8 ms·

Open Code of Conduct

39 points by jp_sc 11y ago

abtinf 11y ago
Countdown to mod renaming this article from "GitHub's new CoC explicitly says “we will not act on reverse racism”" to "Open code of conduct" 3... 2... 1...
- onewaystreet 11y ago
  As it should be.
  - abtinf 11y ago
    And now no one knows why this link landed on the HN front page.
- melvinram 11y ago
  If you want to call attention to a specific section and provide commentary on it, that's what the comments section is for.
  - abtinf 11y ago
    And pointing out the reason why the link made it to the front page of HN will get you downvoted. I am enjoying watching my karma fall.
  - skwirl 11y ago
    Agreed, but it was really confusing as to why this was posted on HN at all with the renamed title. The submission link probably should have been to the commit diff instead, but I don't think the HN mods ever change the actual target of a submission.
x5n1 11y ago
stupid for providers to get involved in this. this is job of the law, not the corporations.
- comrh 11y ago
  Have you ever been a part of a group and said "hey lets lay down some ground rules" for people's conduct? Maybe you would want to even go further then the law to help enable a friendly environment.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    Yes and so we went down the slippery slope. The law is enough, anything more is pushing your own values on other people.
    - comrh 11y ago
      You're free to not participate or start your own organization though, there is no pushing. Github also isn't applying this to every repo you have on the site, just their own - which they have ever right to do.
      - exstudent2 11y ago
        They may not be pushing but Github as a technical tool amassed a community of millions of users based on its functionality. Now it's espousing radical politics as a company. Politics many users most likely don't support (based on my personal opinion and discussion about this around the web). They are free to do as they like but trying to introduce their politics into a non-political community/userbase is a bad idea. I predict this will not work out well for them.
        comrh 11y ago
        Django Python Ubuntu All have radical politics for adopting similar CoCs? They're also not applying it to all of github, just projects they maintain. And every community is political, that line just gets used anytime someone raises a concern about something to shut it down.
        exstudent2 11y ago
seany 11y ago
This whole thing is a mess. Why is github even involved at this level?
otterley 11y ago
This is the text of the Open Code of Conduct. GitHub explains their adoption of it here: https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-conduct https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-condu...
- veeti 11y ago
  You are missing the context: the document has been modified since to add new policies for "reverse-isms".
msoad 11y ago
Honest question, what is reverse racism? If I act racist against the dominate race? That's racism again, no? I'm minority myself so I could potentially do that and in my own internal moral system it feels wrong.
- vernie 11y ago
  I'd wager that the authors of this code of conduct subscribe to the "prejudice plus power" definition of racism.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Of course, there is an argument that, accepting the "prejudice plus power" definition, operating in a context in which preference is given to the concerns of a class that is less powerful in other contexts creates a context in which that group is empowered over the group that is more powerful in other context, converting -- by the "prejudice plus power" definition -- what would be "reverse racism" in other context to simply "racism" in that context (and, of course, vice versa.)
- onewaystreet 11y ago
  The argument against "reverse racism" is that racism is "prejudice plus power" so while many minorities may be prejudice they don't have power to act on it.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Power always exists within a particular context. If you have the power in a context to get a code of conduct defined which licenses prejudice in your group's favor, and punishes it when it is against your group, it is a pretty strained claim to argue that its only those prejudiced against you in that context that are acting with a combination of prejudice and power.
- chomp 11y ago
  This reads as a SJW document, so they probably don't subscribe to that belief. Also, they already have "Offensive comments related to ... gender, ..., race" on there, so it might be a non-issue. Unless a minority rejects a commit or contribution from a non-minority on the basis of gender or race, then I'm not sure how this CoC resolves that (admittedly absurd hypothetical.)
dudul 11y ago
"Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop" Hahaha. I mean, this is the world we live in now? I've always been puzzled by the concept of "reverse racism". As far as I can remember I've only heard this term in America (I've lived in 4 different countries before). I've always found that it was a perfect illustration of doublethink. I mean, people realize that "reverse racism" is actually racism right?
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  There have been quite a few instances where that kind of behaviour has occurred - although mostly in chat and such. There's instances it on Reddit's /r/cringe and the like. It probably doesn't happen much on Github since that's more business-like than a more colloquial environment like chat or dating sites or comment threads, but still. Also apparently not; if you see above, racism is explained not as 'judging by race', but something involving privilege and whatnot. Which is... very hard to judge.
cperciva 11y ago
I'm not sure exactly what they mean by "reverse racism". The obvious opposite of discriminating based on race is treating people equally without regard for their race. If by "reverse racism" they mean "discriminating against members of racial groups which are usually not the victims of racism"... well, I really hope they've talked to their lawyers about that. In Canada a company which announced that they would protect or not protect their customers from racism based on their race would be up against the human rights commission in an instant.
- ante_annum 11y ago
  protect or not protect their customers ... based on their race literal racism.
  - alexqgb 11y ago
    No, that's not what racism means. Racism is the practice of including race in the construction and maintenance of social hierarchies defined by legally and culturally enforced norms of dominance and submission. In other words, racism isn't simply about race, per se. It's about power, and specifically power with long-standing support in the customs, laws, and economies of the racist society. Taking steps to reject that power and the systems that maintain it inevitably means treating people of one race in a way that's different from the way they've been treated to date. A policy that says "we're not going to respect your privilege" is obviously not going to treat everybody equally since not everybody had privilege to begin with. However, it does tend towards a point where, in the absence of engrained racial privilege, a more egalitarian society can emerge. If you're a decent human being who has privilege but doesn't rely on it, that's a positive development. But if you do count on it - or worse, take enjoyment from abusing it - then this shift will not be as welcome.
    - spacehome 11y ago
      I respectfully disagree. Racism is taking race into account in making decisions. If I get turned down for a job because I'm X race, that's racist. Full Stop.
nickysielicki 11y ago
What is 'reverse' sexism or racism? Isn't that just sexism and racism? Whether you're oppressed or not has nothing to do with how the culture generally treats you. If you're being oppressed you're being oppressed in a single scenario/instance. There do exist general trends on who is oppressed and who is oppressing, and those are worth talking about and being aware of, but I wouldn't ever go as far to say that the existence of trends justifies marking any complaint that doesn't follow those trends as invalid. Am I taking crazy pills?
jp_sc 11y ago
”Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’” I'm really afraid and disgusted of this ignorant and provincial view of the world spreading over people I tought were rational. Reverse racism does not exists. It is just racism.
- beaugunderson 11y ago
  You're half right: reverse racism doesn't exist. But it's also not racism because racism (or sexism) requires both power and privilege. I think including this in the CoC is great because it means, for example, that women using GitHub to build a website for women won't be subject to sanctions if a man complains of reverse sexism because a pull request they made wasn't merged. For more information on why reverse racism doesn't exist try this: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/15/884649/-Why-there-s-no-such-thing-as-Reverse-Racism http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/15/884649/-Why-there-s...
  - 13thLetter 11y ago
    "But it's also not racism because racism (or sexism) requires both power and privilege." a) Not according to the dictionary or Wikipedia or common usage, it doesn't. b) Even if you don't use the word "racism" to describe it, it's still creating a hostile and unwelcoming environment, which one would have thought was opposed to the goal of this Code of Conduct.
    - beaugunderson 11y ago
      Literally from the Wikipedia page on racism: > "One view holds that racism is best understood as 'prejudice plus power' because without the support of political or economic power, prejudice would not be able to manifest as a pervasive cultural, institutional or social phenomenon." The word you're looking for is discrimination, which is also what the link I added for more information calls it. The point of that part of the CoC is that all environments do not have to be welcome to all, specifically that environments that are safe spaces for a marginalized group do not have to also be a safe space for the dominant group.
snowpanda 11y ago
Sounds like the "Two Wrongs Make a Right" Fallacy. Person 1 did X(Racism) to person 2. Therefore, Person 2 is justified to do X(Reversed Racism) to person 1. And of course the blatant generalization, considering not everyone behaved like person 1.
exstudent2 11y ago
This is news because there have been recent changes to this document since Github adopted it. Here's the commit that included them: https://archive.is/WndkY https://archive.is/WndkY I find this introduces needless politics where they don't belong. I also don't subscribe to the idea that sexism and racism can only happen if the victim is of the correct gender or race. For those reasons, I've closed my private repos and no longer financially support Github.
- comrh 11y ago
  Don't forget to uninstall Python.
  - tzs 11y ago
    The stuff he objects to is not in the Python Community Code of Conduct.
crusso 11y ago
Although this list cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honor diversity in age, gender, [...] and technical ability. We will not tolerate discrimination based on any of the protected characteristics above, including participants with disabilities. What does not discriminating based upon technical ability look like? Random assignment of tasks without regard to whether or not someone can do them or do them well?
jackweirdy 11y ago
The general response to this is interesting in the context that American white people, but not black people, a) view racism as a zero-sum game b) think anti-white bias is now more prevalent than anti-minority bias [PDF] http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/sommerslab/documents/raceinternortonsommers2011.pdf http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/sommerslab/documents/raceint...
alexqgb 11y ago
Their reasoning seems pretty clear "Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort." It's worth noting that "privilege" comes from the Latin for "private law", which is to say a law that established a code of conduct for one class that was not applied to another. Typically, this took the form of exempting some people from the laws that bound everyone else. In other words, the life under conditions of privilege was far freer and and more forgiving than it was for everyone else. The result was a set of advantages that made it easy for those with privilege to maintain it, and difficult for those without privilege to acquire it. What's remarkable about this document is the way it illuminates the extraordinary number and range of ways in which privilege - and its attendant social ordering functions - can express itself. In other words, simply countering it, to say nothing of dismantling it, is a non-trivial task. Understanding privilege in this way also makes it easy to see why the very concept of "reverse racism" is so ridiculous. In essence, it's based on a profound misunderstanding of what racism is in the first place. It is not simply a matter of treating different people differently. It is about embedding race in a system of privilege, which is something you cannot do unless you have privilege in the first place (obviously, allowing those without privilege to define its benefits would defeat the whole purpose). In other words, racism is about propagating a deeply established social hierarchy of dominance and submission that is based on race. To the extent that "reverse racism" seeks to limit the power of these structures, it's a good thing. In any case, the problem is the continued existence of the unjust power structure, and not the fact that people pay attention to who does and does not receive its protection. In Western countries, privilege has generally meant straight, white, men, from well-off backgrounds making life much easier for each other while making it much more difficult for everyone else. Sure, there are exceptions. But they're few and far between, with their scarcity only serving to underscore the general rule. And while plenty of individuals who are a part of this class may find the structure distasteful, that's had limited effect on the structure itself, which remains largely dominant to this day. In any case, it's not going to dismantle itself, so it's up to the people who do want to do something about it to actually do something about it. Saying "we're not going to defend it, and given a choice, we're going to rule against it" is a good example. That may be very unsettling for some people, but understand this: if you're getting grief the problem is probably not that you're a straight, white guy. More likely, the problem is that you're treating other people like garbage in more ways than you can even imagine, and doing so habitually because your privilege allows you to get away with it. And yes, a place that explicitly says "your privilege is not respected here" can be a tricky one for some people to navigate. If you're not much of a jerk to begin with, it isn't a big deal. But if you're a deep-fried, hard-boiled asshole who cannot even imagine how to treat others with a suitable measure of civility and respect, yes, you're going to suffer.
jay_kyburz 11y ago
As rules for some community, fine, it's your community, whatever. But in the workplace or the community at large, "Unwelcome comments"about the abuse if your children or drug use are important. It has to be ok to tell somebody something they don't want to hear.
wtbob 11y ago
> Deliberate misgendering. This includes deadnaming or persistently using a pronoun that does not correctly reflect a person’s gender identity. Ummm, wouldn't 'misgendering' be using a pronoun which disagrees with someone's actual gender, as opposed to self-perceived gender? Is it 'mistitling' to refer to someone who thinks that he's Napoleon Bonaparte as 'him' rather than 'his Imperial and Royal Majesty'? > Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: > ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’ So, the SCUM Manifesto would be welcome? Seems unwise to me.
- beaugunderson 11y ago
  Deadnaming (that is: referring to someone by an old name, often used to describe referring to a trans person by a pre-transition name) is used as harassment and you can imagine how unpleasant it might be, especially if the people in a community you're in don't know that you're trans. I am a very heavy GitHub user and I am very glad that the CoC includes language for this.
- rabbyte 11y ago
  The code of conduct seems to agree with the stance that all gender is self-perceived. The idea can easily be reduced to: respect people enough to address them the way they want to be addressed.
  - wtbob 11y ago
    > The code of conduct seems to agree with the stance that all gender is self-perceived. A man who thinks he's a woman…is still a man; a woman who thinks she's a man…is still a woman. One's gender is a fact of nature; it's an issue of objective reality, not of subjective experience. Why, just a bit ago there was an article here on HN noting that teenagers suffering from gender dysphoria have hormone levels appropriate to their actual, not perceived, sexes. > The idea can easily be reduced to: respect people enough to address them the way they want to be addressed. Oh sure, I'll address anyone as he wishes to be addressed. But the English, German and French first-person pronouns are all ungendered, and it's simply wrong to talk about someone with the incorrect pronouns. I'd probably address the man who thinks he's Napoleon 'your Imperial and Royal Majesty,' in order to avoid causing further mental distress, but when speaking to others about him I'd refer simply use 'him.' Words mean things, and if one's neither Charles Marie Jérôme Victor Napoléon nor Jean Christophe Louis Ferdinand Albéric Napoléon, one doesn't fulfil the requirements of the title of the Bonapartist emperor. I suppose one could argue that since online communication tends to be public, and thus the subject of a conversation could happen upon it, it's better to avoid further disturbing someone by continuing to humour him even in the third person, but it seems pretty extreme to require that.
dudul 11y ago
GitHub is trying really hard to get SJWs on their side (this CoC, the "retard" case, etc). They have a terrible reputation in regards to sexism and lack of diversity (see the Horvath scandal). What's funny is that, this kind of PR never works. SJWs are very pissed off by the Open Code of Conduct move, they've been working for years on designing CoC (instead of, you know, writing actual code) and they see that as "culture appropriation" or whatever buzzy word. So in the end, they're just gonna alienate the ones that are fed up with this PC trend, while not convincing anyone to come back.
jp_sc 11y ago
https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/8206 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/8206
redml 11y ago
Let's tell everyone how to think and how to act instead of actually contributing something of actual use (like code) to the open source community. This certainly won't backfire whatsoever.

39 points by jp_sc 11y ago

Countdown to mod renaming this article from "GitHub's new CoC explicitly says “we will not act on reverse racism”" to "Open code of conduct" 3... 2... 1...

onewaystreet 11y ago
As it should be.
- abtinf 11y ago
  And now no one knows why this link landed on the HN front page.
melvinram 11y ago
If you want to call attention to a specific section and provide commentary on it, that's what the comments section is for.
- abtinf 11y ago
  And pointing out the reason why the link made it to the front page of HN will get you downvoted. I am enjoying watching my karma fall.
- skwirl 11y ago
  Agreed, but it was really confusing as to why this was posted on HN at all with the renamed title. The submission link probably should have been to the commit diff instead, but I don't think the HN mods ever change the actual target of a submission.

x5n1 11y ago

stupid for providers to get involved in this. this is job of the law, not the corporations.

comrh 11y ago
Have you ever been a part of a group and said "hey lets lay down some ground rules" for people's conduct? Maybe you would want to even go further then the law to help enable a friendly environment.
- x5n1 11y ago
  Yes and so we went down the slippery slope. The law is enough, anything more is pushing your own values on other people.
  - comrh 11y ago
    You're free to not participate or start your own organization though, there is no pushing. Github also isn't applying this to every repo you have on the site, just their own - which they have ever right to do.
    - exstudent2 11y ago
      They may not be pushing but Github as a technical tool amassed a community of millions of users based on its functionality. Now it's espousing radical politics as a company. Politics many users most likely don't support (based on my personal opinion and discussion about this around the web). They are free to do as they like but trying to introduce their politics into a non-political community/userbase is a bad idea. I predict this will not work out well for them.
      - comrh 11y ago
        Django Python Ubuntu All have radical politics for adopting similar CoCs? They're also not applying it to all of github, just projects they maintain. And every community is political, that line just gets used anytime someone raises a concern about something to shut it down.
        exstudent2 11y ago

seany 11y ago

This whole thing is a mess. Why is github even involved at this level?

otterley 11y ago

This is the text of the Open Code of Conduct. GitHub explains their adoption of it here: https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-conduct https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-condu...

veeti 11y ago
You are missing the context: the document has been modified since to add new policies for "reverse-isms".

msoad 11y ago

Honest question, what is reverse racism? If I act racist against the dominate race? That's racism again, no? I'm minority myself so I could potentially do that and in my own internal moral system it feels wrong.

vernie 11y ago
I'd wager that the authors of this code of conduct subscribe to the "prejudice plus power" definition of racism.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Of course, there is an argument that, accepting the "prejudice plus power" definition, operating in a context in which preference is given to the concerns of a class that is less powerful in other contexts creates a context in which that group is empowered over the group that is more powerful in other context, converting -- by the "prejudice plus power" definition -- what would be "reverse racism" in other context to simply "racism" in that context (and, of course, vice versa.)
onewaystreet 11y ago
The argument against "reverse racism" is that racism is "prejudice plus power" so while many minorities may be prejudice they don't have power to act on it.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Power always exists within a particular context. If you have the power in a context to get a code of conduct defined which licenses prejudice in your group's favor, and punishes it when it is against your group, it is a pretty strained claim to argue that its only those prejudiced against you in that context that are acting with a combination of prejudice and power.
chomp 11y ago
This reads as a SJW document, so they probably don't subscribe to that belief. Also, they already have "Offensive comments related to ... gender, ..., race" on there, so it might be a non-issue. Unless a minority rejects a commit or contribution from a non-minority on the basis of gender or race, then I'm not sure how this CoC resolves that (admittedly absurd hypothetical.)

dudul 11y ago

"Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop" Hahaha. I mean, this is the world we live in now? I've always been puzzled by the concept of "reverse racism". As far as I can remember I've only heard this term in America (I've lived in 4 different countries before). I've always found that it was a perfect illustration of doublethink. I mean, people realize that "reverse racism" is actually racism right?

Cthulhu_ 11y ago
There have been quite a few instances where that kind of behaviour has occurred - although mostly in chat and such. There's instances it on Reddit's /r/cringe and the like. It probably doesn't happen much on Github since that's more business-like than a more colloquial environment like chat or dating sites or comment threads, but still. Also apparently not; if you see above, racism is explained not as 'judging by race', but something involving privilege and whatnot. Which is... very hard to judge.

cperciva 11y ago

I'm not sure exactly what they mean by "reverse racism". The obvious opposite of discriminating based on race is treating people equally without regard for their race. If by "reverse racism" they mean "discriminating against members of racial groups which are usually not the victims of racism"... well, I really hope they've talked to their lawyers about that. In Canada a company which announced that they would protect or not protect their customers from racism based on their race would be up against the human rights commission in an instant.

ante_annum 11y ago
protect or not protect their customers ... based on their race literal racism.
- alexqgb 11y ago
  No, that's not what racism means. Racism is the practice of including race in the construction and maintenance of social hierarchies defined by legally and culturally enforced norms of dominance and submission. In other words, racism isn't simply about race, per se. It's about power, and specifically power with long-standing support in the customs, laws, and economies of the racist society. Taking steps to reject that power and the systems that maintain it inevitably means treating people of one race in a way that's different from the way they've been treated to date. A policy that says "we're not going to respect your privilege" is obviously not going to treat everybody equally since not everybody had privilege to begin with. However, it does tend towards a point where, in the absence of engrained racial privilege, a more egalitarian society can emerge. If you're a decent human being who has privilege but doesn't rely on it, that's a positive development. But if you do count on it - or worse, take enjoyment from abusing it - then this shift will not be as welcome.
  - spacehome 11y ago
    I respectfully disagree. Racism is taking race into account in making decisions. If I get turned down for a job because I'm X race, that's racist. Full Stop.

nickysielicki 11y ago

What is 'reverse' sexism or racism? Isn't that just sexism and racism? Whether you're oppressed or not has nothing to do with how the culture generally treats you. If you're being oppressed you're being oppressed in a single scenario/instance. There do exist general trends on who is oppressed and who is oppressing, and those are worth talking about and being aware of, but I wouldn't ever go as far to say that the existence of trends justifies marking any complaint that doesn't follow those trends as invalid. Am I taking crazy pills?

jp_sc 11y ago

”Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’” I'm really afraid and disgusted of this ignorant and provincial view of the world spreading over people I tought were rational. Reverse racism does not exists. It is just racism.

beaugunderson 11y ago
You're half right: reverse racism doesn't exist. But it's also not racism because racism (or sexism) requires both power and privilege. I think including this in the CoC is great because it means, for example, that women using GitHub to build a website for women won't be subject to sanctions if a man complains of reverse sexism because a pull request they made wasn't merged. For more information on why reverse racism doesn't exist try this: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/15/884649/-Why-there-s-no-such-thing-as-Reverse-Racism http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/15/884649/-Why-there-s...
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  "But it's also not racism because racism (or sexism) requires both power and privilege." a) Not according to the dictionary or Wikipedia or common usage, it doesn't. b) Even if you don't use the word "racism" to describe it, it's still creating a hostile and unwelcoming environment, which one would have thought was opposed to the goal of this Code of Conduct.
  - beaugunderson 11y ago
    Literally from the Wikipedia page on racism: > "One view holds that racism is best understood as 'prejudice plus power' because without the support of political or economic power, prejudice would not be able to manifest as a pervasive cultural, institutional or social phenomenon." The word you're looking for is discrimination, which is also what the link I added for more information calls it. The point of that part of the CoC is that all environments do not have to be welcome to all, specifically that environments that are safe spaces for a marginalized group do not have to also be a safe space for the dominant group.

snowpanda 11y ago

Sounds like the "Two Wrongs Make a Right" Fallacy. Person 1 did X(Racism) to person 2. Therefore, Person 2 is justified to do X(Reversed Racism) to person 1. And of course the blatant generalization, considering not everyone behaved like person 1.

exstudent2 11y ago

This is news because there have been recent changes to this document since Github adopted it. Here's the commit that included them: https://archive.is/WndkY https://archive.is/WndkY I find this introduces needless politics where they don't belong. I also don't subscribe to the idea that sexism and racism can only happen if the victim is of the correct gender or race. For those reasons, I've closed my private repos and no longer financially support Github.

comrh 11y ago
Don't forget to uninstall Python.
- tzs 11y ago
  The stuff he objects to is not in the Python Community Code of Conduct.

crusso 11y ago

Although this list cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honor diversity in age, gender, [...] and technical ability. We will not tolerate discrimination based on any of the protected characteristics above, including participants with disabilities. What does not discriminating based upon technical ability look like? Random assignment of tasks without regard to whether or not someone can do them or do them well?

jackweirdy 11y ago

The general response to this is interesting in the context that American white people, but not black people, a) view racism as a zero-sum game b) think anti-white bias is now more prevalent than anti-minority bias [PDF] http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/sommerslab/documents/raceinternortonsommers2011.pdf http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/sommerslab/documents/raceint...

alexqgb 11y ago

Their reasoning seems pretty clear "Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort." It's worth noting that "privilege" comes from the Latin for "private law", which is to say a law that established a code of conduct for one class that was not applied to another. Typically, this took the form of exempting some people from the laws that bound everyone else. In other words, the life under conditions of privilege was far freer and and more forgiving than it was for everyone else. The result was a set of advantages that made it easy for those with privilege to maintain it, and difficult for those without privilege to acquire it. What's remarkable about this document is the way it illuminates the extraordinary number and range of ways in which privilege - and its attendant social ordering functions - can express itself. In other words, simply countering it, to say nothing of dismantling it, is a non-trivial task. Understanding privilege in this way also makes it easy to see why the very concept of "reverse racism" is so ridiculous. In essence, it's based on a profound misunderstanding of what racism is in the first place. It is not simply a matter of treating different people differently. It is about embedding race in a system of privilege, which is something you cannot do unless you have privilege in the first place (obviously, allowing those without privilege to define its benefits would defeat the whole purpose). In other words, racism is about propagating a deeply established social hierarchy of dominance and submission that is based on race. To the extent that "reverse racism" seeks to limit the power of these structures, it's a good thing. In any case, the problem is the continued existence of the unjust power structure, and not the fact that people pay attention to who does and does not receive its protection. In Western countries, privilege has generally meant straight, white, men, from well-off backgrounds making life much easier for each other while making it much more difficult for everyone else. Sure, there are exceptions. But they're few and far between, with their scarcity only serving to underscore the general rule. And while plenty of individuals who are a part of this class may find the structure distasteful, that's had limited effect on the structure itself, which remains largely dominant to this day. In any case, it's not going to dismantle itself, so it's up to the people who do want to do something about it to actually do something about it. Saying "we're not going to defend it, and given a choice, we're going to rule against it" is a good example. That may be very unsettling for some people, but understand this: if you're getting grief the problem is probably not that you're a straight, white guy. More likely, the problem is that you're treating other people like garbage in more ways than you can even imagine, and doing so habitually because your privilege allows you to get away with it. And yes, a place that explicitly says "your privilege is not respected here" can be a tricky one for some people to navigate. If you're not much of a jerk to begin with, it isn't a big deal. But if you're a deep-fried, hard-boiled asshole who cannot even imagine how to treat others with a suitable measure of civility and respect, yes, you're going to suffer.

jay_kyburz 11y ago

As rules for some community, fine, it's your community, whatever. But in the workplace or the community at large, "Unwelcome comments"about the abuse if your children or drug use are important. It has to be ok to tell somebody something they don't want to hear.

wtbob 11y ago

> Deliberate misgendering. This includes deadnaming or persistently using a pronoun that does not correctly reflect a person’s gender identity. Ummm, wouldn't 'misgendering' be using a pronoun which disagrees with someone's actual gender, as opposed to self-perceived gender? Is it 'mistitling' to refer to someone who thinks that he's Napoleon Bonaparte as 'him' rather than 'his Imperial and Royal Majesty'? > Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: > ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’ So, the SCUM Manifesto would be welcome? Seems unwise to me.

beaugunderson 11y ago
Deadnaming (that is: referring to someone by an old name, often used to describe referring to a trans person by a pre-transition name) is used as harassment and you can imagine how unpleasant it might be, especially if the people in a community you're in don't know that you're trans. I am a very heavy GitHub user and I am very glad that the CoC includes language for this.
rabbyte 11y ago
The code of conduct seems to agree with the stance that all gender is self-perceived. The idea can easily be reduced to: respect people enough to address them the way they want to be addressed.
- wtbob 11y ago
  > The code of conduct seems to agree with the stance that all gender is self-perceived. A man who thinks he's a woman…is still a man; a woman who thinks she's a man…is still a woman. One's gender is a fact of nature; it's an issue of objective reality, not of subjective experience. Why, just a bit ago there was an article here on HN noting that teenagers suffering from gender dysphoria have hormone levels appropriate to their actual, not perceived, sexes. > The idea can easily be reduced to: respect people enough to address them the way they want to be addressed. Oh sure, I'll address anyone as he wishes to be addressed. But the English, German and French first-person pronouns are all ungendered, and it's simply wrong to talk about someone with the incorrect pronouns. I'd probably address the man who thinks he's Napoleon 'your Imperial and Royal Majesty,' in order to avoid causing further mental distress, but when speaking to others about him I'd refer simply use 'him.' Words mean things, and if one's neither Charles Marie Jérôme Victor Napoléon nor Jean Christophe Louis Ferdinand Albéric Napoléon, one doesn't fulfil the requirements of the title of the Bonapartist emperor. I suppose one could argue that since online communication tends to be public, and thus the subject of a conversation could happen upon it, it's better to avoid further disturbing someone by continuing to humour him even in the third person, but it seems pretty extreme to require that.

dudul 11y ago

GitHub is trying really hard to get SJWs on their side (this CoC, the "retard" case, etc). They have a terrible reputation in regards to sexism and lack of diversity (see the Horvath scandal). What's funny is that, this kind of PR never works. SJWs are very pissed off by the Open Code of Conduct move, they've been working for years on designing CoC (instead of, you know, writing actual code) and they see that as "culture appropriation" or whatever buzzy word. So in the end, they're just gonna alienate the ones that are fed up with this PC trend, while not convincing anyone to come back.

jp_sc 11y ago

https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/8206 https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/8206

redml 11y ago

Let's tell everyone how to think and how to act instead of actually contributing something of actual use (like code) to the open source community. This certainly won't backfire whatsoever.