Possible replacement for the 3 rules

[domgetter]

A suggestion from Reddit was that the rules should wholly be replaced by the simple line:

"Contributions will be judged by their technical merit. No politics on project forums."

This has a similar feel to the other suggestion of no off-topic discussion and has similar arguments for and against.

Some additional arguments for/against are as follows:

For:

The NCoC as it stands is a bit empty and doesn't really say that much. Actually adding a rule of some content will give a little more insight as to the reasons and the ideas behind the rule(s).

Against:

Having 3 rules fits as a rhetorical device of 3s. It's nicer to explain and enumerate, and is self-terminating.

Thoughts?

[ghost]

Maybe that could just be in a preamble, rather than in the rules list.

[caseysoftware]

+1

I would replace "accept everyone's contributions" with "Contributions will be judged by their technical merit."

It's simple, clear, and direct.

[cristiano-belloni]

+1

[ghost]

I am slightly against this. I think everything, one way or another, will come down to a political discussion somehow. At least for Bitcoin-y things, definitely. If it's a web server, maybe not.

[Karunamon]

Yeah I have to agree with Teran, here.. :-1:

Everything is politics when more than two people are on a project. An ideal CoC would place technical concerns above all other concerns, and just saying "no politics" ignores this reality.

[david0178418]

:+1: I think having a short, to the point sentence like this as the entirety of the NCoC would underscore the absurdity of the others.

[david0178418]

Per @Karunamon's statement about the overgeneralized "no politics", perhaps it could be converted to "no identity politics". That seems to be the root of the problem. That would also compliment the first half.

[johnny-morrice]

Overgeneralized? Rubbish!

Being specific about the type of politics you won't accept makes you seem like someone who hates on a particular group.

The reason I am keen to find a good way to say "no politics" is because I am socially hapless. I afraid that if I use a badly written contributor code, a socially manipulative person could legally wrestle my efforts from me.

If this code of conduct becomes a way to say "I hate identity politics!" then I am sorry, but that is the most scary type of entryism and I cannot have anything to do with this.

[BenMcLean]

I hate identity politics.

But NoCoC means NoCoC. If you want to replace it with something else then make something else in your own repository.

[david0178418]

@johnny-morrice

Being specific about the type of politics you won't accept makes you seem like someone who hates on a particular group.

I'm not sure how anything in my comments suggested that I hate a particular group. That's quite a leap, to say the least. In fact, isn't that part of what we are trying to minimize?

As I said in my first comment, I support the idea of simply saying "No politics". However, my next comment was addressing the other concerns raised in this thread about that. Feel free to offer another solution to their :-1: s (though, I would suggest doing it in a more constructive way) or to rebut them.

@BenMcLean

NoCoC means NoCoC. If you want to replace it with something else then make something else in your own repository.

This is a change being proposed by the maintainer specifically for the purpose of discussion. In fact, this proposed change is essentially asking what "NoCoC" actually means, since it's potentially replacing the entire thing. I'm not sure that "scram" is helpful in that effort.

[BenMcLeanHRBlock]

My apologies. I did not realize it was the original creator. Reading this on my phone. ;)

It does seem kind of like a bait-and-switch to introduce such a fundamental change to what NoCoC when some projects have already adopted NoCoC.

Might as well go the whole way and call it NoSJWs in that case.

[BenMcLeanHRBlock]

Meant to say "fundamental change to what NoCoC means"

[Karunamon]

Yeah, that. @BenMcLeanHRBlock.

Here's the thing: I would not want to use something that says "No SJW behavior". It's imprecise (which is a huge problem with the more popular CoCs), it's loaded language (and may associate you with something you don't want to be associated with), and it's really taking a political stand all on its own.

I think the document is damn near perfect as written - it gives politics the short shrift it deserves, it lays out a dispute resolution process (deal with it privately or alone, the rest of the group doesn't care), and puts the emphasis on the work where it belongs.

[Karunamon]

I think Ben brought up an interesting point, though.

Suggestion: Create a ready-to-use, versioned (kind of like how the GPL has major revisions) CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md as it stands right now, but with just the rules in it, and a link to the Q&A for more details.

Call it NCoCv1. Then, if the author decides more revisions are needed, they push a new version, and everyone else continues to use whatever they please. This provides maximal freedom for all parties concerned, and eliminates that concern.

[BenMcLean]

Excuse me, that comment above was supposed to be from my personal account.

I think that NoCoCv1 idea would be the best way to go.