Talk:Contributor Covenant

The critic section

@GorillaWarfare: Instead of nuking the whole section, why not point out which sources you think are out of place and need improving? For most of the material, primary sources are what's currently available, but for others, secondary ones can be found. The conflict caused (directly or indirecty) as a result of introducing this document in several popular projects should be noted in the article, not omitted. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 22:10, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I nuked the whole section because every single source was unacceptable.

• [1]: Personal blog
• [2]: Medium post (blog)
• [3]: Personal blog
• [4]: Medium post written by Ehmke. Could argue that this is reliable because the magazine does have someone listed as an editor ([5]) but it's pushing it.
• [6]: Github issue
• [7]: Medium post (blog)
• [8]: Github issue
• [9]: Git commit message
• [10]: Forum post
• [11]: Blog post

There is one section that is reasonably sourced:

She has argued that "organizations that value meritocracy often result in greater inequality", a common critique explored in various publications including the Harvard Business Review, NPR, and The Atlantic.

However, removing the unacceptably-sourced bits and leaving just that under a heading "Issues raised by critics" makes no sense. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:23, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

References

<dunk>--Jorm (talk) 22:29, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

The git commits in the last paragraph were primary sources from the official channels (git.kernel.org and LKML). Since the last paragraph was specifically about the act of (and reaction of) Linus Torvalds adopting the Contributor Covenant, the cited sources were necessary for verifying the accuracy of the quoted statements. See WP:SELFSOURCE.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 22:39, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Following that logic, I could make a git commit adding the Contributor Covenant to my Github repository and then cite that in this article. The third-party sources are necessary for establishing weight. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:41, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Then how about we add as a source instead?

85.24.253.53 (talk) 22:50, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

References

I'm not sure if Phoronix is a reliable source -- I can't see any mention of editorial review, and it looks like the founder of the website is the same guy who wrote that piece. That said, the fact that Linux uses it is already mentioned in the article (and supported by https://www.wired.com/story/woman-bringing-civility-to-open-source-projects/). GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:59, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Phoronix is a very well-known and reliable source in the Linux community and generally maintains a remarkably neutral point of view, as demonstrated in the previously mentioned article. It has been used as a source for other publications. Moreover, the article contains verifiable references to support its content. The Wired article you provided has a biased narrative (positive portrayal of the Contributor Covenant), and most of it is irrelevant to the content at hand (the Linux adoption paragraph). It could however be valid as a source to the positive portion of the community reaction sentence, but alone it does not satisfy the requirements of WP:RS as a source for supporting the statement by Greg Kroah-Hartman (miscredited to Linus Torvalds, which, coincidentally, I was in the process of correcting with a source reference when the section was removed).

85.24.253.53 (talk) 23:21, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Actually, if I'm interpreting WP:UNDUE correctly, the Wired article could be used in conjunction with another reference biased in the other direction (see "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject."), for instance. This way the articles represent both sides of an ongoing dispute while simultaneously acting as a secondary source to the Linux adoption, including support for both the adoption and the dispute being noteworthy.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 23:47, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

References

Okay, it sounds like Phoronix is usable then—thanks for explaining, I'm not personally familiar with it. You're right on your interpretation of WP:UNDUE, although it's important to pay attention to the "in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject". That said, I've seen reliable sources that discuss the negative reaction to its adoption by the Linux community, so it seems it would be appropriate to include one.

One quick question, if you happen to know: I've seen various articles saying that Linux has adopted a CoC that's based on the Contributor Covenant—how similar is it? I get the impression it's quite similar, but haven't seen much detailed discussion of that. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:55, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

No worries, we all want to make Wikipedia more complete and upholding a quality standard is good no matter how you look at it. As a side note, last time I checked on LKML, the replies to the patch were a fairly balanced mix of positive and negative, with a prominent bias towards developers being worried rather than outright positive or negative.

I did a quick diff of both the CoC from the Linux patch and the Contributor Covenant version 1.4 and, aside from formatting, the changes were the following:

• "Project maintainers" was replaced with "Maintainers" at the beginning of the two paragraphs under "Our responsibilities"
• "project team" was replaced with "Technical Advisory Board (TAB)" under "Enforcement"
• "[INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS]" was replaced with "<tab@lists.linux-foundation.org>" a bit further down under the same header
• "project team" was replaced with "TAB" a bit further down under the same header
• "Project maintainers" was replaced with "Maintainers" a bit further down under the same header

Those are all the changes diff could spot, so it looks like it's only adapted in the legal sense of the word (not a carbon copy since the placeholders have been replaced). For us non-lawyers then for most intents and purposes, it's the exact same CoC. I suspect this is why we haven't seen much discussion of it, but I don't think you're the only one who's wondered what the exact changes were.

As for the formatting changes themselves it's just the standard stuff; headers underscored with equals signs, row width of 80 characters, visually pleasing vertical spacing, converting visual HTML elements to ASCII-art, etc.

I don't think we can include any of this on the page though since it's pretty cut-and-dry original research.

Let me know if there's anything else you need my help for.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 00:44, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that's really helpful! I wasn't sure if we needed to make the distinction in the article, it sounds like we don't. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:23, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

So where are we on reimplementing the Linux adoption section? I still have the corrected version of the old text that I was about to submit, I can adapt it to the two previously mentioned sources if you'd accept that. 85.24.253.53 (talk) 21:00, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

If it's supported by reliable sources and is appropriately weighted, I'm happy for it to be included... I know the article is protected but if you suggest the edit here and include good sourcing I'll add it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:02, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Here's what I've come up with:

---

Following the adoption of the Contributor Covenant v1.4 by Linux, where Greg Kroah-Hartman said "The Code of Conflict is not achieving its implicit goal of fostering civility and the spirit of 'be excellent to each other'", the Linux community reacted, with some applauding the change, and some speaking against it. Hours later, the creator and maintainer Linus Torvalds announced he would temporary step down from his role as a maintainer, leaving Greg Kroah-Hartman in his place. At least one contributor is now calling for their code to be removed from the kernel.

---

What I did was to first of all fix the quotation credit (GKH, not LT), changed the sources for community reactions to the articles from "Wired" and "It's FOSS" for the pisotove and negative reactions respectively. I also changed the source for the code removal, now it links to an article over at "lulz.com" where they reached out to a couple of key persons for comments and published their response (has better credibility than an archived blog post from the developer himself?). Hopefully this will serve as a good foundation to work on.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

References

There's no way in the universe that "lulz.com" is going to be considered a reliable source.--Jorm (talk) 21:04, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Look, I know exactly what you're thinking because I thought the same thing when I saw that, but, at least with this article, they really did seem do do their due diligence with at least some fact checking and accepting feedback from peer review. Also, some smaller independent reporters like Tim Pool seem to be picking it up as a source over the "It's FOSS" article when reporting on the story in general. If you can find a better source I'd be happy to change it.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 23:13, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

This is definitely an improvement on what was there before. Why not swap the lulz.com source with [12]? It's much less shaky a source and it supports the point just as well. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:18, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

No it doesn't, it tries to de-legitimize the statement about revoking the license by replacing the comment from Richard Stallman (author of the GPL license in question) with a comment by Eric Raymond (book author and activist? I'm confused as to why his opinion is significant in this context). On the other hand, the lulz.com article lacks an official statement from Coraline Ada Ehmke, which is obviously also a key person in this ordeal. I see no other choice than to include both sources if we want to honestly say we're taking a neutral stance, because despite the biased narrative of the article from Vice Motherboard it does bring an official statement from the author of the Contributor Covenant.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 11:24, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Alright, how about this?

---

Following the adoption of the Contributor Covenant v1.4 by Linux, where Greg Kroah-Hartman said "The Code of Conflict is not achieving its implicit goal of fostering civility and the spirit of 'be excellent to each other'", the Linux community reacted, with some applauding the change, and some speaking against it. Hours later, the creator and maintainer Linus Torvalds announced he would temporary step down from his role as a maintainer, leaving Greg Kroah-Hartman in his place. At least one contributor is now calling for their code to be removed from the kernel.

---

It's basically the same paragraph, I just tacked on the second source at the end.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 23:38, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

References

Again: lulz.com is not a reliable source and likely will never be one. You should look up what it means to be a reliable source.--Jorm (talk) 00:03, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

You have stated this twice now without concrete motivation, we cannot exclude them just based on your opinion of their name. What exactly makes it an unreliable source? I also asked you to provide a second source for the statement by Richard Stallman, but you have not delivered on that either.

85.24.253.53 (talk) 10:59, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

So is that based solely on the domain name, or does lulz.com have a particular reputation that is problematic? The article itself seems to be a fairly accurate account of the situation, as I understand it. If that doesn't work out, the last reference should support the text fine by itself. I think the above passage can be re-added (with or without lulz.com) at this point. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 02:33, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't have a masthead, and it prides itself that its authors are anonymous. That's not a news organization or a reliable source; that's a gossip blog. So unless that policy at the site changes, I don't see it ever being considered "reliable."--Jorm (talk) 02:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what your problem with me is, but this is my first and only talk thread on Wikipedia. I do not "keep making these shittily deep threads".

My point about having a source citing Richard Stallman still stands. He is a key person in this whether you want it or not, because he wrote the GPL license that this developer is attempting to use as leverage in having his code removed. The problem here is that Richard Stallman does not want to discuss the issue in public, so first hand sources are not an option. The next best thing we have to the lulz.com article are a few scattered screenshots of emails pulled from Reddit (like https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9i2q8d/richard_stallman_the_developers_of_linux_or_any/). Screenshots are ridiculously easy to forge, so I don't see that as a serious option. That aside, Vice is hardly a good source nowadays either because they're anything but neutral and write their articles with very strong narratives, but at least they still have some reputation left to support them. We need (1) something to balance out the narrative and (2) a source for the Richard Stallman comment. Not doing so would violate the WP:UNDUE rule since it only represents one side of an ongoing dispute. Another option would be to pull both sources and reinstate the blog post/mailing list entry of the developer in question.

155.4.14.25 (talk) 19:09, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Pretty sure Jorm knows who Richard Stallman is and that he wrote the GPL. Look at his userpage for all of ten seconds. And no, you're misunderstanding WP:UNDUE. WP:UNDUE reads Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. There's a reason it doesn't just say "Neutrality requires that each article represent all viewpoints." Otherwise half the article on Earth would be talking about how it's flat. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:57, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Right, but as we established earlier, both the support and the opposition of this change take up significant portions of the Linux community. It's at a point where even after so many hours of research I'm still not sure which one is actually biggest (only that there are many very vocal persons on each side). Using a single source taking one of the sides would still interfere with my interpretation of WP:UNDUE, or at the very least be misleading. It's really frustrating how there seems to be so few neutral news outlets covering this, and the few that are (like Phoronix) aren't interested in covering the current dispute beyond acknowledging its existence. Sure, there are some with less bias than others, but I have yet to find a single non-blog/non-forum article that does not end up concluding something along the lines of "I guess we are the good guys". You'd think inviting Coraline Ada Ehmke, Richard Stallman/Linus Torvalds/Greg Kroah-Hartman and the developer to an interview would be a basic first step, but even there they failed. It doesn't help that according to Coraline Ada Ehmke herself, she declined an interview with Bryan Lunduke, one of the few people I can think of that could still bring in a neutral and analytical view of the situation (he used to have a yearly presentation about all the things that were wrong in the Linux community, and how they could be turned into something positive).

Safe to say, if anyone wants the rest of the criticism section to be restored they've got their work cut out for them.

155.4.14.25 (talk) 10:21, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

By the way, do you think the latest version of the paragraph is ready for publishing? AfroThundr already said it looks fine but I want your feedback as well before I go ahead and add it to the page.

155.4.14.25 (talk) 11:27, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

If there's no reliable, secondary sources quoting RMS, it doesn't go in. It's that simple. I'm not sure why this is hard to understand. We're not a gossip magazine. If he doesn't want to discuss it in public, it would be disingenuous to quote him out of context or from private sources. Regardless, lulz.com is not a reliable source. So find a different one or pick a different battle.--Jorm (talk) 21:03, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Be that as it may, let's try to keep things civil guys. We're all trying to improve the article here. Our desire to represent a complete accounting of the subject has to be balanced with the need to ensure all of this information is reliable. This is why we have the reliable sources policy. If we can find reputable reporting for the information, it can be included. The trick is finding a source everyone can agree on. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 01:50, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Keep in mind this whole mess started when the entire criticism section was removed in an edit war where Jorm locked the page after his edit. I'm trying to restore at least the part of it that I initially wrote and had others refine, but on his terms because I have no other choice (I'm fairly certain that the page would just get reverted and locked again if I tried to submit the change). I have much more I want to say about him now than when this began, but those opinions are not relevant to the discussion at hand. Let's just leave it at "not being on good terms with each other".

Anyway, Richard Stallman does not want to discuss it in public, but he replied to an inquiry made by lulz.com knowing that his answer was to be used in the article. No matter, we will just avoid both sides then. The last sentence now references the mailing list entry of the developer as a source.

---

Following the adoption of the Contributor Covenant v1.4 by Linux, where Greg Kroah-Hartman said "The Code of Conflict is not achieving its implicit goal of fostering civility and the spirit of 'be excellent to each other'", the Linux community reacted, with some applauding the change, and some speaking against it. Hours later, the creator and maintainer Linus Torvalds announced he would temporary step down from his role as a maintainer, leaving Greg Kroah-Hartman in his place. At least one contributor is now calling for their code to be removed from the kernel.

---

155.4.14.25 (talk) 07:22, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

References

You need to learn how to use Wikipedia, for real, if you think that I'm the one who locked the page. The lulz.com sourced stuff isn't going in, period. Find a better source or a different hill to die on. I'm done arguing with you about it.--Jorm (talk) 16:36, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Apologies for the lock claim, I checked the history again and it was Oshwah who locked it. Still, I highly doubt you'd let the content stay since even now that it's gone you're bickering about the lulz.com reference. But I haven't heard from any other participants about the rest of the paragraph so I guess the last version is fine unless I hear something in the next 24 hours or so.

155.4.14.25 (talk) 20:14, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

If you add that paragraph in, with the bad source, I will revert you. You do not have consensus for this edit. The onus is on you to provide the good source.--Jorm (talk) 20:27, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Again, the lulz.com source has been removed. Any further mentions of you not liking this source are irrelevant and will be ignored.

155.4.14.25 (talk) 21:09, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

The paragraph in its latest form looks fine to me. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 04:28, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Since all feedback points have been addressed and no further complaints have appeared, I will append this paragraph to the article in a few hours. After that point I trust that the paragraph will either stay or be edited in place, as per usual.

155.4.14.25 (talk) 14:41, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

---

(edit conflict) The blog post citations were providing direct attribution to the quotes, as required by WP:CITE. Also, what exactly is the problem with citing a Github issue? Primary sources are allowed so long as they follow WP:PRIMARY. The article does need more secondary sources, but I see that as a reason to tag it with {{refimprove}} (as I originally planned) so an editor can improve it, rather than remove the entire section. Completely omitting it results in an even more incomplete article, and is a step backwards. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 23:10, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Primary sources are acceptable for establishing verifiability, not for asserting that the content is noteworthy enough to be included in the article. Like I said above, I could create a Github issue in my own repository and add a sentence to this article saying "According to Molly White, the Contributor Covenant is the best thing since sliced bread." But we wouldn't include that, obviously, because what I have to say about it is completely irrelevant to the article. That's why secondary sourcing is required. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Just to say that i too disagree with the nuking of the whole section, which was like this ([13]) and upon which a reasonable consensus was reached between the editors who were editing it. The sources were relevant because of the relevancy of the critics, as they were all statements on this code of conduct released by notable members and programmers of the open source community like Jay Maynard and Eric S. Raymond, not just a random person←.93.36.191.161 (talk) 10:45, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

If you'd like to explain how you feel those sources met the reliable sourcing policy on Wikipedia I'm happy to discuss their inclusion. If you have sources saying that Maynard and Raymond's comments on the Contributor Covenant are notable, I'm similarly happy to discuss. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:03, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Notability?

After @Gorillawarfare:'s removal of various unsuitable citations, it appears that there are very few sources that discuss this topic in isolation away from its author, Coraline Ada. Perhaps it should be merged into the article on her, or simply deleted? BrxBrx(talk)^{(please reply with {{SUBST:re|BrxBrx}})} 23:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

The TechCrunch and Wired articles are pretty strong, but I agree it could use some more sourcing. There's a bunch of stuff that comes up in Google, especially with Linux adopting it recently, so I'm guessing it would survive AfD. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:24, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Please stop nuking the Linux controversy

The carefully crafted section about how the Linux community reacted to the adoption of the Contributor Covenant has once again been removed, this time by an anonymous user. This time with the explanation "The situation is completely solved.There is no need for this outdated section.". Those statements are personal opinions and shouldn't govern the scope of the article. We still mention the positive press in the article so it would only make sense that we cover the negative press of similar notability as well. For instance, the event and consequences made it to the annual Linux development summary on Phoronix. We can't have the article in this unchecked state of opinionated back-and-forth, so if this continues it might be time to reconsider if the article really has enough value to be it's separate page instead of just a section over at the Coraline Ada Ehmke article. 176.10.248.200 (talk) 17:29, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

References

To Jorm: Deleting this discussion isn't going to solve anything.

176.10.248.200 (talk) 18:25, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I do think some mention of it is worth including, since it received fairly widespread coverage in Wired, etc. (cc Jorm). GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:56, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

(Very) late to the party, but after skimming through this and also the long thread in "The critic section", I definitely think the current paragraph we have could be expanded to include more of the text that 155.4.14.25 wrote in 2018. The way the text stands now does include some (very brief) context about this, but the fact that this stirred a significant controversy with a lot of heated feelings does deserve a bit more room in the article, IMO.

I vote for undeleting this section. "The situation is completely solved" might be true from a Linux kernel POV, but it's still an important illustration of the consequences adopting (this particular) CoC can have on software projects, and what kind of conflicts may arise. In this sense, it is of encyclopedic interest. PerLundberg (talk) 21:07, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Potential for expansion into software license agreements

Earlier this year the ML5 project started mandating compliance to the Code of Conduct in their license agreement. 86.130.94.14 (talk) 15:28, 4 October 2021 (UTC)