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)

(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 ([12]) 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 "Molly White" (no offense to any Molly, just quoting the example made to disprove it)←.93.36.191.161 (talk) 10:45, 27 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)