<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 1:57 PM Philip Reames <<a href="mailto:listmail@philipreames.com">listmail@philipreames.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
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<div>On 10/14/2015 01:25 PM, Chandler
Carruth via llvm-dev wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 1:02 PM Renato Golin
<<a href="mailto:renato.golin@linaro.org" target="_blank">renato.golin@linaro.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On 14
October 2015 at 20:35, Tanya Lattner via llvm-dev<br>
<<a href="mailto:llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org" target="_blank">llvm-dev@lists.llvm.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
> Related specifically to the developers meeting, we are
growing quite<br>
> rapidly. For the past few years, we have been
increasing our attendance from<br>
> 50 at the start to now over 350 attendees. With this
many people (and many<br>
> new to the community), it seems important to have a
code of conduct to refer<br>
> to and possibly *prevent* any incidents from happening.
And for some people<br>
> (not sure exact percentage), it makes them feel more
comfortable attending a<br>
> conference that has a code of conduct.<br>
<br>
Just an honest and simple question: would it make sense to
have a<br>
different code of conduct for meetings and the rest?<br>
<br>
I know it sounds like a bad idea, but my rationale is that
maybe this<br>
would at least solve some of the points that socially inept
people<br>
feel pressure on the current proposal.<br>
<br>
Because the consequences of a physical meeting can be a lot
tougher<br>
than any electronic one, and because timing is of the
essence, the<br>
wording *has* to be stronger and an executive decision has
to be<br>
implemented.<br>
<br>
But such strong wording and harsh unappealable consequences
do make<br>
us, of the anti-social variety, very frightened. We grew in
a world<br>
that never made sense, and we have suffered our childhoods
and<br>
adulthoods in constant fear of irrational (to our minds)
reprimands.<br>
This is not a simple matter, it's quite real and have made
me<br>
seriously consider many times leaving the open source realm
for good.<br>
I have left jobs and regressed in my career because of
things like<br>
that.<br>
<br>
From the very wording in the proposed CoC, we don't want to
leave<br>
anyone behind, including physical and mental disabilities.
If that's<br>
true, and we really mean it, than imposing such a harsh CoC
from the<br>
majority of opinions is exactly the opposite of that. People
like me<br>
are clearly not the majority, the NAS UK estimates 1 every
100 people<br>
in England has some form of autism, but that's the whole
point of a<br>
CoC, is to not forget about the people with some form of
fragility.<br>
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<div>There is an extremely large difference between fragility
and an inability to be polite and respectful.</div>
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Chandler, I think your opening here is a bit quick to dismiss
Renato's position. Your following text is more reasonable, but you
first sentence comes across as a bit harsh.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm sorry it came across as harsh, and I'm not sure what led you to feel it was dismissive. I will try to be more clear here: I'm very literally trying to point out a significant difference between two concerns, neither of which can be dismissed, but which I think there are very different options for responding to.</div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<br>
(For the record, I'd normally not have said anything, but since this
is specifically in a thread about community social norms...)</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>You should say something, even normally. =]</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><br>
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<div>I do not think there is a useful way for us to encourage
and welcome individuals who, for whatever reason including
medical reasons, are literally *incapable* of interacting in
a social setting in a civil, polite, and respectful manner.
That would be a no-win situation. But reality is not this
cut and dry or black and white.</div>
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<div>I have both friends and colleagues with autism and other
severe mental, social, and cultural challenges. And yet,
they are not *incapable* of this. Certainly, sometimes, it
is a significantly greater challenge for them to understand
why people react in the way that they do. However, they take
on that challenge and learn and succeed at being wonderful
people. Do they have to work harder than I do? Some of them
probably do. Do I try to sympathize, remain patient, and
help them as much as I can? Absolutely. Does any of this
mean it is *ok for them to be disrepectful?* Absolutely not.</div>
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I would read Renato's point as being in a round-about-way a request
for help. How should he (or anyone) not familiar with the existing
norms within the community expect to function?</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I mean, I did... and, much as you pointed out in another email, I think that a code of conduct is *exactly* the kind of tool that helps here? I'm not really certain what you're trying to say here.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">Part of learning is
making mistakes and being corrected. Particular for someone with a
form of autism, those corrections may need to include an explanation
of what not to do again and why. I think part of Renato's concern -
it definitely is part of mine! - is that he might say something,
unintentionally offend someone, and not get a chance to learn from
it.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>So, what gives you that impression from the proposed document? My reading is that there will be explicit feedback given, which would seem to directly help folks learn?</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>There is a related issue that may be confusing matters. It is completely reasonable to desire and seek out information to help you understand what you can do to improve if communication goes poorly. I would hope that the advisory committee works very hard to provide this kind of feedback in every case where they can. However, it is incredibly important to not expect or demand that a person *you have made feel unsafe* take the time to explain why. Being forced to explain the problem can and in many cases does *exacerbate* the problem for the individual. If they are up for the challenge of explaining, wonderful. But if they are not, it is critical to respect that and give them the space to feel safe again. Talk to your friends, to others, to the advisory committee, to whomever else you need to to learn how to avoid it in the future.</div><div><br></div><div>If why this is the case doesn't make sense, I can try to dig up resources that go into great detail on the psychological effects of being forced to help teach people why hostile behavior was hostile, but I don't have them handy at the moment. However, please trust me that this is a real and serious issue. As an example, in some cases it essentially forces people who are often put back into a victim mindset to relive whatever caused that mindset.</div><div><br></div><div>Anyways, I don't *think* that is the issue here, but I wanted to provide the context in case it comes up in the future.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<br>
For the record, I have personally run into this in the past. I've
managed to seriously offend a couple of folks and had *absolutely*
no idea why until a third party took me aside and explained what I
did and how it was perceived. That doesn't change the fact that I'm
still responsible for having given offense or that I didn't do my
best to make amends, but the chance to learn without it being "game
over" is key.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I don't see *anything* like a "game over" in the reporting guidelines. The decisions should be rational, measured, incremental, and something that can be questioned and re-examined as time goes on.</div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<br>
Now, obviously, providing that learning opportunity should not be
taken too far. If someone's safety is in question, "game over" is
*absolutely* the right response. Nor does it mean that there can
not be serious consequences. We simply need to keep in mind that
behavior can change, and that offense may not have been (probably
wasn't) intentional. If we keep that in mind and steer towards
moderation and informal correction (as we have in the past), I don't
see there being any inherent conflict here.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think we're actually in total agreement here, and I think the document is too. If you see things that aren't, please point them out, and better yet suggest edits that would help.</div></div></div>