llvm dev - May 2016 - Resuming the discussion of establishing an LLVM code of conduct

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Renato Golin via llvm-dev" <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org>
> To: "Chandler Carruth" <chandlerc at gmail.com>
> Cc: "llvm-dev" <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> Sent: Thursday, May 5, 2016 2:06:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Resuming the discussion of establishing an LLVM
code of conduct
> 
> On 5 May 2016 at 19:48, Chandler Carruth via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> > In my opinion, the community is growing and growing up. We need to
> > take some
> > steps to ensure that our long standing tradition of professional
> > and polite
> > behavior continues.
> 
> I'd like to emphasise the "growing up" point, and how it is
not
> directly related to *having* a code of conduct.
> 
> People grow up all over the world and they get to be very different
> in
> their beliefs, behaviours and style. Communities are no different.
> 
> Say what you want about the Linux kernel community, but you can't
> call
> it immature. You can call the behaviour of some of its people
> immature, but the community itself is not by a long shot.
But there are reasonable people who will not interact with that community
because they find that community's acceptance of offensive behavior
unacceptable. I certainly don't want to see that happen here.
 
> Codes of conduct, as they come, are an expression of some people,
> mostly from the US, in response to an extreme prejudicial behaviour,
> and is related to the recent political climate in that country, more
> than anything else.
> 
> Communities grow up every year in many places, they get to be decent
> and caring (like ours, like Fosdem) without a code of conduct. That
> very reason is a fact against the idea that we *need* a CoC.
> 
> But I'm not arguing that we don't, either. I'm supportive of a
code
> that is not overly US-centric and that doesn't curb real enthusiasm
> when it's accompanied by a different culture. The current wording is
> still too much on that side.
I don't understand what you mean by US-centric, perhaps you could elaborate?

My experience, working in the US at research-oriented organizations, is that a
lot of our sensitivity around these issues has nothing to do with US politics,
as such, but that we have a diverse workforce, with wide representation from
different cultures and traditions. Layered on top of that are variances in
English comprehension, social skills, personal history, and other factors. We
try really hard to make sure that everyone feels welcome and comfortable, and
that means maintaining a level of professionalism and respect that translates
well across cultural boundaries. We work with various vendors, university
research groups, etc. and many of these groups are just as, if not more, diverse
(and in many different countries).

Right now, whether it is our own employees doing the work, or a vendor's
employees, we can set an expectation that those employees interact with the LLVM
community when doing LLVM-related development. Should the level of discourse in
the LLVM community degrade from its current high standards, an employee might
object that interaction with the community would make them uncomfortable.
That's game-over for us.

Thanks again,
Hal
> Trying to protect your culture is fine, but encoding your culture as
> the "right culture" to be followed is not nice when there are
people
> from all over the world here. By enforcing a strongly biased CoC
> (which the current version still is, US-centric), may give the idea
> for people to abuse of their new-found power.
> 
> So, whatever list of people's choices and birth marks you want to put
> in the "protected list of people", there will always be others.
> Whatever "accepted behaviour" is described, there will always be
> others. Whatever "unaccepted behaviour", there will always be a
grey
> area where that's not exactly what happened. Encoding the grey areas
> will make it much worse, not better.
> 
> But it's when you mix that, with the banning power of an
> yet-undefined
> group of people without any mention on how they'll be formed or
> operate, that you're opening the code ripe for abuse from all angles.
> Most of the abuse, however, will come unintentionally, when the
> people
> in the committee will form a biased consensus and not allow a chance
> of defence. When people in the community will unintentionally gang-up
> on someone they don't like to force the code on them.
> 
> If you think this wouldn't happen normally, then know that on our
> previous exchange I have been personally emailed by half a dozen
> people telling me how much the code would shut me down, even though
> publicly, people said they didn't think I was being harsh /
> disrespectful.
> 
> I fear the new code will bring that. A simpler, less power enabling
> and less biased code would not give anyone that power, and would be
> far more inclusive than the current one.
> 
> cheers,
> --renato
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
> 
-- 
Hal Finkel
Assistant Computational Scientist
Leadership Computing Facility
Argonne National Laboratory

On 5 May 2016 at 21:03, Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov>
wrote:
> But there are reasonable people who will not interact with that community
because they find that community's acceptance of offensive behavior
unacceptable. I certainly don't want to see that happen here.
Precisely. That's why it's nothing to do with "growing up",
but to do
with "keeping open to new people", as we've always been, and I
hope
will always be.

> My experience, working in the US at research-oriented organizations, is
that a lot of our sensitivity around these issues has nothing to do with US
politics, as such, but that we have a diverse workforce, with wide
representation from different cultures and traditions. Layered on top of that
are variances in English comprehension, social skills, personal history, and
other factors. We try really hard to make sure that everyone feels welcome and
comfortable, and that means maintaining a level of professionalism and respect
that translates well across cultural boundaries. We work with various vendors,
university research groups, etc. and many of these groups are just as, if not
more, diverse (and in many different countries).
This is true wherever there's multiculturalism. In England, many
analysis (ex. Ipsos MORI) have shown consistently that it's the areas
that have less immigrants that hate the most. So, naturally, Cambridge
and London are places with very little prejudice overall, while some
distant places (including in between) and really bad. From what I
hear, this is the same in the US, but with much larger ranges and
populations.

If the news that gets here is any indication of what goes on in there,
racism, sexism, homophobia and epistemophobia is at an all time high,
at least apparently, and there are a lot of of state and federal laws
competing to see who has the most power. It's only natural that
enlightened individuals feel strongly about this and want to make sure
that none of that will destroy their environments. But that heavily
polarised behaviour is *much* more apparent in the US than in most
other places. Every behaviour can be seen as bad or good by different
people, but all of them have some degree of both, and it depends on
how a certain group views the thresholds, to know what really is bad
or not.

If you allow me to generalise (not prejudice), if such a group is
composed mostly of US folks, there will be a focus on wording,
posture, attitude and apparent politeness. Europeans tend to be less
PC, to varying degrees in varying subjects on different countries, bot
overall, more tolerant to odd behaviour. This is clearly because the
cultural boundaries here are *much* closer and more pronounced than in
the US, so people tend to see different as just different, not good or
bad.

Consequently, a CoC that emphasises on the multiple ways someone can
be harassed can be seen as mostly pointless by more Europeans than
Americans (and I mean here, US folks). Also, choosing a
mostly-Americans committee will bring some uneasiness for those not
able to be politically correct due to unavoidable brain chemistry. I
work around people from all over the world, and I'm involved in
multiple communities. Keeping tabs on the accepted behaviour for all
of them with the fear of breaking and being banned will most certainly
keep me out of them, then in.

> Right now, whether it is our own employees doing the work, or a
vendor's employees, we can set an expectation that those employees interact
with the LLVM community when doing LLVM-related development. Should the level of
discourse in the LLVM community degrade from its current high standards, an
employee might object that interaction with the community would make them
uncomfortable. That's game-over for us.
I'd be very surprised if your (or any) employer would take the actions
of one idiot or one incident in a community as the motto of that
community. We're talking about long term abuse, and that would be
curbed, with or without a CoC, much earlier than any employer would
need to drop using an important tool.

In a nutshell, the CoC is trying to tackle a spike in behaviour, but
we don't have proof that any CoC would have prevented any such event,
or the lack of it would have allowed it.

So far, *all* of it is *just* speculation, with different people
having different opinions.

cheers,
--renato

>> Say what you want about the Linux kernel community, but you can't
>> call
>> it immature. You can call the behaviour of some of its people
>> immature, but the community itself is not by a long shot.
>
> But there are reasonable people who will not interact with that community
because they find that community's acceptance of offensive behavior
unacceptable. I certainly don't want to see that happen here.
That cuts both ways. I have in the past posted in my facebook account
articles from the onion that some people would consider offensive. If
you don't like it, don't read the onion or be friends with me on
facebook.

I have been working on llvm since 2006 and according to the code of
conduct I would now be liable to being banned from working on llvm
because of sharing a satirical news.

Again, I don't doubt the good intentions of the people working on
this, but as written this is one of the most terrifying documents I
have seen.

Cheers,
Rafael

On 05/06/2016 09:02 AM, Rafael Espíndola via llvm-dev
wrote:
>>> Say what you want about the Linux kernel community, but you
can't
>>> call
>>> it immature. You can call the behaviour of some of its people
>>> immature, but the community itself is not by a long shot.
>> But there are reasonable people who will not interact with that
community because they find that community's acceptance of offensive
behavior unacceptable. I certainly don't want to see that happen here.
> That cuts both ways. I have in the past posted in my facebook account
> articles from the onion that some people would consider offensive. If
> you don't like it, don't read the onion or be friends with me on
> facebook.
>
> I have been working on llvm since 2006 and according to the code of
> conduct I would now be liable to being banned from working on llvm
> because of sharing a satirical news.
I think it's fair to say everyone involved in this discussion would find 
that a ridiculous conclusion.  I personally am not too worried by the 
current wording, but are there particular changes which would set your 
mind at ease?  Several folks have raised concerns about the section 
which reads "In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces 
may affect a person's ability to participate within them."  Is that the
one that gives you pause?   Or is there more? Pointing to specific 
pieces of wording would be really helpful here.

FYI, several folks have expressed specific concern about that particular 
wording.  If we can find wording which rephrases that to address the 
concern while retaining the intent, that seems like an obvious thing to 
fix.
>
> Again, I don't doubt the good intentions of the people working on
> this, but as written this is one of the most terrifying documents I
> have seen.
>
> Cheers,
> Rafael
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