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I disagree. Codes of conduct boil down to requiring members of the community to treat each other with basic decency, and defining a process for showing them th

I disagree. Codes of conduct boil down to requiring members of the community to treat each other with basic decency, and defining a process for showing them the door when they fail to do so. This is not a controversial concept in the real world. You'll be fired from your job if you treat your co-workers badly, you'll be ejected from the pub if you harass the other clients.

lmm 10y ago
> You'll be fired from your job if you treat your co-workers badly Sure, but there'll be a process. You'll have a right to a hearing, the right to your own union representative, and a right to appeal to a tribunal or similar. And the HR people themselves will have oversight. HR don't get handed a license to just fire anyone they want to. > You'll be ejected from the pub if you harass the other clients Pubs are not an institution to emulate. A project like FreeBSD should hold itself to a higher standard.
- sigstoat 10y ago
  > And the HR people themselves will have oversight. HR don't get handed a license to just fire anyone they want to. indeed. and if the HR folks fire so many people that the damage the organization's ability to compete, they'll be out of work sooner or later. no such feedback mechanism is in place for conduct enforcement committees in open projects.
- HerraBRE 10y ago
  You seem to just assume a code of conduct can not include mature and reasonable policies. I don't share that assumption.
  - lmm 10y ago
    I'm not saying they can't, I'm saying they all too often don't, based on my own experience of seeing them introduced (primarily ScalaZ). IIRC the FreeBSD proposal that the article seems to be supporting has the kind of issues I described.
adekok 10y ago
> Codes of conduct boil down to requiring members of the community to treat each other with basic decency If only it were that easy. I've seen codes of conduct for technical projects where they said things like "MUST be inclusive of trans, gay, etc.", along with political / ideological statements. And the kicker was a phrase saying "these ideologies are not open for discussion". Why a software project needs an ideological statement, I have no idea. But it hits all of my red flags that the purpose of the code of conduct is not to treat each other with basic decency, but instead to push a particular ideology. > you'll be ejected from the pub if you harass the other clients. What about simple questions? Q: Hi, I noticed you're a Democrat / Republican / whatever. I think I may disagree with your opinion. A: THE SIGN SAYS NO QUESTIONING IDEOLOGICAL PURITY. GET OUT. Uh... no. That way lies totalitarianism.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Why a software project needs an ideological statement, I have no idea. Any selection of relative values is ideological; and every project is, inherently, based on an agreement to pursue some set of values. And the choice for those values to not include social inclusiveness is as much an ideological choice as the decision that the values should include inclusiveness (or that they should include exclusiveness, which is a third possible ideological choice.)
  - adekok 10y ago
    Your comments are either a tautology (projects are based on ideas), or very likely to be wrong (engineering projects should also include social values). e.g. > ... an ideological choice as the decision that the values should include inclusiveness I explained why this is not just unnecessary, but also why it's wrong on a much more fundamental level. When I get patches from people, I don't care what's under their clothes. I don't care what their political opinions are. I don't care what religion (or not) they belong to. I evaluate the patch based on it's engineering merits. I give them a review of the engineering work that they did, without reference to any of the above mentioned issues. It's absolutely inclusive, in a way that perhaps you don't understand. It doesn't pervert the project by demanding that members adhere to a particular ideology. I find naive attempts at "inclusiveness" to be repugnant. They are a back-door way of leveraging such "niceties" into taking over the group, and establishing an ideology-driven totalitarian dictatorship with Orwellian overtones. And no, I'm not exaggerating here. Look at any number of groups which started out as goal oriented, and devolved into fights over ideological correctness. Very soon, the arguments over ideology overwhelm the group, and everyone who gets things done... leaves. What's left is the ideology-driven politicians, who then find out that they're in their an echo chamber. They turn on each other, and the group dies a flaming death. See Atheism+ for a good example of this in recent years.

lmm 10y ago

> You'll be fired from your job if you treat your co-workers badly Sure, but there'll be a process. You'll have a right to a hearing, the right to your own union representative, and a right to appeal to a tribunal or similar. And the HR people themselves will have oversight. HR don't get handed a license to just fire anyone they want to. > You'll be ejected from the pub if you harass the other clients Pubs are not an institution to emulate. A project like FreeBSD should hold itself to a higher standard.

sigstoat 10y ago
> And the HR people themselves will have oversight. HR don't get handed a license to just fire anyone they want to. indeed. and if the HR folks fire so many people that the damage the organization's ability to compete, they'll be out of work sooner or later. no such feedback mechanism is in place for conduct enforcement committees in open projects.
HerraBRE 10y ago
You seem to just assume a code of conduct can not include mature and reasonable policies. I don't share that assumption.
- lmm 10y ago
  I'm not saying they can't, I'm saying they all too often don't, based on my own experience of seeing them introduced (primarily ScalaZ). IIRC the FreeBSD proposal that the article seems to be supporting has the kind of issues I described.

adekok 10y ago

> Codes of conduct boil down to requiring members of the community to treat each other with basic decency If only it were that easy. I've seen codes of conduct for technical projects where they said things like "MUST be inclusive of trans, gay, etc.", along with political / ideological statements. And the kicker was a phrase saying "these ideologies are not open for discussion". Why a software project needs an ideological statement, I have no idea. But it hits all of my red flags that the purpose of the code of conduct is not to treat each other with basic decency, but instead to push a particular ideology. > you'll be ejected from the pub if you harass the other clients. What about simple questions? Q: Hi, I noticed you're a Democrat / Republican / whatever. I think I may disagree with your opinion. A: THE SIGN SAYS NO QUESTIONING IDEOLOGICAL PURITY. GET OUT. Uh... no. That way lies totalitarianism.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> Why a software project needs an ideological statement, I have no idea. Any selection of relative values is ideological; and every project is, inherently, based on an agreement to pursue some set of values. And the choice for those values to not include social inclusiveness is as much an ideological choice as the decision that the values should include inclusiveness (or that they should include exclusiveness, which is a third possible ideological choice.)
- adekok 10y ago
  Your comments are either a tautology (projects are based on ideas), or very likely to be wrong (engineering projects should also include social values). e.g. > ... an ideological choice as the decision that the values should include inclusiveness I explained why this is not just unnecessary, but also why it's wrong on a much more fundamental level. When I get patches from people, I don't care what's under their clothes. I don't care what their political opinions are. I don't care what religion (or not) they belong to. I evaluate the patch based on it's engineering merits. I give them a review of the engineering work that they did, without reference to any of the above mentioned issues. It's absolutely inclusive, in a way that perhaps you don't understand. It doesn't pervert the project by demanding that members adhere to a particular ideology. I find naive attempts at "inclusiveness" to be repugnant. They are a back-door way of leveraging such "niceties" into taking over the group, and establishing an ideology-driven totalitarian dictatorship with Orwellian overtones. And no, I'm not exaggerating here. Look at any number of groups which started out as goal oriented, and devolved into fights over ideological correctness. Very soon, the arguments over ideology overwhelm the group, and everyone who gets things done... leaves. What's left is the ideology-driven politicians, who then find out that they're in their an echo chamber. They turn on each other, and the group dies a flaming death. See Atheism+ for a good example of this in recent years.