[Haskell-cafe] [Haskell] Guidelines for respectful communication

[Dan Burton]

Thank you, Simon.

My experience with the Haskell community has been quite positive over the
years. I am continually pleased to see community leaders make an
intentional effort to maintain the Haskell community's reputation of
kindness, helpfulness, and inclusiveness.

Say what you will about design-by-committee processes, but the growing
Haskell community -- with the increasing diversity that comes with that --
is refining, extending, and supporting the language in new and interesting
ways. By intentionally and explicitly embracing these patterns of
respectful communication, you facilitate the continued growth and
improvement of the language.

Thank you again for the careful thought you have put into the topic of
communication. Your effort is greatly appreciated!

-- Dan Burton


On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 5:35 AM Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell <

Friends
As many of you will know, I have been concerned for several years about
the standards of discourse in the Haskell community. I think things have
improved since the period that drove me to write my Respect email<
https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html>,
but it's far from secure.
We discussed this at a meeting of the GHC Steering Committee<
https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals> at ICFP in September, and
many of us have had related discussions since. Arising out of that
conversation, the GHC Steering Committee has decided to adopt these
Guidelines for respectful communication<
https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/GRC.rst>
We are not trying to impose these guidelines on members of the Haskell
community generally. Rather, we are adopting them for ourselves, as 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 choose to follow suit.
We are calling them "guidelines for respectful communication" rather than
a "code of conduct", because we want to encourage good communication,
rather than focus on bad behaviour. Richard Stallman's recent post<
https://lwn.net/Articles/769167/> about the new GNU Kind Communication
Guidelines<https://gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html> expresses
the same idea.
Meanwhile, the Stack community is taking a similar approach<
https://www.snoyman.com/blog/2018/11/proposal-stack-coc>.
Our guidelines are not set in stone; you can comment here<
https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/commit/373044b5a78519071b9a24b3681cfd1af06e57e0>.
Perhaps they can evolve so that other Haskell committees (or even
individuals) feel able to adopt them.
The Haskell community is such a rich collection of intelligent,
passionate, and committed people. Thank you -- I love you all!
Simon
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[John Wiegley]

DB> Thank you again for the careful thought you have put into the topic of
DB> communication. Your effort is greatly appreciated!

Indeed, any standard that is good enough for Simon is one I'll gladly adhere
to as well.