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> If there is a lesson in this, it is that online communities which plan to implement anti-harassment policies ought to do so from the beginning, and develop th

> If there is a lesson in this, it is that online communities which plan to implement anti-harassment policies ought to do so from the beginning, and develop the expectation among the users that such policies exist, and will continue to exist. A few relatively popular programming languages have begun publishing official community code of conduct documents[1][2]. While initially I thought it was a bit overreaching, I can now see steering a community early is much easier than trying to change course later. [1] https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html [2] https://golang.org/conduct https://golang.org/conduct

favorited 10y ago
To add to the list, Swift[1] had a code of conduct as soon as it was open-sourced. Mono even adopted one the same day[2] because they thought it was a good idea. The LLVM Project is in the final stages of adopting one[3] (after much discussion) as well. This will (once adopted) apply to the LLVM backend, the Clang (C, C++, & ObjC) front-end, libc++, the LLDB debugger, etc. [1] https://swift.org/community/#code-of-conduct https://swift.org/community/#code-of-conduct [2] https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/672590341757927426 https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/672590341757927426 [3] http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-June/101807.html http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-June/101807.ht...
twblalock 10y ago
It's a good way to cover your ass if you need to kick people out of the community later. They can't credibly accuse you of making up ad-hoc rules if your code of conduct has existed the entire time.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Pretty much every community over a few hundred people in size will eventually be faced with a moment where the "powers that be" are forced to sit down and have the "what are we going to do about person X" talk. Every one of them. That's just the nature of human beings. If you find yourself in that position and the person is merely toxic to interact with, count yourself lucky, because it can often be a million times worse. If you are in a position of power with a community it's very important to look at codes of conduct, standards of behavior, and mechanisms for reporting/tracking/resolution early. Because building those systems early will make that "what are we gonna do" moment a zillion times easier to handle. It'll also usually mean that things get handled earlier than they would otherwise, possibly before they've escalated out of control and possibly avoiding a lot of damage that might have happened otherwise (to individuals and to the community).
im4w1l 10y ago
The Rust leadership tolerates harassment and threats as long as its against the right wing. One of Rust's top people wants to violently purge the tech community. https://archive.is/BtDaA https://archive.is/BtDaA
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Nazi programmers can follow the Nazi punks and etc.
- tamana 10y ago
  Twitter is not part of Rust code of conduct, the code of conduct does not apply to off-project politcal conversations. https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html
  - makomk 10y ago
    There's nothing in there that excludes off-project conversations, and I cannot imagine such a restriction surviving the first outrage about a project member's off-site views from the left based on previous incidents.
- gaius 10y ago
  If you see a threat of violence on Twitter, report it.
- rmc 10y ago
  "right wing" or "far right wing". Remember we're talking about literal neo-nazis here, not just Conservatives.
  - jules 10y ago
    That's not how it goes in practice. The fact that the people in that twitter thread endorse antifa shows that they are either ignorant of what antifa actually is (as opposed to what it claims to be), or they endorse an organisation that is more fascist than the fascists it purports to fight.
gallonofmilk 10y ago
there is an inherent trade off though. would reddit have ever become so big and popular if it had enforced a strict conduct policy from day 1? many of the early users of reddit were not necessarily the mainstream "good" users that eventually came post-digg. it can be a distraction to focus on that early on when what's most important is user adoption...
- Asooka 10y ago
  I meet cookie-cutter good people every day at office. I come online to see the interesting, the shocking, the disgusting, the entire individuality of people displayed with none of the façade necessitated by real life.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  >it can be a distraction to focus on that early on when what's most important is user adoption... Distraction? The wrong kind of initial user adaption will create a toxic community that excludes later users. Any community that goes unmoderated for long enough inevitably turns into a cesspool. The most important users are the initial adaptors, they form the basis of the expectations of the community.
  - gallonofmilk 10y ago
    yes exactly, and who were many of the initial users of reddit? I'm not saying it's not important, just that in the very early stages of a startup such as reddit was, it can be the wrong thing to focus on when you really need to get users first.
- amyjess 10y ago
  Most people don't need a conduct policy. Your average person isn't going to sign up for a website and start harassing other users, reposting Stormfront articles, and slinging racial slurs. On top of that, most people just click through the TOS without reading it. Do you even read the gazillion EULAs you click through when you install software? Did you read Facebook's TOS when you signed up? I thought not. It won't affect them because they'll end up obeying the TOS even if they've never paid attention to what's in the TOS. But if you don't have a TOS and enforce it, then you're eventually going to get the attention of the nastiest, most vile people on the Internet. And given that almost the whole world is on the Internet now, that's some of the nastiest, most vile people in the world. Once you get their attention, they're going to go out of their way to make your website their new home. If you were a Neo-Nazi, and you were used to being banned from every forum you found as soon as you opened your mouth, and then you found a forum that had no rules and allowed absolute free speech, you'd fall in love right away. So much that you'd go out of your way to advertise it to your Neo-Nazi friends and coördinate a mass migration. Once the nastiest, most vile people on the Internet migrate to your site en masse, they're going to start targeting people for harassment, they're going to use it as a platform to spread hate, and they're going to take the opportunity to recruit from the general population by posting carefully crafted propaganda. And, yes, they'll drown out the decent people. First, because the vile ones are actively invading your site in droves, while the decent people just stumble on it from random links and maybe friends' recommendations. Second, because the vile people will drive the decent people out. You know the old adage about how a thimble of wine mixed into a barrel of sewage is still sewage, but a thimble of sewage mixed into a barrel of wine is also sewage? It's kind of like that. Once there are enough vile people to make their presence known, they will turn your site into sewage even if they're the minority. tl;dr: Most people don't need their conduct regulated, but if you don't establish and enforce regulations, your community will be thoroughly overrun by the people who do need their conduct regulated.
_pmf_ 10y ago
> "We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation" Cool that they are so open towards zoophiles and the occasional pedophile. On another note, Code of Conduct for FOSS are the equivalent of stock photos showing ethnically diverse people having a lively meeting on company websites; it does not hurt anybody, but it's an utterly useless waste of everyone's time, and you feel a bit dirty having to pretend that it matters.

favorited 10y ago

To add to the list, Swift[1] had a code of conduct as soon as it was open-sourced. Mono even adopted one the same day[2] because they thought it was a good idea. The LLVM Project is in the final stages of adopting one[3] (after much discussion) as well. This will (once adopted) apply to the LLVM backend, the Clang (C, C++, & ObjC) front-end, libc++, the LLDB debugger, etc. [1] https://swift.org/community/#code-of-conduct https://swift.org/community/#code-of-conduct [2] https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/672590341757927426 https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/672590341757927426 [3] http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-June/101807.html http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-June/101807.ht...

twblalock 10y ago

It's a good way to cover your ass if you need to kick people out of the community later. They can't credibly accuse you of making up ad-hoc rules if your code of conduct has existed the entire time.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

Pretty much every community over a few hundred people in size will eventually be faced with a moment where the "powers that be" are forced to sit down and have the "what are we going to do about person X" talk. Every one of them. That's just the nature of human beings. If you find yourself in that position and the person is merely toxic to interact with, count yourself lucky, because it can often be a million times worse. If you are in a position of power with a community it's very important to look at codes of conduct, standards of behavior, and mechanisms for reporting/tracking/resolution early. Because building those systems early will make that "what are we gonna do" moment a zillion times easier to handle. It'll also usually mean that things get handled earlier than they would otherwise, possibly before they've escalated out of control and possibly avoiding a lot of damage that might have happened otherwise (to individuals and to the community).

im4w1l 10y ago

The Rust leadership tolerates harassment and threats as long as its against the right wing. One of Rust's top people wants to violently purge the tech community. https://archive.is/BtDaA https://archive.is/BtDaA

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Nazi programmers can follow the Nazi punks and etc.
tamana 10y ago
Twitter is not part of Rust code of conduct, the code of conduct does not apply to off-project politcal conversations. https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/conduct.html
- makomk 10y ago
  There's nothing in there that excludes off-project conversations, and I cannot imagine such a restriction surviving the first outrage about a project member's off-site views from the left based on previous incidents.
gaius 10y ago
If you see a threat of violence on Twitter, report it.
rmc 10y ago
"right wing" or "far right wing". Remember we're talking about literal neo-nazis here, not just Conservatives.
- jules 10y ago
  That's not how it goes in practice. The fact that the people in that twitter thread endorse antifa shows that they are either ignorant of what antifa actually is (as opposed to what it claims to be), or they endorse an organisation that is more fascist than the fascists it purports to fight.

gallonofmilk 10y ago

there is an inherent trade off though. would reddit have ever become so big and popular if it had enforced a strict conduct policy from day 1? many of the early users of reddit were not necessarily the mainstream "good" users that eventually came post-digg. it can be a distraction to focus on that early on when what's most important is user adoption...

Asooka 10y ago
I meet cookie-cutter good people every day at office. I come online to see the interesting, the shocking, the disgusting, the entire individuality of people displayed with none of the façade necessitated by real life.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
>it can be a distraction to focus on that early on when what's most important is user adoption... Distraction? The wrong kind of initial user adaption will create a toxic community that excludes later users. Any community that goes unmoderated for long enough inevitably turns into a cesspool. The most important users are the initial adaptors, they form the basis of the expectations of the community.
- gallonofmilk 10y ago
  yes exactly, and who were many of the initial users of reddit? I'm not saying it's not important, just that in the very early stages of a startup such as reddit was, it can be the wrong thing to focus on when you really need to get users first.
amyjess 10y ago
Most people don't need a conduct policy. Your average person isn't going to sign up for a website and start harassing other users, reposting Stormfront articles, and slinging racial slurs. On top of that, most people just click through the TOS without reading it. Do you even read the gazillion EULAs you click through when you install software? Did you read Facebook's TOS when you signed up? I thought not. It won't affect them because they'll end up obeying the TOS even if they've never paid attention to what's in the TOS. But if you don't have a TOS and enforce it, then you're eventually going to get the attention of the nastiest, most vile people on the Internet. And given that almost the whole world is on the Internet now, that's some of the nastiest, most vile people in the world. Once you get their attention, they're going to go out of their way to make your website their new home. If you were a Neo-Nazi, and you were used to being banned from every forum you found as soon as you opened your mouth, and then you found a forum that had no rules and allowed absolute free speech, you'd fall in love right away. So much that you'd go out of your way to advertise it to your Neo-Nazi friends and coördinate a mass migration. Once the nastiest, most vile people on the Internet migrate to your site en masse, they're going to start targeting people for harassment, they're going to use it as a platform to spread hate, and they're going to take the opportunity to recruit from the general population by posting carefully crafted propaganda. And, yes, they'll drown out the decent people. First, because the vile ones are actively invading your site in droves, while the decent people just stumble on it from random links and maybe friends' recommendations. Second, because the vile people will drive the decent people out. You know the old adage about how a thimble of wine mixed into a barrel of sewage is still sewage, but a thimble of sewage mixed into a barrel of wine is also sewage? It's kind of like that. Once there are enough vile people to make their presence known, they will turn your site into sewage even if they're the minority. tl;dr: Most people don't need their conduct regulated, but if you don't establish and enforce regulations, your community will be thoroughly overrun by the people who do need their conduct regulated.

_pmf_ 10y ago

> "We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation" Cool that they are so open towards zoophiles and the occasional pedophile. On another note, Code of Conduct for FOSS are the equivalent of stock photos showing ethnically diverse people having a lively meeting on company websites; it does not hurt anybody, but it's an utterly useless waste of everyone's time, and you feel a bit dirty having to pretend that it matters.