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

[Chandler Carruth via llvm-dev]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 1:02 PM Renato Golin <renato.golin at linaro.org>
wrote:

> On 14 October 2015 at 20:35, Tanya Lattner via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> > Related specifically to the developers meeting, we are growing quite
> > rapidly. For the past few years, we have been increasing our attendance
> from
> > 50 at the start to now over 350 attendees. With this many people (and
> many
> > new to the community), it seems important to have a code of conduct to
> refer
> > to and possibly *prevent* any incidents from happening. And for some
> people
> > (not sure exact percentage), it makes them feel more comfortable
> attending a
> > conference that has a code of conduct.
>
> Just an honest and simple question: would it make sense to have a
> different code of conduct for meetings and the rest?
>
> I know it sounds like a bad idea, but my rationale is that maybe this
> would at least solve some of the points that socially inept people
> feel pressure on the current proposal.
>
> Because the consequences of a physical meeting can be a lot tougher
> than any electronic one, and because timing is of the essence, the
> wording *has* to be stronger and an executive decision has to be
> implemented.
>
> But such strong wording and harsh unappealable consequences do make
> us, of the anti-social variety, very frightened. We grew in a world
> that never made sense, and we have suffered our childhoods and
> adulthoods in constant fear of irrational (to our minds) reprimands.
> This is not a simple matter, it's quite real and have made me
> seriously consider many times leaving the open source realm for good.
> I have left jobs and regressed in my career because of things like
> that.
>
> From the very wording in the proposed CoC, we don't want to leave
> anyone behind, including physical and mental disabilities. If that's
> true, and we really mean it, than imposing such a harsh CoC from the
> majority of opinions is exactly the opposite of that. People like me
> are clearly not the majority, the NAS UK estimates 1 every 100 people
> in England has some form of autism, but that's the whole point of a
> CoC, is to not forget about the people with some form of fragility.
>

There is an extremely large difference between fragility and an inability
to be polite and respectful.

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.

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.

This is a tradeoff between effort on your part to be polite and respectful,
potentially *a tremendous amount of effort*, and both causing direct and in
some cases irreversible emotional damage to someone and furthering an
entrenched and harmful bias in our community as well as the larger industry.

I think it is reasonable to ask people to undertake the effort, even though
for some it will be a very significant effort. For example, this discussion
and getting a strong and effective code of conduct is a *tremendous* effort
for me. It is worth it. I couldn't think of a better cause to pour my
energy into than making more people feel welcome in our open source
community.

And I do want you to feel welcome here. I just *also* want you to put forth
the necessary effort to keep your communication at the high standard we
have here. And I have seen you do so! I *know* that you are in fact capable
of communicating effectively *and* in line with the proposed code of
conduct. So I truly hope you do not feel discouraged.

-Chandler
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