Do Words Have Power? Understanding and Fostering Civility in Code Review Discussion

Modern Code Review (MCR) is an integral part of the software development process where developers improve product quality through collaborative discussions. Unfortunately, these discussions can sometimes become heated by the presence of inappropriate behaviors such as personal attacks, insults, disrespectful comments, and derogatory conduct, often referred to as incivility. While researchers have extensively explored such incivility in various public domains, our understanding of its causes, consequences, and courses of action remains limited within the professional context of software development, specifically within code review discussions. To bridge this gap, our study draws upon the experience of 171 professional software developers representing diverse development practices across different geographical regions. Our findings reveal that more than half of these developers <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> mml:mrow mml:mfenced mml:mrow mml:mn56.72</mml:mn> mml:mi%</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mfenced> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> have encountered instances of workplace incivility, and a substantial portion of that group <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> mml:mrow mml:mfenced mml:mrow mml:mn83.70</mml:mn> mml:mi%</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mfenced> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> reported experiencing such incidents at least once a month. We also identified various causes, positive and negative consequences, and potential courses of action for uncivil communication. Moreover, to address the negative aspects of incivility, we propose a model for promoting civility that detects uncivil comments during communication and provides alternative civil suggestions while preserving the original comments’ semantics, enabling developers to engage in respectful and constructive discussions. An in-depth analysis of 2K uncivil review comments using eight different evaluation metrics and a manual evaluation suggested that our proposed approach could generate civil alternatives significantly compared to the state-of-the-art politeness and detoxification models. Moreover, a survey involving 36 developers who used our civility model reported its effectiveness in enhancing online development interactions, fostering better relationships, increasing contributor involvement, and expediting development processes. Our research is a pioneer in generating civil alternatives for uncivil discussions in software development, opening new avenues for research in collaboration and communication within the software engineering context.