Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] CoC change to encourage clear communication
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2020 09:53:04
Message-Id: bf82720f516ec4063146ee80bcfaaedee85bf9f6.camel@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] CoC change to encourage clear communication by James Le Cuirot
1 On Wed, 2020-12-16 at 09:23 +0000, James Le Cuirot wrote:
2 > On Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:13:54 +0100
3 > Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o> wrote:
4 >
5 > > Hi,
6 > >
7 > > I'd like to propose amending Gentoo's CoC through adding the
8 > > following
9 > > point:
10 > >
11 > > - *Use concise and clear language.* The Gentoo community includes
12 > > people from all over the world, with varying English skills and
13 > > available time.
14 > >
15 > >
16 > > Rationale:
17 > >
18 > > The primary purpose of communication on Gentoo media is to share
19 > > information.  In order for this goal to be achieved, it is
20 > > important
21 > > that the recipients of the message (presumably arbitrary Gentoo
22 > > users
23 > > following the mailing lists) can understand these messages.
24 > >
25 > > Furthermore, we should note that people don't have infinite time to
26 > > spend on reading mails.  Both sending unnecessarily long mails
27 > > and using hard to understand language means that both users and
28 > > developers have to spend ever increasing amount of time to
29 > > participate
30 > > or at least follow conversations.  Eventually, it means that some
31 > > people who can't afford to read all the text are excluded.
32 > >
33 > > In my opinion, it's also a matter of respecting others and their
34 > > time.
35 > > In the extreme case, some people are deliberately participating
36 > > in the described way in order to waste other people's time, to
37 > > exclude
38 > > them if they can't manage to keep up, to push their ideas forward
39 > > while
40 > > drowning the opposition in the storm of long replies.
41 >
42 > I can certainly appreciate the benefits of this as I just haven't had
43 > the time to read most of the recent... uh... discussions. However,
44 > the
45 > idea of enforcing something like this doesn't bear thinking about. It
46 > reminds me way too much of 1984's Newspeak. If we're not going to
47 > enforce it then there seems little point in including it. The most
48 > verbose posters are unlikely to cut down just because we asked them
49 > nicely.
50
51 While I do realize some people might be doing this on purpose, I think
52 that at least some simply don't realize the problem. I believe having
53 it spelled verbosely in the CoC would help people realize that it is
54 a real problem and be more considerate in the future.
55
56 --
57 Best regards,
58 Michał Górny