[DISCUSSION] Defining Do-Nots

[padraic]

Some of the primary objections to the COC are that holding certain views, and expressing those views publicly, will become punishable under the COC. Personally, I think that’s overly dramatic – the examples they provide relate to scenarios where no COC existed anyway (which describes the PHP project as-is). Another objection is the “amateur court” or “corrupt court” argument where the COC mediation team pass creative judgements.

It should be possible to kill two birds with one stone here by clarifying (in a separate document perhaps) what some of the do-not terms, e.g. trolling, mean. This would a) create boundaries on what is or is not an example of a do-not and b) double as guidance for the mediation team.

As an example, the term “harassment” can have a couple of meanings. In the broader sense, harassment is just "bothering someone" – which is what provides fuel for the fire (e.g. public statements being taken as harassing merely by existing). In a more specific sense, harassment can be more narrowly defined as a set of factors:

• A course of behaviour
• Which a person knows, or ought to know, is harassing
• Targeting one or more other persons
• And which causes alarm, distress or other harm.

This is generally the set of criteria applied in Common Law systems at least, so it’s fairly well exercised and widely accepted among the English speaking masses. At minimum, it’s a decent baseline to discuss.

If I now take the example of a general public statement, however offensive, the above definition specifically removes it from consideration. A general public statement most likely is NOT targeted at specific people when sent into the public domain (e.g. Twitter). If I take the same statement, and address it to specific people, then it becomes targeted (e.g. email or Twitter @). However, a single targeted statement is STILL not harassment since it must be a course of behaviour (i.e. done more than once).

In this way, a few guidelines might help reduce uncertainty for readers and alleviate some of the concerns out there.