April 2017 - Haskell-community

Archival of community.haskell.org
by Mario Rogic 19 May '18

19 May '18

Hi all As announced back in 2015 <http://blog.haskell.org/post/7/the_future_of_community.haskell.org/> we have started archiving community.haskell.org services. We've created https://archives.haskell.org/, and the old projects mailing lists have been the first to be archived. Next on the list is the remainder of projects.haskell.org, and the code.haskell.org site. As always, you can email admin(a)h.o or hop on the #haskell-infrastructure freenode channel to provide feedback / concerns. Thanks - Mario

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Re: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b")
by Theodore Lief Gannon 30 Apr '17

30 Apr '17

I'm also -1 to an explicit code of conduct. Sure, once in a while someone has to step in with Wheaton's Law or what I can't resist calling Simon Says; but all it takes is a gentle reminder. Nobody here is genuinely contemptuous toward anyone else. The barrier of entry is too high -- the trolls are happy enough on reddit. ;) On Apr 6, 2017 6:17 AM, "Andreas Abel" <andreas.abel(a)ifi.lmu.de> wrote: On 03.04.2017 10:42, Henning Thielemann wrote: > On Mon, 3 Apr 2017, Simon Peyton Jones via Libraries wrote: > > I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be >> useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many >> online communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for >> everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten >> standard. Any views on that? >> > > I think these Code of Conducts make things even worse because then some > people start to check every word against these codes. Instead I suggest > we make more use of humor. E.g. Carter Schonwald's comment about grumpy > people made me think about renaming my prelude-compat package to > grumpy-prelude. :-) > I agree with Henning. The discussion gets heated because people are passionate about Haskell; and the latter is a good thing. I rather stomach some insults on a mailing list than having a formal code of conduct. Severe violations of politeness can be pointed out without having such a formal code. We can apply common sense. -- Andreas Abel <>< Du bist der geliebte Mensch. Department of Computer Science and Engineering Chalmers and Gothenburg University, Sweden andreas.abel(a)gu.se http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~abela/ _______________________________________________ Libraries mailing list Libraries(a)haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries

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Re: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b")
by wren romano 26 Apr '17

26 Apr '17

I'm +1 to having a CoC. It doesn't have to be complicated, and indeed CoCs are better when they're uncomplicated (but explicit! vague CoCs help noone). The point of a CoC is not to change people's behavior (if you want that, there are more effective approaches). The point is to serve as a touchstone for community values. Without a touchstone, communities drift over time as people age and come and go. Drifting itself is unavoidable and not necessarily bad, but sometimes that drifting is the slipping that becomes corrosive. Touchstones give communities a way to correct for corrosion: by concretely recording the past they make the past visible, and thus make the present visible as something that has changed from the past. CoCs also, as Tom says, make the community values explicit for outsiders to see. This is especially important for women and minorities, because we are disproportionately affected by breaches of civility. This is why numerous organizations for women in STEM advocate for having CoCs. To pick a few examples: https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/codes-of-conduct-101-faq https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/18/ https://geekfeminism.org/2014/06/30/ The mere existence of a CoC indicates that at least at some point the community cared enough about civility to try to ensure it. That alone indicates that the community has higher standards for civility than the vast bulk of online communities for programming. And it is something we look for. If you want to avoid discouraging women and minorities from joining, it's not enough to play Simon Says, you have to write the rules down too. -- Live well, ~wren

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Re: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b")
by Simon Peyton Jones 06 Apr '17

06 Apr '17

Friends I second what Tom says below. Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online communities have one (e.g. Rust<https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html>), and it might be helpful for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten standard. Any views on that? Simon From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Tom Murphy Sent: 02 April 2017 19:18 To: Fumiaki Kinoshita <fumiexcel(a)gmail.com> Cc: libraries <libraries(a)haskell.org> Subject: Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") Hi Fumiaki! I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced view than before talking with everyone here. Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to fix it. I'd propose: - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly we're not finished. - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" Thanks, all! Tom [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita <fumiexcel(a)gmail.com<mailto:fumiexcel@gmail.com>> wrote: The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a patch instead. 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita <fumiexcel(a)gmail.com<mailto:fumiexcel@gmail.com>>: It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make people grumpy). _______________________________________________ Libraries mailing list Libraries(a)haskell.org<mailto:Libraries@haskell.org> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries

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Fwd: Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b")
by amindfv＠gmail.com 06 Apr '17

06 Apr '17

Whoops, forgot to CC community@: Inicio del mensaje reenviado: > De: amindfv(a)gmail.com > Fecha: 5 de abril de 2017, 19:25:14 CDT > Para: Jakub Daniel <jakub.daniel(a)gmail.com> > Cc: libraries(a)haskell.org > Asunto: Re: [Haskell-community] Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (, , ) a b") > > > >> El 5 abr 2017, a las 13:20, Jakub Daniel <jakub.daniel(a)gmail.com> escribió: >> >> What is the expected effect/role of CoC? Is it expected that people would actually exhibit different behaviour because of a document? Is there a reason to believe good behaviour in other communities come from existing CoCs? I honestly doubt people prone to violate such rules tend to read such documents and since there is no way to enforce it, what point is there? > > If you'll forgive a strained metaphor: imagine you arrive in an unfamiliar land, one which has a reputation for the occasional food fight. You're wearing nice clothes and don't want your day ruined by getting food on them. Some restaurants have a big sign out front: "Absolutely NO food fighting. Anyone caught food fighting will be ejected". Other restaurants don't have the sign. When picking a place to eat, aren't you likely to gravitate to a restaurant which has a sign? > >> Isn't the effort to maintain such a document just a waste? > > Hopefully it'll be very low-maintenance! > > Tom > > > >> >>> On 5 Apr 2017, at 20:54, amindfv(a)gmail.com wrote: >>> >>> I'm also +1 to a CoC, although have less of an opinion on what shape it should take. CoCs are an effective way of making people who may feel like outsiders to a community feel more welcome. The Haskell community is amazing and inclusive but not the most diverse, and projects which are doing better on that front largely all have CoCs. >>> >>> In terms of what shape it takes: there are lots of off-the-shelf ones for different needs: I'd suggest picking one of them. >>> >>> Tom >>> >>> >>>> El 5 abr 2017, a las 11:44, Paolo Giarrusso <p.giarrusso(a)gmail.com> escribió: >>>> >>>> Rust's code of conduct (and the conduct of leaders) have been very successful at creating a welcoming community. However, those rules were there from the start. >>>> >>>> What's crucial is that a code of conduct is really agreed upon by a community and its elders. So thanks to Simon Peyton Jones for starting this conversation. >>>> In particular, a CoC to address known issues (not just in the present discussion) would probably be easier to agree on. >>>> >>>> > We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. >>>> >>>> The guideline I find useful is "assume good faith" (used for instance in Wikipedia), as long as you don't have extraordinary evidence. And that's a guidelines that needs to be stated. >>>> Opinions on politeness in the wild are much more varied. How polite do you need to be, if somebody insists on being wrong? And with actual trolls? >>>> >>>> > Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? >>>> >>>> I don't know if it's a strict rule there, how strict it should be, or whether it works in a CoC. But I find it a very good guideline for educated debate. I learned it (implicitly) in my academic PL training: PL design is founded on math but is no science yet. Debate in hard sciences is different. >>>> >>>> Because this rule is in fact fundamental to establish respect under disagreement. The Rust CoC says "There is *seldom* a right answer." If a question has a right answer, the others become wrong, misguided, heretics, .... idiots... OK, you can censor the word "idiot", but that won't help much. Or you can admit that reasonable people might disagree on `Foldable ((,) a)` (as most already agree), and give that as a guideline, just as "assume good faith". That doesn't make "2 + 2 = 5" legitimate of course—some "common sense" is still needed. >>>> >>>> "There is *seldom* a right answer" is an unstated rule in academic papers (where it's implied by peer review), and it IMHO works rather well there, even on the few academics who will loudly proclaim elsewhere there is a right answer. >>>> >>>> Indeed, I don't want to misrepresent SPJ, but I feel he is often happy to talk about Haskell tradeoffs when they're there, even when others loudly proclaim Haskell is strictly and clearly better than X. >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> Paolo >>>> >>>>> On Apr 3, 2017 10:55, "Tikhon Jelvis" <tikhon(a)jelv.is> wrote: >>>>> Personally, I would not be against a *short and simple* code of conduct that specifically addresses issues we have seen. I'm imagining clear guidelines that help people express themselves in a thoughtful and polite way. Something in the style of the Hacker News commenting guidelines[1] (at least the first four; the rest are specific to HN/Reddit-like sites). >>>>> >>>>> One of the best examples I've seen in the wild had a single rule: no personal attacks. It's simple to understand and follow with no risk of stifling or derailing real discussions, and yet unambiguously rules out the majority of rude comments I see online (ignoring spam and outright trolling). >>>>> >>>>> I do *not* like Rust's code of conduct specifically. It does not provide clear guidelines on civility/politeness and covers too many other things, including a lot of (often political) baggage. Why is the idea that "everything is a tradeoff" enshrined as a rule? The rule on politeness is clearly deemphasized: "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude." is so vague it may as well not be in the code of conduct. We should *assume* people set out to be kind and courteous and help them do that consistently. The "Citizen Code of Conduct" they link to has even more baggage and I believe it should *not* serve as the basis for anything we might adopt as a community. >>>>> >>>>> [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html see section "In Comments" >>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-community <haskell-community(a)haskell.org> wrote: >>>>>> Friends >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I second what Tom says below. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Almost everyone expresses their views with respect, even when disagreeing. The exceptions are (in my guess) mostly unintentional, at least in the extent of the offence caused. That does not make them unimportant, because a slow slippage in our collective standards is, over time corrosive. But it does mean that we can draw breath, as Tom has helpfully done here, and without condemning anyone reset our standards. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I’ve been talking to a couple of people about whether it would be useful to have an explicit Haskell Community Code of Conduct. Many online communities have one (e.g. Rust), and it might be helpful for everyone to have a concrete baseline rather than an unwritten standard. Any views on that? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Simon >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Tom Murphy >>>>>> Sent: 02 April 2017 19:18 >>>>>> To: Fumiaki Kinoshita <fumiexcel(a)gmail.com> >>>>>> Cc: libraries <libraries(a)haskell.org> >>>>>> Subject: Civility notes (was "Traversable instances for (,,) a b") >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Fumiaki! >>>>>> >>>>>> I agree with you that some poorly-chosen words by a few people have soured this conversation, but please don't let that turn you completely off of the productive conversation most of us are attempting to have! I think it's largely been successful, too: even if many of us haven't changed our -1/+1 votes, I for one have had my ideas challenged and have a more nuanced view than before talking with everyone here. >>>>>> Henning and Edward are two examples (one from each side of the +1/-1 chasm) who have been aided by this discussion, in making important progress to finding a middle ground (each in the form of proposed compiler changes). >>>>>> >>>>>> To the rest of us: Fumiaki regretting having posted here is a pretty stark example of why speaking politely matters. People being scared away and feeling unwelcome is a real phenomenon, and we need to do our part to fix it. I'd propose: >>>>>> >>>>>> - If you haven't read it already, SPJ recently wrote a heartfelt letter on the subject [0]. We've gotten better since then, but clearly we're not finished. >>>>>> - Civility is a norm, and norms sometimes need to be enforced. From a distance, we all look bad (and unwelcoming!) if anyone is hostile and we don't make it clear it's not acceptable. Speak up! That said, everyone makes mistakes - try to give people space to apologize and move on. >>>>>> - If someone says something insulting to you, please take that as a sign to become more polite, not less so. The downward spiral is real. >>>>>> >>>>>> If you're called out for saying something regrettable (again, regardless of if you're +1 or -1 on this issue), *please* take our desire for civil conversation seriously. Responses like (I'm paraphrasing, and not trying to cite anyone specifically): "It was a joke (mostly)" and "It's your fault if you didn't get the joke" are worse than not writing anything at all. Ideal would be a quick "Sorry!" >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks, all! >>>>>> Tom >>>>>> >>>>>> [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2016-September/024995.html >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Fumiaki Kinoshita <fumiexcel(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> The discussion has diverged to flaming due to a few offensive people. I guess I shouldn't have posted a proposal here, I should have submitted a patch instead. >>>>>> >>>>>> 2017-03-23 19:53 GMT+09:00 Fumiaki Kinoshita <fumiexcel(a)gmail.com>: >>>>>> It's surprising that they are missing (forgive me, I'm not here to make people grumpy). >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Libraries mailing list >>>>>> Libraries(a)haskell.org >>>>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Haskell-community mailing list >>>>>> Haskell-community(a)haskell.org >>>>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Haskell-community mailing list >>>>> Haskell-community(a)haskell.org >>>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Haskell-community mailing list >>>> Haskell-community(a)haskell.org >>>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Libraries mailing list >>> Libraries(a)haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries >> _______________________________________________ >> Libraries mailing list >> Libraries(a)haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries

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