[DISCUSS] Add CoC guideline about private emails

[Misty Stanley-Jones <mi...@imisty.com>]

There are a few people who routinely email me privately about non-personal matters where I'm not the only one with the answer. In many cases I reply, adding dev@ to the CC, and I've also asked the people to use the mailing lists instead of emailing me privately, but the message has obviously not gotten through. I'm not just being fussy and I know I'm not the only one. Taking it off-list has consequences:

- information is siloed / single points of failure
- if I'm on vacation or otherwise not immediately available, you're blocked from getting the thing done 
- others lose out on the chance to contribute to the community
- decisions made via private email actually violate our community standards, except in some very specific instances such as software security bugs
- it's annoying and exclusionary 
- it can be intimidating
- it can lead to inadvertently or unintentionally taking credit for someone else's work

I'd like to propose that we add something to the code of conduct to discourage using private email threads in the hbase community except for social or personal conversations. Thoughts?

Re: [DISCUSS] Add CoC guideline about private emails

[Esteban Gutierrez <es...@cloudera.com>]

+1 I've found myself on that situation many times and even I'd love to
respond immediately sometimes I can't due my job responsibilities or as
Misty mentioned, there are times when I don't check my email for hours but
the sender has an expectation of a real time responses which is not
possible. I absolutely support the idea of having those guidelines.

--
Cloudera, Inc.


On Sun, Oct 9, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Andrew Purtell <an...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Obviously those of us not on these private threads have no idea this is
> going on. (Smile) Agreed it's a problem, and it would be good to clarify
> this somewhere. CoC seems reasonable.
>
> > On Oct 9, 2016, at 9:00 AM, Misty Stanley-Jones <mi...@imisty.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > There are a few people who routinely email me privately about
> non-personal matters where I'm not the only one with the answer. In many
> cases I reply, adding dev@ to the CC, and I've also asked the people to
> use the mailing lists instead of emailing me privately, but the message has
> obviously not gotten through. I'm not just being fussy and I know I'm not
> the only one. Taking it off-list has consequences:
> >
> > - information is siloed / single points of failure
> > - if I'm on vacation or otherwise not immediately available, you're
> blocked from getting the thing done
> > - others lose out on the chance to contribute to the community
> > - decisions made via private email actually violate our community
> standards, except in some very specific instances such as software security
> bugs
> > - it's annoying and exclusionary
> > - it can be intimidating
> > - it can lead to inadvertently or unintentionally taking credit for
> someone else's work
> >
> > I'd like to propose that we add something to the code of conduct to
> discourage using private email threads in the hbase community except for
> social or personal conversations. Thoughts?
> >
> >
>

Re: [DISCUSS] Add CoC guideline about private emails

[Andrew Purtell <an...@gmail.com>]

Obviously those of us not on these private threads have no idea this is going on. (Smile) Agreed it's a problem, and it would be good to clarify this somewhere. CoC seems reasonable. 

> On Oct 9, 2016, at 9:00 AM, Misty Stanley-Jones <mi...@imisty.com> wrote:
> 
> There are a few people who routinely email me privately about non-personal matters where I'm not the only one with the answer. In many cases I reply, adding dev@ to the CC, and I've also asked the people to use the mailing lists instead of emailing me privately, but the message has obviously not gotten through. I'm not just being fussy and I know I'm not the only one. Taking it off-list has consequences:
> 
> - information is siloed / single points of failure
> - if I'm on vacation or otherwise not immediately available, you're blocked from getting the thing done 
> - others lose out on the chance to contribute to the community
> - decisions made via private email actually violate our community standards, except in some very specific instances such as software security bugs
> - it's annoying and exclusionary 
> - it can be intimidating
> - it can lead to inadvertently or unintentionally taking credit for someone else's work
> 
> I'd like to propose that we add something to the code of conduct to discourage using private email threads in the hbase community except for social or personal conversations. Thoughts?
> 
> 

Re: [DISCUSS] Add CoC guideline about private emails

[Stack <st...@duboce.net>]

On Sun, Oct 9, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Misty Stanley-Jones <mi...@imisty.com>
wrote:

> There are a few people who routinely email me privately about non-personal
> matters where I'm not the only one with the answer. In many cases I reply,
> adding dev@ to the CC, and I've also asked the people to use the mailing
> lists instead of emailing me privately, but the message has obviously not
> gotten through. I'm not just being fussy and I know I'm not the only one.
> Taking it off-list has consequences:
>
> - information is siloed / single points of failure
> - if I'm on vacation or otherwise not immediately available, you're
> blocked from getting the thing done
> - others lose out on the chance to contribute to the community
> - decisions made via private email actually violate our community
> standards, except in some very specific instances such as software security
> bugs
> - it's annoying and exclusionary
> - it can be intimidating
> - it can lead to inadvertently or unintentionally taking credit for
> someone else's work
>
> I'd like to propose that we add something to the code of conduct to
> discourage using private email threads in the hbase community except for
> social or personal conversations. Thoughts?
>
>
>
Lets try CoC. We've not done that before (I like the above starter list).
Repeated encouragements, suggestions, and even threats don't seem to work.
The practice goes on. Add a link to here too [1]: "

St.Ack
1. http://producingoss.com/en/producingoss.html#avoid-private-discussions

Re: [DISCUSS] Add CoC guideline about private emails

[Dima Spivak <di...@apache.org>]

+1. It's always a good idea to codify community best practices, whether
technical or social.

On Sunday, October 9, 2016, Misty Stanley-Jones <mi...@imisty.com> wrote:

> There are a few people who routinely email me privately about non-personal
> matters where I'm not the only one with the answer. In many cases I reply,
> adding dev@ to the CC, and I've also asked the people to use the mailing
> lists instead of emailing me privately, but the message has obviously not
> gotten through. I'm not just being fussy and I know I'm not the only one.
> Taking it off-list has consequences:
>
> - information is siloed / single points of failure
> - if I'm on vacation or otherwise not immediately available, you're
> blocked from getting the thing done
> - others lose out on the chance to contribute to the community
> - decisions made via private email actually violate our community
> standards, except in some very specific instances such as software security
> bugs
> - it's annoying and exclusionary
> - it can be intimidating
> - it can lead to inadvertently or unintentionally taking credit for
> someone else's work
>
> I'd like to propose that we add something to the code of conduct to
> discourage using private email threads in the hbase community except for
> social or personal conversations. Thoughts?
>
>
>

-- 
-Dima