Re: Code of Conduct plan - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 11:10 AM, Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
> That wording has been in the published draft for 18 months, and noone
> objected to it that I'm aware of. There will always be people who don't like
> some of the wording, much as there are often people who disagree with the
> way a patch to the code is written. Sooner or later though, the general
> consensus prevails and we have to move on, otherwise nothing will ever get
> completed.

It's not clear to me that there IS a general consensus here.  It looks
to me like the unelected core team got together and decided to impose
a vaguely-worded code of conduct on a vaguely-defined group of people
covering not only their work on PostgreSQL but also their entire life.
It is not difficult to imagine that someone's private life might
include "behavior that may bring the PostgreSQL project into
disrepute."

However, I also don't think it matters very much.  The Code of Conduct
Committee is going to consist of small number of people -- at least
four, perhaps a few more.  But there are hundreds of people involved
on the PostgreSQL mailing lists, maybe thousands.  If the Code of
Conduct Committee, or the core team, believes that it can impose on a
very large group of people, all of whom are volunteers, some set of
rules with which they don't agree, it's probably going to find out
pretty quickly that it is mistaken.  If people from that large group
get banned for behavior which is perceived by other members of that
large group to be legitimate, then there will be a ferocious backlash.
Nobody wants to see people who are willing to contribute driven away
from the project, and anyone we drive away without a really good
reason will find some other project that welcomes their participation.
So the only thing that the Code of Conduct Committee is likely to be
able to do in practice is admonish people to be nicer (which is
probably a good thing) and punish really egregious conduct, especially
when committed by people who aren't involved enough that their absence
will be keenly felt.

In practice, therefore, democracy is going to win out.  That's both
good and bad.  It's good because nobody wants a CoC witch-hunt, and
it's bad because there's probably some behavior which legitimately
deserves censure and will escape it.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company