Re: Suggesting change in DPT policy

[Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com>]

On February 28, 2024 7:08:14 AM UTC, Andreas Tille <andreas@an3as.eu> wrote:
>Hi Scott,
>
>Am Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 11:54:01PM +0000 schrieb Scott Kitterman:
>> It's self-induced.  I mean if it's demotivating to have people point out that you didn't follow the policy, then you can solve that all by yourself by following the policy.  If I take your argument to its logical conclusion, all of Debian's rules can be demotivating when people ignore them, so we should get rid of them all so your feelings are safe.
>
>I agree that it was my mistake to not follow team policy.  I should not
>have done this and I apologized for this.  I should have written this
>e-mail first to change a policy that does not fit my experiences in
>other teams as well as what obviously several contributors consider
>inappropriate.  To solve this I started this discussion and meanwhile
>created a MR[1].
>
>The demotivating part was the wording to point me to the policy.  I
>addressed this with the words "I wonder whether I should propose another
>change to the policy about maintaining a kind and polite language inside
>the team - but that's a different thing." in my initial mail[2].
>
>To make sure this will really clear I added the proposed change in a
>second MR[3] containing the following diff:

This makes more sense to me.  It is completely understandable that how things are communicated affects how people feel about them.  This is a difficult thing to get right.  I have experienced similar demotivating conversations in Debian myself.

Everyone in Debian is already bound by the code of conduct already, so it seems redundant to add it here again.  While I agree with the principle you are trying to address, I think this change unnecessarily clutters the DPT document and we should not make it.

Scott K