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>I'm not dismissing that group; I'm dismissing a class of arguments against codes of conduct. If you want to actually convince other people, you're going to ha

>I'm not dismissing that group; I'm dismissing a class of arguments against codes of conduct. If you want to actually convince other people, you're going to have to engage with their arguments, not just find ever more elaborate ways of ruling them out of bounds. There is no royal road to victory in a debate, there's just the long, hard slog of talking to a whole bunch of people who disagree with you. >And with that ad-hominem dismissal of one of the most concentrated sources of useful information and references, my interest in continuing this discussion with you comes to an abrupt end. While we're at it, "go to the website run by your political opponents and believe everything they say" also isn't going to get you very far. We're discussing a CoC that was largely written by Geekfeminism and/or its allies; it's highly likely that someone who doesn't like the CoC isn't going to be especially trusting of the people who wrote it, either.

JoshTriplett 11y ago
https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/ - there's a limit to how far I'm going to argue with people who disagree on fundamental premises and are not willing to question those premises. Leaf-level arguments depending on those premises are not interesting if there's a disagreement on the premises themselves. And anyone who is a "political opponent" of the geekfeminism folks is really not someone I care to have a detailed discussion with. Also, on top of that, this entire discussion is nicely demonstrating why the proposed Code of Conduct included "We will not act on complaints regarding: [...] Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts". This kind of thing takes a large amount of time and energy.
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  That is, of course, your right. I'm just telling you that if you genuinely want to convince an entire community full of people who disagree -- as opposed to forcing them into a temporary, resentful silence via top-down policymaking -- you are going to have to have those detailed discussions, whether you want to or not.
  - exstudent2 11y ago
    You are of course correct. As soon as he linked to Geekfeminism I knew we weren't going to be getting anywhere. That my point of view must be silenced at all costs is one of the main reasons why I would never support the Geekfeminism people. Contrary to what the parent comment states, he is most definitely not willing to question his own base assumptions and political goals.
    - JoshTriplett 11y ago
      > That my point of view must be silenced at all costs is one of the main reasons why I would never support the Geekfeminism people. There's a difference between silencing a point of view and refusing to repeatedly have the same argument. New arguments need new information, and the vast majority of arguments in that area have been had already. That's some of the primary value provided by their wiki: a repository of past arguments and refutations, to avoid having to revisit them every time. Project mailing lists and other communication channels, for instance, are the wrong place for repeated introductory conversations demanding justifications for a code of conduct. And that's a very common problem. Considering I didn't start with the set of base assumptions I have now, and had to learn them over time, I'm always willing to question them. That I don't personally find any of your arguments even remotely compelling towards that end doesn't make those assumptions immutable. To explicitly state some of the assumptions that I suspect we disagree on: 1) If you refuse to exclude anyone from a project, then you're by default excluding people who are not willing to put up with a hostile environment. 2) Since you can't avoid excluding people, better to exclude people who make the project less welcoming. 3) Don't let the people you want to exclude write the policy. 4) Don't let the people who would fare just fine in a project without a code of conduct drive the requirements; get the requirements from people who wouldn't. Apart from that, the other reason I don't particularly care about having this argument here is that it's unlikely to have as much effect as having it elsewhere.
      - exstudent2 11y ago
        I don't see much point in discussing Geekfeminism. You see it as a valuable resource, I see it as a corrupting force in our industry. We're not going to come together there. As for base assumptions, I see we also differ wildly. Mine are: * Code quality matters above all else. * People that don't contribute code don't get a seat at the table. * There's no inherent value in letting as many people as possible contribute to the project. Quality over quantity. I'm leaving out anything having to do with feminism because we're not going to agree on anything about it.

JoshTriplett 11y ago

https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/ - there's a limit to how far I'm going to argue with people who disagree on fundamental premises and are not willing to question those premises. Leaf-level arguments depending on those premises are not interesting if there's a disagreement on the premises themselves. And anyone who is a "political opponent" of the geekfeminism folks is really not someone I care to have a detailed discussion with. Also, on top of that, this entire discussion is nicely demonstrating why the proposed Code of Conduct included "We will not act on complaints regarding: [...] Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts". This kind of thing takes a large amount of time and energy.

13thLetter 11y ago
That is, of course, your right. I'm just telling you that if you genuinely want to convince an entire community full of people who disagree -- as opposed to forcing them into a temporary, resentful silence via top-down policymaking -- you are going to have to have those detailed discussions, whether you want to or not.
- exstudent2 11y ago
  You are of course correct. As soon as he linked to Geekfeminism I knew we weren't going to be getting anywhere. That my point of view must be silenced at all costs is one of the main reasons why I would never support the Geekfeminism people. Contrary to what the parent comment states, he is most definitely not willing to question his own base assumptions and political goals.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > That my point of view must be silenced at all costs is one of the main reasons why I would never support the Geekfeminism people. There's a difference between silencing a point of view and refusing to repeatedly have the same argument. New arguments need new information, and the vast majority of arguments in that area have been had already. That's some of the primary value provided by their wiki: a repository of past arguments and refutations, to avoid having to revisit them every time. Project mailing lists and other communication channels, for instance, are the wrong place for repeated introductory conversations demanding justifications for a code of conduct. And that's a very common problem. Considering I didn't start with the set of base assumptions I have now, and had to learn them over time, I'm always willing to question them. That I don't personally find any of your arguments even remotely compelling towards that end doesn't make those assumptions immutable. To explicitly state some of the assumptions that I suspect we disagree on: 1) If you refuse to exclude anyone from a project, then you're by default excluding people who are not willing to put up with a hostile environment. 2) Since you can't avoid excluding people, better to exclude people who make the project less welcoming. 3) Don't let the people you want to exclude write the policy. 4) Don't let the people who would fare just fine in a project without a code of conduct drive the requirements; get the requirements from people who wouldn't. Apart from that, the other reason I don't particularly care about having this argument here is that it's unlikely to have as much effect as having it elsewhere.
    - exstudent2 11y ago
      I don't see much point in discussing Geekfeminism. You see it as a valuable resource, I see it as a corrupting force in our industry. We're not going to come together there. As for base assumptions, I see we also differ wildly. Mine are: * Code quality matters above all else. * People that don't contribute code don't get a seat at the table. * There's no inherent value in letting as many people as possible contribute to the project. Quality over quantity. I'm leaving out anything having to do with feminism because we're not going to agree on anything about it.