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Their presence seems to work quite well for many projects. More importantly, it sends a public signal that the project leadership will not stand for certain kin

by groby_b 11y ago

Their presence seems to work quite well for many projects. More importantly, it sends a public signal that the project leadership will not stand for certain kinds of behavior. (It requires people with the admin bit actually stepping in of course. Just posting a CoC will certainly change nothing, if it's not backed.) For the "I hate no" people - there's a reason that CoC's call out what exactly offensive/harassing behavior is. Rules like "Don't be an asshole" work somewhat OK for small, informal groups. As project size increases, you need to get a bit more formal. As evidenced by e.g. LKML, it seems there's wide disagreement what is OK, and what constitutes abuse. A CoC clearly spells out where that line is. It allows people to know what is acceptable, and avoid the community if that is not how they like things. It's a common feature of large groups - the bigger you get, the more you need to spell out explicit rules. As size grows, the number of implicitly understood and agreed upon things diminishes. E.g. you don't really need a penal code when dealing with your immediate family, but it's necessary for society as a whole to function. As a side bar, I honestly believe that a lot of objections to CoCs stem from the fact that people are either not aware of the group size growth, or are actively grieving for the time when their group was small enough they didn't need one.

13thLetter 11y ago
There's nothing wrong with the basic idea of a code of conduct, in and of itself. There are a lot of things wrong with the current crop: 1. They tend to be heavily politicized, pushing one group's societal views on the entire community. 2. Many attempt to police people's behavior on their own time outside the community. 3. They remain remarkably silent about certain kinds of uncivil behavior, such as public shaming campaigns or importing of outside political disagreements. Often the codes are written with input from people who frequently indulge in this behavior. 4. People with objections are often steamrollered and accused of various social sins for not going along, or a code is simply imposed on the community and all discussion is ignored or closed. If you want these codes to be established without the angry opposition usually seen, you need to address these points.
Karunamon 11y ago
For the "I hate no" people - there's a reason that CoC's call out what exactly offensive/harassing behavior is. We were just talking about the fact that it's impossible to objectively define bad behavior. Sure, you can give examples of things that are disallowed but.. Let me switch tracks for a sec. It's funny this topic comes up right now; I just had to go through a yearly online ethics training thing at my current employer. The point that the slides all hammered in is that offense is something taken, not given, and if someone is offended by your speech, then it is completely on the speaker. The CoC in this case implies that if someone is offended by what you're saying, you are automatically in the wrong regardless of your intent or actions. I see a parallel with FOSS project CoC's here in that they don't "clearly spell out where that line is", anymore than the text states that the line exists in someone else's mind. Have a look at Mozilla's CoC [1] for an example of what I'm talking about. It looks quite reasonable and in all of its forms boils down to the usual social rule of "don't be a jerk". But still, the same problems exist. It contains a lot of platitudes and abstract language. What exactly do things like "empower others" mean, and if I shoot down someone's bad idea, am I going counter to the rule? What happens with the unreasonable person who takes "be respectful" and "Try to understand different perspectives" to mean "disagreement is disrespect" and "my perspective is correct and this should be self evident"? In other words, if people are not adult enough to conduct themselves without a document telling them how to do this, why are they suddenly adult enough to accept that document in the completely positive spirit it was intended? But okay, enough of the rules abuse argument. Mozilla is downright huge by tech community standards, but do you think the document referenced has actually resulted in the defusing of a single argument or negative situation? I tend to lead towards "no", because by the time you're in a position where you're close to violating one of those principles, someone on the same level as you quoting the rules at you isn't likely to be taken well. (The "anger is coming!" effect[2]). Without someone to enforce those standards, they may as well not exist - and if we take into account that the words of community guidelines are likely not the foremost in most people's minds anyways, it takes someone with power dropping by (kind of like dang does around here occasionally in the really divisive threads) to remind people to behave themselves and to surface that guideline thought. If it takes someone dropping by to remind people to behave themselves anyways, what exactly has the code of conduct accomplished? [1]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part... [2]: http://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/art http://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/art
xemdetia 11y ago
> As a side bar, I honestly believe that a lot of objections to CoCs stem from the fact that people are either not aware of the group size growth, or are actively grieving for the time when their group was small enough they didn't need one. I find the problem is usually that these sorts of documents are invented by a minority that does not have the support of the majority, or they are sold poorly to the group as a whole. This is why culture changes from major group-wide issues stick and become permanent much easier in any group size. If I am member of a group and I arrive from one day and there just suddenly is a new CoC where there wasn't before I am extremely put off by it, because the CoC rarely describes the group as a whole but a particular mindset about the group by a minority. If you are going to do a culture change properly you need to sell it to the group of both the power players of the group (the people who are looked up to informally) as well as the formal people 'in charge.' When I see it fails and when it has the most kickback is when they don't bother to try and seek out the power players of the group, because then the subgroups of the whole talk amongst themselves and can't see the reasoning and the people that are leaders in those subgroups aren't on board to bring reasoning into the discussion. If there is a mailing list that tries to enforce a CoC on a related IRC channel and the IRC channel isn't on board with the plan- you've got a completely unnecessary clash from people not seeking out to understand the community as a whole. This also happens just as much from people trying to make an organization Agile or some other methodology. If you don't do right to understand the group, move at a deliberate pace so the group as a whole can move with you, it just is not going to work. This is something I have dealt with many of times as both being an informal leader and the actual leader, and my direct feeling on CoC's is that if they exist they have to be deliberately vague to a point so that a discussion must occur. If they are too specific they become weapons for people until the people that are only moderately invested abandon the group along with the people that clearly don't fit the new policy depart. Sometimes this is filled out with new blood but just as often what made the community good from those that were passionate and invested in a group (# of creators to # of consumers) is completely lost. More often than not new members to the group can't contribute in that fashion for some time until they learn how they want to contribute. If you CoC or some other policy by aggressive moderation at the beginning you set culture for the entire group, if you tack it on later you will leave some % behind but it is often not obvious to people how large that % is unless you do it in a managed fashion.

by groby_b 11y ago

13thLetter 11y ago

There's nothing wrong with the basic idea of a code of conduct, in and of itself. There are a lot of things wrong with the current crop: 1. They tend to be heavily politicized, pushing one group's societal views on the entire community. 2. Many attempt to police people's behavior on their own time outside the community. 3. They remain remarkably silent about certain kinds of uncivil behavior, such as public shaming campaigns or importing of outside political disagreements. Often the codes are written with input from people who frequently indulge in this behavior. 4. People with objections are often steamrollered and accused of various social sins for not going along, or a code is simply imposed on the community and all discussion is ignored or closed. If you want these codes to be established without the angry opposition usually seen, you need to address these points.

Karunamon 11y ago

For the "I hate no" people - there's a reason that CoC's call out what exactly offensive/harassing behavior is. We were just talking about the fact that it's impossible to objectively define bad behavior. Sure, you can give examples of things that are disallowed but.. Let me switch tracks for a sec. It's funny this topic comes up right now; I just had to go through a yearly online ethics training thing at my current employer. The point that the slides all hammered in is that offense is something taken, not given, and if someone is offended by your speech, then it is completely on the speaker. The CoC in this case implies that if someone is offended by what you're saying, you are automatically in the wrong regardless of your intent or actions. I see a parallel with FOSS project CoC's here in that they don't "clearly spell out where that line is", anymore than the text states that the line exists in someone else's mind. Have a look at Mozilla's CoC [1] for an example of what I'm talking about. It looks quite reasonable and in all of its forms boils down to the usual social rule of "don't be a jerk". But still, the same problems exist. It contains a lot of platitudes and abstract language. What exactly do things like "empower others" mean, and if I shoot down someone's bad idea, am I going counter to the rule? What happens with the unreasonable person who takes "be respectful" and "Try to understand different perspectives" to mean "disagreement is disrespect" and "my perspective is correct and this should be self evident"? In other words, if people are not adult enough to conduct themselves without a document telling them how to do this, why are they suddenly adult enough to accept that document in the completely positive spirit it was intended? But okay, enough of the rules abuse argument. Mozilla is downright huge by tech community standards, but do you think the document referenced has actually resulted in the defusing of a single argument or negative situation? I tend to lead towards "no", because by the time you're in a position where you're close to violating one of those principles, someone on the same level as you quoting the rules at you isn't likely to be taken well. (The "anger is coming!" effect[2]). Without someone to enforce those standards, they may as well not exist - and if we take into account that the words of community guidelines are likely not the foremost in most people's minds anyways, it takes someone with power dropping by (kind of like dang does around here occasionally in the really divisive threads) to remind people to behave themselves and to surface that guideline thought. If it takes someone dropping by to remind people to behave themselves anyways, what exactly has the code of conduct accomplished? [1]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part... [2]: http://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/art http://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/art

xemdetia 11y ago

> As a side bar, I honestly believe that a lot of objections to CoCs stem from the fact that people are either not aware of the group size growth, or are actively grieving for the time when their group was small enough they didn't need one. I find the problem is usually that these sorts of documents are invented by a minority that does not have the support of the majority, or they are sold poorly to the group as a whole. This is why culture changes from major group-wide issues stick and become permanent much easier in any group size. If I am member of a group and I arrive from one day and there just suddenly is a new CoC where there wasn't before I am extremely put off by it, because the CoC rarely describes the group as a whole but a particular mindset about the group by a minority. If you are going to do a culture change properly you need to sell it to the group of both the power players of the group (the people who are looked up to informally) as well as the formal people 'in charge.' When I see it fails and when it has the most kickback is when they don't bother to try and seek out the power players of the group, because then the subgroups of the whole talk amongst themselves and can't see the reasoning and the people that are leaders in those subgroups aren't on board to bring reasoning into the discussion. If there is a mailing list that tries to enforce a CoC on a related IRC channel and the IRC channel isn't on board with the plan- you've got a completely unnecessary clash from people not seeking out to understand the community as a whole. This also happens just as much from people trying to make an organization Agile or some other methodology. If you don't do right to understand the group, move at a deliberate pace so the group as a whole can move with you, it just is not going to work. This is something I have dealt with many of times as both being an informal leader and the actual leader, and my direct feeling on CoC's is that if they exist they have to be deliberately vague to a point so that a discussion must occur. If they are too specific they become weapons for people until the people that are only moderately invested abandon the group along with the people that clearly don't fit the new policy depart. Sometimes this is filled out with new blood but just as often what made the community good from those that were passionate and invested in a group (# of creators to # of consumers) is completely lost. More often than not new members to the group can't contribute in that fashion for some time until they learn how they want to contribute. If you CoC or some other policy by aggressive moderation at the beginning you set culture for the entire group, if you tack it on later you will leave some % behind but it is often not obvious to people how large that % is unless you do it in a managed fashion.