Remove condesending and patronizing language, reword and delete some setences

[CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

This pull request changes a bit so here is the whole list.

• Rewords some sentences to make them more easier to understand.
• Rewords some sentences so they aren't as condensing and patronizing as they used to be.
• Fixes a small grammar mistake
• Adds a sentence about how you can edit this conduct. Instead of linking a rude and condescending comic about what free speech means.
• Removes the contradictory language brought up in #40 - Removes unwelcoming language #49, Removes unwelcoming language #50 - Removes unwelcoming language #52 and Solves conflicting statements #54 to Removes unwelcoming language #56. (Personally I would be blocking him if I were you guys) and was added in commit b00eff5.
• Removes physical contact sentence, as I'd assume this is for open source communities on the internet, and as mentioned in the readme is not ment for physical places like conventions and events, which makes it unnecessary. Correct me on this if this is supposed to be here for some other reason.
• Removes "refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts" sentence, as nowhere else in the license does it mention something that might confuse the understanding or contradict this sentence.
• Adds a note asking people not to recreate issues or pull-requests if it's closed since some people don't get a hint.

[preoctopus]

👍 - This reads more like an unbiased legal document and less like American political propaganda.

[jbruchon]

Excellent work! I would also suggest that the line "Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect others from intentional abuse" needs to read "Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent" since the existing verbiage implicitly allows doxing or outing of a person based on someone's subjective interpretation of "protecting others." Being the target of abuse (or even simply "feeling unsafe") does not give license to become an abuser. Evil begets evil.

[Zarathustra30]

+1. Merge immediately to stop the flamewars.

Bikeshedding here: why replace "build a culture of respect" with "build a place of respect" in line 11? Places don't respect people. People respect people.

[CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

@Zarathustra30 I changed this because it is human to respect other people. All cultures in the world have different forms of respect and rudeness towards people. Although some cultures do not respect different people for some things they do or are, regardless, people will naturally treat others kindly or at least with respect in-person. Almost every religion has "The Golden Rule" which treating others the way you want to be treated. Calling it a "culture" of respect would disrespectful to the cultures that disagree with some parts of the Code of Conduct, when in most cases around the world if you visit them, all you have to do is respect their beliefs, and don't challenge them or bring up the negative stuff.

[KelseyDH]

Overall good job on this @CoWinkKeyDinkInc. Your edits are common sense and practical. I would be interested in getting your thoughts on some of the changes I proposed in PR #68. I think some of them may be interesting for you to add (as I think your PR right now has the best chance of getting merged).

EDIT: I noticed @Addvilz comment on line 53 and realized I missed this. I share his concerns on this part, but outside of this change I support your PR.

[Addvilz]

This is horribly, horribly wrong - freedom of speech is a basic liberty to express opinions publicly or to call for action, by being protected from any and all attempts by anyone to counter this act of expression in any way, except if exigent circumstances or specific types of expression - hate speech, libel, etc.

What that means, is neither individuals, organizations, nor government can limit free speech, and that includes this CoC - if it does limit free speech in any way, it is against plenty of local and quite a few international laws. However, what is true in the XKCD you removed, is that this mostly applies to public expression - there is a long philosophical and legal debate about this, but usually the drilldown is - you can execute free speech in a local park, without limitation, however, you are not allowed to execute your free speech after breaking in to some poor guys apartment. Hence, the definition of public space also applies.

From that and the intended audience, and purpose of the CoC we can kind of deduce that the public space paradigm is really in effect here, because otherwise it would be a private party - not open community. Both can not coexist.

See, as an example, Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations art. 18, art. 19, European Convention on Human Rights art. 10, Act One of the Fundamental Law on the Freedom of Expression of the Kingdom of Sweden, Constitution of the Republic of Latvia art. 100., Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway art. 100, Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of the Constitution of Canada, etc. etc. There is plenty more.

[KelseyDH]

I share your concerns @Addvilz. Github is a private company and they no doubt have a de jure right to disregard freedom of expression, but that does not mean they should.

Github is quickly becoming the de facto place for managing open source code, making it a major fixture of online infrastructure. It's similar to Facebook, Youtube, Reddit and Google Search; private companies who hold tremendous power over parts of the net. They allow free expression to prevail on their platforms because they know they have an unwritten social contract with their users. They have no legal obligation to uphold free expression; yet they follow a path of providing protections comparable to the constitutions of western nations.

As a cloud SaaS company, Github has social obligations to its customers who have committed to their platform. Large open source projects have accumulated years of crucial documentation about their codebases within Github's internal code discussion platform. It's even scarier for Developer Tool Startups. These startups, who sell API's to other developers, rely heavily on Github for securing customers and evolving their product. For them, an arbitrary decision to delete a repository means the systematic destruction of their company & their codebase.

When Github disregards free expression, their actions become a threat to the open source software community itself. Even if you could never envision you or those you work with running afoul of this Code of Conduct, many startups and businesses rely on OS software packages created and maintained by other people. When Github users start demanding crucial maintainers be banned from open source projects for having offensive opinions elsewhere on the net -- I fear for my own projects. I might rely on that person's code.

[bkeepers]

Reminder that this code of conduct does not apply to all GitHub projects and does not modify the GitHub Terms of Service. It is up to the maintainers of each project to choose the values of their community. See https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-conduct

[preoctopus]

@bkeepers We understand that, and there is 100s of other CoCs on github that have more egregious terms than this one, and they're ignored. The difference of course is that this one made it to the official github blog. Github the company is publicly promoting this CoC, and recommending it for everyone's repo.

If your project doesn't already have a code of conduct, then we encourage you to check out the Open Code of Conduct and consider if your community can commit to upholding it. Read more about it on the TODO Group blog.

Since most projects care more about software development and less about politics, this will be the default one to copy/paste in.

Microsoft making Internet Explorer the default browser in Windows circa 1999 didn't seem like a "big deal" prima facie.

The attention brought in some trolls, and that sucks, but there's lots of us trying to help make this a reasonable CoC that's able to universally protect all kinds of people from harassment and discrimination and and let us get back to making awesome software together. :)

Thank you for working with us on this.

[bkeepers]

The attention brought in some trolls, and that sucks, but there's lots of us trying to help make this a reasonable CoC that's able to universally protect all kinds of people from harassment and discrimination and and let us get back to making awesome software together. :)

I really appreciate the way you've engaged. Thanks for being patient.

[Addvilz]

@atarzwell I completely agree with you - it is usually irrelevant to software development per-se, however, this is not limited to Github, nor to communication directly related to development.

@CoWinkKeyDinkInc honestly, I am not sure how to even address this in a manner that could explain it reasonably well to an average reader.

We could formulate this to something similar to "We respect and support freedom of speech. However, there is time and place for everything - before executing your right, think, is the pull request review really the place to debate political issues? Cake recipes? Favorite cartoon characters?"

This needs refining, however. Freedom of speech is a topic so broad and so debated, it is really hard to define it's relevance and impact to this in one or two sentences. I could literally write at least 5 doctoral thesis on this topic alone...

[CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

@Addvilz I'll try rewriting it so it explains how it's a template and how you can change it. If I can't, I just reverse it back to the comic link for someone else to try.

[preoctopus]

I completely agree with you - it is usually irrelevant to software development per-se, however, this is not limited to Github, nor to communication directly related to development.

I've been viewing this as a CoC for Community Software Development. You're correct that my arguments are moot if we're talking about more than just that.

We could formulate this to something similar to "We respect and support freedom of speech. However, there is time and place for everything - before executing your right, think, is the pull request review really the place to debate political issues? Cake recipes? Favorite cartoon characters?"

I like this, rather than re-iterating what free speech is, it explains how "free speech" applies here. Rather than just "No free speech for you, we're not to government" it's, explains the relationship,

My try:
"We respect and actively solicit your opinion and expertise in the context of this project, and want you to be able to freely articulate your ideas. While you're opinions outside of the scope of this project should be respected, if they do not relate to this project they are a distraction and if they hamper development by derailing conversations, cluttering issue trackers, or are being used to mock, harass or intimidate other developers they will not be welcome here. For persistent or egregious violations, we reserve the right to, as a community, remove you. If you are having your right to contribute to this project infringed upon by someone else in the community, please contact the abuse team explained in $abuse_team_section"

It covers the spirit, but reiterates things already mentioned elsewhere in the CoC. Reading over it, it clearly needs work, but I hope it's conveys my $0.02 on "defining free speech" vs "Explaining how free speech relates to the CoC". Human words aren't my strong point.

I'll let @CoWinkKeyDinkInc take another try at it. Their way with words has been great so far. 😃

[NuckChorris]

At least in the United States, freedom of speech/expression doesn't apply on private property, even when it's publically accessible. Case in point: I can't protest inside my local shopping mall because it's private property, but anybody can still walk in.

GitHub is a shopping mall. It's not a government owned plot of land, it's a place with open doors and a set of rules. Don't like the rules? Make your own repo.

[KelseyDH]

@atarzwell You're right, it's rare for personal or political matters to ever be brought up in issue pages. Though, it is beginning to happen more due to the proliferation of novel projects outside the realm of strictly coding. Right now it appears Github has a low threshold of tolerance before it will act on removing a pages it finds questionable. This controversial satirical coding language being a prominent recent example.

---

Anyways, as for the actual line of text in question, I question the need for this FAQ question section at all. The original "question" is really just written as a set up to make a statement about free speech. Rather than contort a section to fit an already awkward question, I recommend removing the question completely.

Instead, replace it with a more general statement elsewhere about how the Code of Conduct strives to uphold a dual commitment to freedom of expression and the protection of people from targeted harassment. Keeping with the informal tone of the document, even a general statement like this could be effective at getting the point across:

We value freedom of expression on the internet; but with rights comes responsibilities. In short: [Don't be an asshole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule). Act in good faith.  Follow the [golden rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule).

---

EDIT: @atarzwell I didn't see your new proposed wording until after I posted but I also like it. Its a very smart idea for Github issue pages to be protected specifically from incidents such as was observed on the Opal page.

[bkeepers]

@CoWinkKeyDinkInc thanks for the suggested changes. There are a lot of changes in here, and it will be hard to accept all of them as one batch. It would be more helpful to submit them in smaller related chunks.

[jbruchon]

The bit about "freedom of speech" and/or the XKCD comic are inflammatory, unnecessary, and should simply be removed. A lot of unacceptable content (of which this is one part) was copied wholesale from a politically charged and strongly biased CoC at "Geek Feminism" that does not belong in any code of conduct, if for no other reason than the fact that it doesn't outline anything regarding the expected conduct of the reader (in either form.)

Arguments regarding public vs. private actions and freedom of speech are irrelevant. A code of conduct like this is a publicly stated set of limitations on freedom of speech; that's the entire point of the thing! Do we really need to state (in a verbose, convoluted, and sometimes even politically biased manner) that "a code of conduct is a code of conduct?"

[CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

@jbruchon I don't know if you noticed, but I changed that bit up to say how it's a template, and that you can edit out stuff that isn't "free speech" if you like.

[Addvilz]

👍 from me. Good work!

[KelseyDH]

@CoWinkKeyDinkInc I like the new wording from 212e25a & 77c3d08. Here's a slight modification that's intended to be more attention grabbing on the discussion of the concept and what expectations exist. You may or may not like some of the language better:

We do respect and support freedom of speech, but with rights comes responsibilities.  In short this means: [Don't be an asshole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule). Act in good faith. Follow the [golden rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule)

Remember that the Open Code of Conduct is a template for communities to easily integrate one in their website.  You are free to edit the code of conduct so it can fit into your community better.

[CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

@KelseyDH I like the golden rule part, but I'm going to wait for this to be merged or something as I changed enough in one pull request.

[just3ws]

👍

[liampower]

👍

Completely agree. The GF changes are absurd and do not belong anywhere in the official documentation of any rational/respected site.

[Dinsmoor]

[CiaranLaval]

This seems to deal with most of the major issues of ensuring a code of conduct is welcoming without suggesting the community will discriminate on grounds of race, gender or sexual orientation.

I'm not sure why the liberal use is being pulled though, unless liberal means something else to some people.

[bkeepers]

Thanks for your feedback. See https://github.com/todogroup/opencodeofconduct/issues/84.

[preoctopus]

@CiaranLaval In Canada we a political party called the "Liberals". I've heard Democrats in the USA called Liberals as well. Seems any party on the "left" of the political spectrum are "Liberal". I'm not sure what the UK equivalent would be.

It is kind of an innocuous change, since liberal can also mean "open" or "free" (as in speech, not beer). The change is likely to play it safe and remove some of the potentially loaded terminology.

US elections are coming up in 2016 so I think many people have that in mind and are trying to push their politics wherever they can.

After looking up the definition of liberal, it's use here might have been incorrect, only a few places have a definition that only fits my original thought above if you squint.

Perhaps they were trying for the french word libre. Which means free as in freedom, but explicitly does not mean "at no cost" (French has another word for this: gratis). Hence, libreoffice.org and the "L" in FLOSS :)

[CiaranLaval]

@atarzwell In the UK we have the Liberal Democrats, who are an amalgamation of the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party had a long and illustrious history in British politics up until the 1920's but the word "Liberal" was always something other than the party and politics never crossed my mind when I read the original wording, but I do appreciate this is a global audience and I appreciate your feedback.

[ghost]

Frankly I think waving around the XKCD comic as if it's a shield is childish and counter-productive. I fully support removing that line.