[Development] QUIP 12: Code of Conduct

[Konstantin Shegunov]

On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 10:43 AM Martin Smith <Martin.Smith at qt.io> wrote:

> >Oh, it is going to end in A resolution, it may not end the way the
> offended party
> >may feel just, but that's true also for the proposed text.
>
> HA! You are not Konstantin Shegunov! A software engineer would imediately
> see that your 3 step CoC might not terminate. You are an imposter!
>

That's actually amusing, but I'll bite. Formally speaking, I'm not a
software engineer, never had any formal training in the field. I'm a
physicist who moonlights as a programmer. In any case, the current status
quo, which is what I described, ends in either the community reacting or
not reacting to the alleged offence (i.e. isolating the offensive party for
example). That is A resolution, be it a good one or bad.

>imagine that the abusive party is an employee of the QtC and has committed
> >heinous acts against a community member.
>
> You can't immediately jump to the worst case scenario to discredit the
> code of conduct. In fact, the CoC can deal with "heinous acts" by stating
> that such acts will be referred to the appropriate legal authority.
>

Not only can I, I pretty much have to. Minor infringements can already be
handled internally without the need for CoC, major ones is where it would
actually matter if we have one and which one we chose. Also it's a
perfectly valid logic to push an argument to the extreme to see if holds,
we do it on every day basis. In math you can assume something, operate on
the presumption and see if contradicts itself when pushed (reductio ad
impossibilem). If I were to design a safety net for a nuclear power plant
am I to just ignore the extreme or unlikely case? Surely not. You compared
the CoC to a "local law" of sorts, but does the local law forgo the
unlikely case that from the whole population one person would be a
murderer? I shouldn't think so.
You can't defend the CoC's text and premise on the basis that my argument
is unlikely, or extreme. It has to able to withstand exactly those extremes!

In fact, the CoC can deal with "heinous acts" by stating that such acts
> will be referred to the appropriate legal authority.


Not if they don't elevate to a criminal act.
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