Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
The idea of the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines is to start guiding people towards kinder communication at a point well before one would even think of saying, "You are breaking the rules." The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. I hope that kind communication guidelines will provide a kinder and less strict way of leading a project's discussions to be calmer, more welcoming to all participants of good will, and more effective."
| From: | Richard Stallman <rms-AT-gnu.org> | |
| To: | info-gnu-AT-gnu.org | |
| Subject: | Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines | |
| Date: | Mon, 22 Oct 2018 01:16:46 -0400 | |
| Message-ID: | <E1gESa6-0007zG-HY@fencepost.gnu.org> | |
| Archive-link: | Article |
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines The GNU Kind Communication Guidelines, initial version, have been published in https://gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html. On behalf of the GNU Project, I ask all GNU contributors to make their best efforts to follow these guidelines in GNU Project discuaaions. In August, a discussion started among GNU package maintainers about the problem that GNU development often pushes women away.1 Clearly this is not a good thing.2 Some maintainers advocated adopting a "code of conduct" with strict rules. Some other free software projects have done this, generating some resistance.3 Several GNU package maintainers responded that they would quit immediately. I myself did not like the punitive spirit of that approach, and decided against it. I did not, however, wish to make that an excuse to ignore the problem. So I decided to try a different approach: to guide participants to encourage and help each other to avoid harsh patterns of communication. I identified various patterns of our conversation (which is almost entirely textual, not vocal) that seem likely to chase women away -- and some men, too. Some patterns came from events that happened in the discussion itself. Then I wrote suggestions for how to avoid them and how to help others avoid them. I received feedback from many of the participants, including some women. I practiced some of these suggestions personally and found that they had a good effect. That list is now the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines. The current version not set in stone; I welcome comments and suggestions for future revision. The difference between kind communication guidelines and a code of conduct is a matter of the basic overall approach. A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it doesn't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be sure, the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do not want to need to have recourse to that. The idea of the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines is to start guiding people towards kinder communication at a point well before one would even think of saying, "You are breaking the rules." The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. I hope that kind communication guidelines will provide a kinder and less strict way of leading a project's discussions to be calmer, more welcoming to all participants of good will, and more effective. 1. I read that the fraction of women in the free software community overall is around 3%, whereas in the software field overall it is over 10%. 2. I disagree with making "diversity" a goal. If the developers in a specific free software project do not include demographic D, I don't think that the lack of them as a problem that requires action; there is no need to scramble desperately to recruit some Ds. Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D. There is a kind of diversity that would benefit many free software projects: diversity of users in regard to skill levels and kinds of usage. However, that is not what people usually mean by "diversity". 3. I'm not involved in those projects, even if in some cases I use the software they release, so I am not directly concerned about whatever internal arrangements they make. They are pertinent here only as more-or-less comparable situations. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) -- If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.
Posted Oct 22, 2018 17:42 UTC (Mon)
by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
[Link] (22 responses)
Those are really good guidelines. They serve as a model for any sort of group communication.
Posted Oct 22, 2018 18:32 UTC (Mon)
by colo (guest, #45564)
[Link] (15 responses)
Posted Oct 22, 2018 19:42 UTC (Mon)
by Abrahams (guest, #103692)
[Link]
Posted Oct 23, 2018 5:23 UTC (Tue)
by interalia (subscriber, #26615)
[Link] (13 responses)
But the real test happens when a contributor or developer aggressively doesn't follow such guidelines, because they are just guidelines and nothing says people have to follow them. If there is no punitive social ostracising, then a developer/contributor who consistently behaves badly still hangs around and eventually makes it unpleasant enough that people spend less time in the community, or leave it completely.
I like the wording and getle rationale in this document, but I do think the personalities who most need reining in are just going to look at such a thing and say "people are too sensitive, they just need to toughen up". I guess it depends who the target audience is.
Posted Oct 23, 2018 9:58 UTC (Tue)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link]
That is where people in BDFL-like positions get to (a) show some leadership-by-example (since the tone in a community is usually influenced by what its leaders are doing), and (b) take such a person aside and unambiguously tell them what's what.
Posted Oct 24, 2018 9:12 UTC (Wed)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (7 responses)
That's kinda a separate topic, rather than a real test.
The point of these guidelines is to reduce the frequency of arriving at the situation where a contributor becomes or is remaining aggressive.
It's like defensive driving. You can prevent other people from causing accidents, and fewer accidents is good for you and everyone. Punishing bad drivers is a related but separate topic.
Posted Oct 24, 2018 13:51 UTC (Wed)
by Tara_Li (guest, #26706)
[Link] (5 responses)
I don't quite agree. There's a point where defensive driving starts *rewarding* the bad drivers - that nothing ever happens just encourages them to become worse drivers.
Posted Oct 25, 2018 0:35 UTC (Thu)
by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
[Link] (4 responses)
That assumes that getting into accidents is the only form of feedback bad drivers get. But that isn't the case. We have traffic police whose job it is to hand out tickets to bad drivers; they can even lose their license for repeated and/or severe violations. That's the point of the "Punishing bad drivers is a related but separate topic" comment. By separating the jobs of accident avoidance and punishing bad driving, we get the benefits of defensive driving while minimizing the risk that bad drivers will be rewarded for their misdeeds.
Translating back into codes of conduct, this suggests the rules need to come in two parts. One part are guidelines like the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines that try to encourage best practices so people who want to avoid confrontation don't create it inadvertently. The other part are hard rules about what is absolutely unacceptable and will result in some kind of punishment for violators. There can and should be a big gray area between following best practices and getting in trouble for breaking the rules, just as there's a big gray area between being a careful defensive driver and getting a ticket.
Posted Oct 26, 2018 9:11 UTC (Fri)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 1, 2018 22:45 UTC (Thu)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 14, 2018 9:34 UTC (Wed)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link]
Posted Nov 9, 2018 17:35 UTC (Fri)
by em-bee (guest, #117037)
[Link]
greetings, eMBee.
Posted Oct 24, 2018 23:49 UTC (Wed)
by interalia (subscriber, #26615)
[Link]
Yes, if you read again that's pretty much how I started my comment:
>> Well, writing the "here is how to do it better" is excellent, and I take the point that you want to nudge things before they get bad.
Overall I was responding to the people who were saying this document is the "best of its kind" they have seen, probably because the tone is more encouraging good than punishing bad (the carrot vs the stick). I was just saying that encouraging good is fine, but since it's just guidelines rather than an actual conduct policy then the difficulty comes if someone aggressively ignores it, and there is no procedure/policy for blocking that person.
Well, other than "I'm the BDFL and I'm booting you out of here" I suppose, as anselm suggested.
Posted Oct 25, 2018 6:46 UTC (Thu)
by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604)
[Link] (3 responses)
I would also like to throw in the mix that some people just have poor social and communication skills and don't really pick up as well on social feedback as other people, to the point of it being a neuroligical / psychiatric issue. This isn't really helped by isolating and ostracizing.
Posted Oct 25, 2018 12:19 UTC (Thu)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (2 responses)
And to further muddy the waters, those folks with poor social and communication skills are often (by far) the most prolific contributors of (good!) code.
It is somewhat hypocritical to say that these folks should expend great effort to change themselves lest they be ostracized, while not holding those on the other end to that same expectation/standard.
Anyway. As with most things, balance is necessary but it is highly presumptuous to state a-priori where that balance "obviously" must lie.
Posted Oct 25, 2018 20:01 UTC (Thu)
by rweikusat2 (subscriber, #117920)
[Link]
The assumption that people who are perceived as "having poor social and communication skills" are actually capable of "changing themselves", especially "changing themselves *quickly*" while being exposed to a (perceived to be) highly chaotic environment (perceived to be) extremely hostile, up to the point of (perceived to be) being hell-bent on physical/ psychical extermination of "the offender/ enemy" isn't necessarily true.
Eg, as a hopefully completely harmless example, I've meanwhile learnt to answer the "Eat in or take away?" question common in takeaways. That's a devilish bit of language confusion as the only way to eat something someone intends to buy is "inside", the other half of the sentence implying that the product is not supposed to be eaten which is wrong. This took me about 15 years. There are others which still leave my mind entirely blank as to "What does this person want from me???".
That's a problem people without it usually cannot imagine to be a problem hence, they usually arrive at
assumption A) must be an imbecile.
Plus some rather more nasty options I don't want to put into words now.
Posted Oct 25, 2018 22:21 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Posted Oct 30, 2018 10:37 UTC (Tue)
by ras (subscriber, #33059)
[Link] (5 responses)
The major problem with all CoC's in the inherent hypocrisy of their core message ... be intolerant of intolerance. The CoC's opponents seize on it to goad the CoC supporters into being loudly proud of their intolerance. It's a very effective strategy - usually driving the tenor of the discussion to a historic low. I think it all works out in the end, meaning the things are more cordial after everything settles down, but geeze you would rather not be around when the sausage is being made.
I thought there was no solution. Now Stallman comes it with something that makes the solution so obvious, you don't know how didn't see it.
And not for the first time. The man has an amazing track record for being spectacularly right.
Posted Oct 30, 2018 21:07 UTC (Tue)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (4 responses)
This is a common misconception, tolerance is a mutual pact and can only extend as far as _both_ parties support it, so intolerance should be met with intolerance, you cannot give the intolerant the un-earned benefit of tolerance that they refuse to extend to others, tolerance is earned by being tolerant of others, a kind of corollary to the Golden Rule.
Posted Oct 31, 2018 7:58 UTC (Wed)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link] (3 responses)
Do you realize how this is pure "us versus them" talk? Do you know where this kind of reasoning goes?
Posted Oct 31, 2018 21:46 UTC (Wed)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
Posted Nov 1, 2018 7:26 UTC (Thu)
by CRConrad (guest, #11471)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 5, 2018 14:31 UTC (Mon)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link]
Posted Oct 22, 2018 18:34 UTC (Mon)
by naptastic (guest, #60139)
[Link]
No, not really... a CoC defines boundaries and mechanisms of enforcing those boundaries to protect contributors and would-be contributors from abuse.
RMS isn't wrong here, but he's missing three important points. First, dev communities with codes of conduct ARE teaching people how to be nice, in very specific ways, by providing a CoC, and asking them nicely to abide by the rules. Second, a CoC doesn't have to go straight to "heavy-handed"ness; sometimes people just need to be reminded of the rules. Third, some people are not going to be nice no matter how well you teach them, and at some point, you have to get out the ban hammer.
Posted Oct 22, 2018 19:46 UTC (Mon)
by ibuildwalls (guest, #128114)
[Link] (13 responses)
Posted Oct 22, 2018 20:11 UTC (Mon)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
Anyways, in an ideal world, yes this would be true. Unfortunately, we don't live in one. There are underlying biases that all of us have (including me!) that the possessor may not be aware of. These can have a "tilt" across all of society[1]. At the least, these codes can those the target of such phenomena to point them out to those already in "power" and knowing that there *is* such a process can help to ease concerns of those that are more likely to be targets that the project is willing to approach any such problems that may arise.
As an example relevant to GNU, someone developing a non-free application shows up to ask questions about autoconf for their project. One might have worried that they'd be attacked for the non-free-ness of their application (or their @badcompany.com email address) before rather than just getting an answer to their question. Now they know that such things are not tolerated at the project level and can rest assured that if such does happen, something will actually happen about it.
Of course, communities can neglect them and knowing the social code is meaningless is a reputation thing (not dissimilar to neglected code bit-rotting to outside contributors as time passes).
[1]One might not be racist but might unknowingly perpetuate societal norms which *are* racist.
Posted Oct 22, 2018 20:14 UTC (Mon)
by rweikusat2 (subscriber, #117920)
[Link]
For a past example, the kernel CodingStyle document calls for functional decomposition in order to make code easier to understand. That's a proposition many people, and many quite vocally so, disagree with. Eg, a certain Patrick McHardy used to, "This function is only used once. Get rid of it." (that's a quote, BTW).
Posted Oct 22, 2018 23:25 UTC (Mon)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (4 responses)
I've noticed a pattern with people like you. The ones that crawl out of the woodwork whenever an article like this comes up on this or other sites, making throwaway accounts to vent their spleen about some hallucinated injustice or slight toward some hypothetical endangered demographic. Chronically offended at the notion that anyone should be expected to behave like an adult and having difficulty reading the room or communicating in a coherent manner, and when pressed to clarify what said demographic is, and why anyone would want to preserve it, you almost always escalate into passive-aggressive evasion or outright histrionics.
And your routine is always one of demanding, selfish, unfounded entitlement, from someone with no contributions to the project they're making political demands of, and no intention to ever start either way. Sometimes it comes with vague threats, sometimes specific threats. (On that note, will someone please take ESR's toys away before we end up with another Reiser on our hands?)
If you're not writing code, why should you hold any power over those that do? If you can't be civil, from where do you derive this divine right to shove your entitlement in the face of others trying to get work done?
With apologies to the GPLv2: You are not required to accept this code of conduct, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to complain or interfere with the people actually doing the work.
Get a new script from your ringleaders, please. I'm sick of hearing meritocracy propaganda from people of no merit.
Posted Oct 23, 2018 2:10 UTC (Tue)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link]
The need to reframe discussions of inequity away from the parties harmed by it is a common pattern, and a useful one to recognize in our peers and our selves. Of course not all of us express it in such a nutty way.
Posted Oct 23, 2018 3:46 UTC (Tue)
by billygout (guest, #70918)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 1, 2018 7:24 UTC (Thu)
by CRConrad (guest, #11471)
[Link]
Posted Nov 1, 2018 22:44 UTC (Thu)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link]
There are people who genuinely don't get what the problem is and I'm happy to explain it but I totally get that some people just assume "troll" when people ask the same short sighted questions again.
Posted Oct 23, 2018 13:57 UTC (Tue)
by mcatanzaro (subscriber, #93033)
[Link] (5 responses)
Doesn't this attitude seem rather... horrible?
I care about the people I work with. Being nice to each other is basic decency and shouldn't be controversial. The primary flaw with the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines is that there's no mechanism for redress when people fail to be decent to each other. Hopefully this is a rare occurrence in most communities, but when it does occur, it needs to be handled appropriately.
Posted Oct 24, 2018 10:37 UTC (Wed)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Oct 24, 2018 14:53 UTC (Wed)
by rweikusat2 (subscriber, #117920)
[Link]
Posted Oct 24, 2018 21:05 UTC (Wed)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Oct 24, 2018 21:19 UTC (Wed)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 25, 2018 22:15 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Posted Oct 23, 2018 9:31 UTC (Tue)
by bokr (guest, #58369)
[Link] (3 responses)
Not sure where I clipped this from, maybe a unix cookie, or such.
NB: The fragile and limited can be kind too, by not demanding that others
(Of course it is not kind to surprise people with what they are not ready for).
So, go ahead and dance, though I am too shy and stiff; and let me eat without
Learn to be happy about others' happiness, not dwelling on your own lack.
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, even
Posted Oct 23, 2018 14:40 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
Plus a thousand-fold!
Cheers,
Posted Oct 26, 2018 13:35 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link] (1 responses)
Though this is dangerous for actually doing things about problems no one wants to acknowledge, but still exist anyways (e.g., climate change). And for understanding statistics in general really.
Posted Oct 26, 2018 14:40 UTC (Fri)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link]
I don't think “your own reason and your own common sense” in this case is supposed to mean “your own gut feeling” or “your own convenience”. Obviously the Buddha exhorts us to use critical thinking instead of blindly believing whatever some guru or pundit tells us. That is not a bad idea.
The problem comes in where, as in global warming, there is pretty clear evidence for something that – for whatever reason – people don't want to believe, or, in the case of statistics, where people's gut feelings tend to run counter to what the actual data tells somebody with appropriate training in the field (e.g., the ongoing hype about the menace of Islamic terrorism vs. statistically – in terms of annual per-capita fatalities – much more dangerous activities such as eating too much and/or the wrong things, participating in road traffic, or for that matter taking a bath).
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
I like the wording and getle rationale in this document, but I do think the personalities who most need reining in are just going to look at such a thing and say "people are too sensitive, they just need to toughen up".
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
> aggressively doesn't follow such guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
> causing accidents, and fewer accidents is good for you and
> everyone. Punishing bad drivers is a related but separate topic.
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
There's a point where defensive driving starts *rewarding* the bad drivers - that nothing ever happens just encourages them to become worse drivers.
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
> contributors of (good!) code.
>
> It is somewhat hypocritical to say that these folks should expend great effort to change themselves lest they be ostracized, while not > holding those on the other end to that same expectation/standard.
assumption B) must be doing this intentionally to annoy me.
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
It is somewhat hypocritical to say that these folks should expend great effort to change themselves lest they be ostracized
They probably have been anyway, in order to function in society at all. (And if they haven't figured out that acting kindly towards people makes those people act better towards them and makes their lives easier, a nice document describing what to do and how to do it actually seems quite likely to be helpful. I wish I'd had one a quarter-century ago.)
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
“Do you know where this kind of reasoning goes?”
“Do you know where this kind of reasoning goes?”
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
“People like you”
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
And we will get better code exactly because people who write good code are not turned off by completely irrelevant personal matters
What? That doesn't follow at all, unless you seriously think that people who write good code are all robots devoid of feelings.
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
K.V. rule emerges from Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies,
you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I
know of, babies -- God damn it, you've got to be kind." - Kurt Vonnegut
Pretty sure he wouldn't mind my use of it here though ;-)
refrain from enjoying themselves freely in ways impossible for themselves.
thinking too much about your unfortunate allergies. This goes for acquired
word allergies too ;-)
if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own
common sense." - Buddha, 563-483 B.C.
K.V. rule emerges from Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
Wol
K.V. rule emerges from Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines
K.V. rule emerges from Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines