[llvm-dev] RFC: Introducing an LLVM Community Code of Conduct

[Karen Shaeffer via llvm-dev]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 06:18:49PM +0100, Renato Golin wrote:
> On 13 October 2015 at 18:01, Karen Shaeffer <shaeffer at neuralscape.com> wrote:
> > One point that is very often misunderstood by the general population is that
> > sexual orientation is referenced to the individual's gender identity. In real
> > life, that can be confusing.
> 
> So, normally, you'd refer to all sex-gender-related problems as
> "gender" or "sex".
> 
> The problem is the need to expand in minute details of one problem,
> "gender", and not the others, for example, "culture". It's just like
> this because of people's sensitivity to one topic *where* the text was
> written, than the other topics, which could be much bigger in other
> parts of the world.
> 
> I can think of more problems in putting everything under "culture"
> than under "gender". Examples include gun ownership, death penalty,
> slave labour, cast based society, imposed clothing, imposed body
> mutilation, etc. All of those give rise to *very* different
> discussions in diverse social groups, and you can find "socially
> acceptable" people around the world that accept at least one of those,
> or any combination.
> 
> I don't think we want to go there for *any* case. A simple way out is
> to say: "opinions have to be based in technical merits". Which is
> basically what the BSD code of conduct does very well.
> 
> cheers,
> --renato

Hi Renato,
I believe a technical email list code of conduct should be entirely focused on
the technical content of communications and the contextual tone of
communications. Any reference to any personal attributes of list participants
should be out of bounds. Such a broad rule inclusively accounts for all
subgroups of people, without any need to get into the gory details of a life.

In practice, there are always corner cases. As of January 1, 2009, the
Americans with Disabilities Act has been amended to protect individual's
suffering a whole range of mental disabilities. These disabilities often result
in limitations in the individual's ability to communicate effectively. The
contextual tone of such an individual's communications could be misinterpreted.
In such a case, list administrators ought to investigate to see if such an
individual has special circumstances warranting reasonable accommodation.

Adapt and thrive,
Karen
-- 
Karen Shaeffer                 Be aware: If you see an obstacle in your path,
Neuralscape Services           that obstacle is your path.        Zen proverb