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A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. It

A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. It’s much more effective to work learn about people, their predilections, biases and experiences. No one is a “checkbox” asshole. Much better to focus on specific behaviors, instead of writing off a person as a type. When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes.

honkhonkpants 10y ago
> When I see a company describe its “no asshole” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/how-to-figure-out-whos-the-jerk.html http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/ho...
partisan 10y ago
> When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. I agree. I'd rather they have a "golden rule" policy which would effectively accomplish the same thing, but coming from a positive perspective. Starting from a negative point means expectations are low. I had the good fortune of working at a place for 6 years where I never heard someone use a curse word or speak unprofessionally about another co-worker. People had opinions and there were heated debates, but ultimately with the goal of doing the right thing. There was stress and pressure, but it came from the work, not the interpersonal relationships. This place had no specific rule about culture. It just had leadership that led by example.
- __derek__ 10y ago
  I attended npm Camp on Saturday, and the tl;dr version of their policy may fit the bill: > be actively kind
freddyc 10y ago
>"When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes." I've seen variations of this pop-up more-and-more over the last few years and from my experience it usually hides the insecurities/bad behavior of the founder(s) and management team. Too often the "no asshole/jerk" rule is really code for "anyone who doesn't agree with us" and results in very vanilla organizations with little diversity.
crpatino 10y ago
IMHO, most people who misbehave online are decent people that get carried away in the emotion of the moment. If the community calls them upon it and force them to own up they comments, they will probably appologize. This requires explict rules and bounderies, as well as the community being able to disengage the minute the infractor does not show any signs of remorse. On the other hand most online misbehavior comes from a minority of repeat infractors. I am willing to believe that the majority of those are not checkbox assholes, but inmature individuals that do not know any better. However, I do not think trying to understand them and accomodate them do any good to either the community of the asshole-to-be. The best online communities I have been part of do have a sort of virtual sign at the entrance saying: "Your manners have to be this tall in for you to ride this game." If you fail to meet the requirements, your posts are erased (or never put thru in the first place). In an ideal world, a moderator may contact you and invite you to express your point with a minimum of decency. If this cannot be achived by personal message, a broadcast announcing an otherwise worthwhile post have been deleted due to open disregard for civility rules can be an acceptable compromise. Finally, there is such thing as a "checkbox asshole", and nothing you do will make them change, because they trive on negative emotions they trigger. You just dont feed the trolls, keep hellbanning them over and over, and hope they get tired and go trolling elsewhere.
coldtea 10y ago
>A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. Yes, but you can easily blow up the stack with all this recursion, since the real world doesn't have TCO. >If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. Well, some people legitimately and truly are "jerks, bozos and assholes" though, some even embrace the jerk ethos openly. If you're addressing them, it's fair game to call them that. Except if your worry is that calling them that wont help them change but alienate them -- but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. >When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. That's not the bad thing though is it? The bad thing would be being an asshole, not calling out one. So, as long as the company doesn't do it to people undeserving the title...
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. Something about your phrasing made me think of this; https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/
- grkvlt 10y ago
  The point is more one of framing, not of tolerance to assholes. If you restate the 'no assholes' policy as a set of positive traits that are to be encouraged then the framing effect is to cause people to look for those desirable traits and emulate them. A 'no assholes' policy frames things in a way that makes people look for assholes, and causes them to think negatively about personality traits, in terms of not being something undesirable. Instead of 'calling out' people for being jerks, bozos and so on, the idea would be to talk instead about how they could become better at teamwork, interaction with others and so on. So rather than pigeonholing them as something undesirable, you show them they are on the start of a path that leads to improvement. I think the impact of these subtle semantic changes can be surprisingly effective, especially because it is all happening at an almost unconscious level. I also think some of it can certainly come across as a little cringe-worthy and perhaps rather strained. Sort of like the trend of looking for something to praise about everyone, and awarding certificates for merely showing up when that is the only positive thing that can be found. But, everything can be taken too far I suppose...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pavel_lishin 10y ago
> No one is a “checkbox” asshole. With all due respect, this is spoken like someone who's never moderated a forum. True, an actual human being, with meat and parents and bills is probably not a checkbox asshole - but online, we almost never deal with that person, aside from the people you know in meatspace on Facebook. I am not an actual human being to you, and vice versa, and can't be unless we take a very long time to actually get to know each other as such. On the internet, we are more two dimensional, because we present as such, and some people get their kicks out of exposing their asshole nature to others. There is no fixing this, at least not on any sort of scale, which does not work when you're moderating. You'd have to fix them as an actual person, and taking a human being on as a project is unfair to everyone else who doesn't get their kicks by doing things "for the lulz".
- bjohan 10y ago
  FTR, the original post was not about internet.

honkhonkpants 10y ago

> When I see a company describe its “no asshole” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/how-to-figure-out-whos-the-jerk.html http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2014/8/17/ho...

partisan 10y ago

> When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. I agree. I'd rather they have a "golden rule" policy which would effectively accomplish the same thing, but coming from a positive perspective. Starting from a negative point means expectations are low. I had the good fortune of working at a place for 6 years where I never heard someone use a curse word or speak unprofessionally about another co-worker. People had opinions and there were heated debates, but ultimately with the goal of doing the right thing. There was stress and pressure, but it came from the work, not the interpersonal relationships. This place had no specific rule about culture. It just had leadership that led by example.

__derek__ 10y ago
I attended npm Camp on Saturday, and the tl;dr version of their policy may fit the bill: > be actively kind

freddyc 10y ago

>"When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes." I've seen variations of this pop-up more-and-more over the last few years and from my experience it usually hides the insecurities/bad behavior of the founder(s) and management team. Too often the "no asshole/jerk" rule is really code for "anyone who doesn't agree with us" and results in very vanilla organizations with little diversity.

crpatino 10y ago

IMHO, most people who misbehave online are decent people that get carried away in the emotion of the moment. If the community calls them upon it and force them to own up they comments, they will probably appologize. This requires explict rules and bounderies, as well as the community being able to disengage the minute the infractor does not show any signs of remorse. On the other hand most online misbehavior comes from a minority of repeat infractors. I am willing to believe that the majority of those are not checkbox assholes, but inmature individuals that do not know any better. However, I do not think trying to understand them and accomodate them do any good to either the community of the asshole-to-be. The best online communities I have been part of do have a sort of virtual sign at the entrance saying: "Your manners have to be this tall in for you to ride this game." If you fail to meet the requirements, your posts are erased (or never put thru in the first place). In an ideal world, a moderator may contact you and invite you to express your point with a minimum of decency. If this cannot be achived by personal message, a broadcast announcing an otherwise worthwhile post have been deleted due to open disregard for civility rules can be an acceptable compromise. Finally, there is such thing as a "checkbox asshole", and nothing you do will make them change, because they trive on negative emotions they trigger. You just dont feed the trolls, keep hellbanning them over and over, and hope they get tired and go trolling elsewhere.

coldtea 10y ago

>A little meta-civility goes a long way, too. Yes, but you can easily blow up the stack with all this recursion, since the real world doesn't have TCO. >If one is inclined to call people jerks, bozos and assholes, perhaps one is not understanding people very well. Well, some people legitimately and truly are "jerks, bozos and assholes" though, some even embrace the jerk ethos openly. If you're addressing them, it's fair game to call them that. Except if your worry is that calling them that wont help them change but alienate them -- but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. >When I see a company describe its “no assholes” rule, I see a company inclined toward calling people assholes. That's not the bad thing though is it? The bad thing would be being an asshole, not calling out one. So, as long as the company doesn't do it to people undeserving the title...

Natanael_L 10y ago
but maybe changing them is not the author's goal, but rather routing around them. Something about your phrasing made me think of this; https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/
grkvlt 10y ago
The point is more one of framing, not of tolerance to assholes. If you restate the 'no assholes' policy as a set of positive traits that are to be encouraged then the framing effect is to cause people to look for those desirable traits and emulate them. A 'no assholes' policy frames things in a way that makes people look for assholes, and causes them to think negatively about personality traits, in terms of not being something undesirable. Instead of 'calling out' people for being jerks, bozos and so on, the idea would be to talk instead about how they could become better at teamwork, interaction with others and so on. So rather than pigeonholing them as something undesirable, you show them they are on the start of a path that leads to improvement. I think the impact of these subtle semantic changes can be surprisingly effective, especially because it is all happening at an almost unconscious level. I also think some of it can certainly come across as a little cringe-worthy and perhaps rather strained. Sort of like the trend of looking for something to praise about everyone, and awarding certificates for merely showing up when that is the only positive thing that can be found. But, everything can be taken too far I suppose...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

pavel_lishin 10y ago

> No one is a “checkbox” asshole. With all due respect, this is spoken like someone who's never moderated a forum. True, an actual human being, with meat and parents and bills is probably not a checkbox asshole - but online, we almost never deal with that person, aside from the people you know in meatspace on Facebook. I am not an actual human being to you, and vice versa, and can't be unless we take a very long time to actually get to know each other as such. On the internet, we are more two dimensional, because we present as such, and some people get their kicks out of exposing their asshole nature to others. There is no fixing this, at least not on any sort of scale, which does not work when you're moderating. You'd have to fix them as an actual person, and taking a human being on as a project is unfair to everyone else who doesn't get their kicks by doing things "for the lulz".

bjohan 10y ago
FTR, the original post was not about internet.