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Adjust guidelines for respectful communication #480

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Adjust guidelines for respectful communication
hasufell Feb 25, 2025
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hasufell Feb 26, 2025
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hasufell Mar 5, 2025
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9 changes: 5 additions & 4 deletions guidelines-for-respectful-communication/index.html
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Expand Up @@ -29,19 +29,20 @@ <h2>Guidelines For Respectful Communication</h2>

<p><b>We strive to treat every person with respect.</b></p>

<p>Specifically, we aspire to these qualities:</p>
<p>Specifically, we aspire to these behaviours:</p>

<ul>
<li>We welcome into the Haskell community people of all backgrounds, identities, and beliefs, provided only that they in turn behave in the respectful way articulated in these guidelines. </li>
<li>We treat everyone with courtesy, aware that their diverse backgrounds, experiences, goals, and perspectives may be very different to ours.</li>
<li>In our communication, we consistently honour and affirm the passion, professional expertise, and good intentions of others. Even if we occasionally doubt these qualities in someone else, we will not make public accusations of incompetence, malice or ulterior motives.</li>
<li>In our communication, we consistently honour and affirm the passion, professional expertise, and good intentions of others. When we doubt these qualities in someone else, we prefer to deal with those matters discreetly, instead of making public accusations.</li>
<li>We strive to be scrupulously polite at all times. There should be no rudeness, name-calling, or harassment in our communication.</li>
<li>Where we disagree with someone, we avoid forms of expression that might make our dialogue partner feel attacked, humiliated, demeaned, or marginalised. Our critique should always be of specific statements and claims, never of people.</li>
<li>We avoid forms of expression and other behaviours that attack, humiliate, demean, or marginalise - even where we disagree with that person.</li>
<li>Disagreement itself is fine: we are enriched by robust technical debate. But we seek to make the tone of that debate to be a conversation among people who respect, or even admire, each other.</li>
<li>Where we disagree, we try to be curious about the perspective, goals, motivation, and priorities of the other person.</li>
<li>We do not tolerate any form of discriminatory language or behaviour towards any minority (for example age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation).</li>
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This is about how we behave, but could be put more succinctly: "We do not tolerate discrimination."

The practical problem is that is not without some qualification: some forms of descrimination are not illegitimate. (For example, in the UK, I understand that it is not illegitimate to discriminate against beliefs that are not worthy of respect in a democratic society. The website of the UK's Equality and Human Rights Commission gives examples.) The best I could come up with:

"We do not tolerate discrimination that conflicts with our desire to be welcoming and respectful and would not tolerated in a democratic society."

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@hasufell hasufell Feb 27, 2025 •
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I'm afraid that sounds too political to me. You're basically implying everyone needs to value democratic governing structures.

Which types of societies are happy to follow the values outlined above is a philosophical debate and not our concern.

I want all political notion out of this text. Otherwise I don't see myself subscribing to it.

Regarding your point about "distinguished intolerance" I agree from a philosophical standpoint. However, as explained earlier, I find such wording questionable if there's no mechanism to enforce.

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I don't think we should over-think this. The important thing is to get the intent clear; trying to find language that deals precisely with low-probability corner cases ends up (a) with convoluted language where the intent is not clear and (b) with time burned on discussions about those corner cases that are not actually a leading problem in our community.

For that reason, I'd be happy just to say

  • We each welcome as members of the Haskell community people of all backgrounds, identities, and beliefs, provided only that they in turn behave in the respectful way articulated in these guidelines.

without listing anything. Keep it simple. (I'm not strongly against listing things. I just don't want us to get distracted by litigating the details.)

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I'm happy with that wording as well.

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@hasufell, I do not mean to imply that everyone must value democratic governing structures. I am seeking only to describe what we in the Foundation do not tolerate, by reference to something that will be familiar to many people (regardless of the society in which they live).

Given @simonpj's point about not having to cater for every edge case, and I think he and I are on the same page as regards 'listing things', I would be happy with:

"We welcome as members of the Haskell community people of all backgrounds and identities."

...

"We do not tolerate behaviour that conflicts with our desire to be welcoming and respectful."

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@simonpj, on a strict analysis, if it is accepted that 'forms of expression' include all observable behaviours (not just the use of language) and 'dialogue partner' means any person affected by such 'forms of expression', I think that is correct - not so much the dimension of 'politeness', but:

we avoid forms of expression that might make our dialogue partner feel attacked, humiliated, demeaned, or marginalised

as it is had to see how you could engage in unjust and prejudicial discriminatory behaviour without a genuine risk of the adversely affected counterparty feeling, at least, 'marginalised'.

As I have to interpret some of the terms, I would recast that in more general terms:

we avoid forms of expression and other behaviours that might make somebody feel attacked, humiliated, demeaned, or marginalised

However, that strict analysis relies on a close reading of the text. My own preference is that the Foundation continue to make clear that it does not tolerate unfair and prejudicial discriminatory behaviour. Not least, because moving from an express statement that the Foundation 'does not tolerate any form of [discrimination]' to no express statement could be interpreted by some that the Foundation was, in some way, 'dialing back' from its intolerance of discrimination. The motivating issue #463 was not that the Foundation should not be intolerant of discrimiation, but that the statement of its intolerance could be interpreted as drawn too narrowly.

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@mpilgrem I feel we're running in circles.

Indeed, the original motivation was:

  • political belief was oddly omitted from a pretty long list of things we do not discriminate against
  • there was also an odd emphasis on "minority", making it a bit unclear whether discrimination against majorities is seen as less problematic

However, as discussed in the ticket as well, some of us realized that other CoCs have more positive language, which seemed more appropriate. I won't die on that hill, though. I think the positions are laid out and the board can make a judgement.

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@hasufell, to be clear, I agree that the emphasis of the document shoud be on 'the positive', both in its structure and its tone. However, it is difficult to set out a 'prohibition' in 'positive terms'. For example, Rust, which (I understand) prides itself on its community, uses this language for what it seeks to 'prohibit':

We will exclude you from interaction if you insult, demean or harass anyone. ... In particular, we don’t tolerate behavior that excludes people in socially marginalized groups.

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For example, Rust, which (I understand) prides itself on its community

After Rust Moderation Team resigns meltdown, I would not quote Rust community management as a successful practice.

However, that strict analysis relies on a close reading of the text.

GfRC is largely a voluntary declaration of intentions; a group of people referring to it has very limited practical powers to enforce "we do not tolerate" on third parties. Thus such wording is almost inevitably inactionable. "Welcoming" on the other hand is something such group can actively do, so I like the new wording better.

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I think the question of 'enforcability on third parties' does not arise, because the introduction to the Foundation's Guidelines explains:

We do not seek to impose these guidelines on members of the Haskell community generally. Rather it is a signal that we seek high standards of discourse in the Haskell community, and are willing to publicly hold ourselves to that standard, in the hope that others may voluntarily follow suit.

That is, the existing statement about what the Foundation does not tolerate (namely, "any form of discriminatory language or behaviour ...") is one about a standard of behaviour (a) to which the Foundation seeks to be held and (b) which it hopes others will choose to follow.

</ul>

<p>We seek to apply these standards in all our public interactions in the Haskell sphere, including email, social media, discussion forums, and so on.</p>
<p> All these guidelines apply to our behaviour; that is, what we do. They specifically do not, and should not, seek to constrain anyone's beliefs; that is, what they think.</p>

<p>If one of us fails to meet these standards, the ideal course of action is to write to that person privately, gently drawing attention to their lapse. If you're not comfortable with that, please contact the chair of the Foundation, or (if the chair is the problem) the vice-chair or co-chair.</p>

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