[erlang-questions] Announcing Erlang.org Code of Conduct

[Vincent de Phily]

On Friday 13 March 2015 16:23:09 Peter Hickman wrote:
> Despite being a lurker the introduction of arbitrary and subjective rules
> such as 74 character limit and no top posting, neither of which have ever
> caused me problems, comes off as someone having too much time on their
> hands.

I could care less about 74 chars, and find html-only emails annoying but not 
deal-breakers. But top-posting and improper quoting really make threads harder 
to follow. Top-posting is ok in some contexts, but on a mailing list read by 
lots of busy people, I find it disrespectful of reader's time.


> 3.  Be mindful of how much text you are quoting. Too much or too
>     little doesn't help.
> 
> Could you please provide guidance on what constitutes "too much" or "too
> little" quoting. I will be expecting citations from peer reviewed journals
> - or is this just the whim of an anonymous mod?

Just like "hatefull, hurtfull... remarks" this is subjective. Why worry about 
one subjective criteria but not the other ?

For these subjective metrics, I expect moderation to take place only if 
somebody goes repeatedly way overboard. I'd also expect that moderation to be 
proportionate to the "offense" : surely bad formating (as opposed to hateful 
remarks) should lead at most to comments as part of a response, never a ban. 
Note that the document distinguishes "Content policy" from "Style policy".


> I am a member of a few language based communities, some which have been
> much less professional than this list, and they thrived without having
> Moses coming down with the tablets to inform us how we should format our
> emails. Why you think that this even needs to be introduced? Did I miss
> some great cataclysm?
> 
> The lack of a need for a CoC makes me think badly of those that are
> motivated to introduce one.

CoC are documents which should be writen ahead of time. When a problem 
happens, if a CoC was not established to steer things back into normalcy 
quickly, you're likely to lose community members. "Let it crash" is good for 
Erlang, but not for its community. Some people who have been hurt before will 
simply not participate in a community or an event without a CoC.

FWIW, I think this CoC is fairly light and just codifies the current practice. 
The only bit I'd remove is the 74 char limit (even though I respect it by way 
of mailer config).

-- 
Vincent de Phily