to accept that in-and-off itself it's a
meaningless document. Like the US Constitution, it only matters if
people execute and make it matter. (I guess the same idea applies
elsewhere, but hey, I'm a Pennsylvania.) However, unlike a government,
there is no force that we can use against each other.
_We_ as a community need to take the responsibility of telling each
other off when someone steps out of line. If a (short) document
explaining the goals, values, and precepts of the community will help us
do that, then by all means, let's do that!
We just have to figure out if it will. (As a cis-hetero white middle
class male) I'm not a "targeted" group and as such my views may not be
of the most use here.
Jim
