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Um yes, there are. If your country doesn't have them, you have a serious problem. EDIT: what's with the downvotes? Laws are supposed to guarantee a civil beha

Um yes, there are. If your country doesn't have them, you have a serious problem. EDIT: what's with the downvotes? Laws are supposed to guarantee a civil behavior so that we can have organized societies. If your laws don't cover that, fix them.

hyperpape 10y ago
Perhaps it's a linguistic confusion? Civility means that I'm polite as I correct your mistake, and laws should not cover civility. What laws cover is harassment and threats. In some places there are also classes of hate speech that are prohibited by law. That's still much narrower than a general rule of civility. It's also a bad idea in my opinion, even though I'm a big ole SJW.
- rantanplan 10y ago
  No confusion. See my answer here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667732
pg314 10y ago
If I call you an idiot, is that insult covered by the law? Which law? Which jurisdiction? How will you find out about my identity? How will you enforce any potential judgment if I'm in Somalia? How much time and money will it cost you to a) get a conviction, and b) try to enforce it? A lot of software projects have contributors from all over the world. It is just impractical to rely on the law to enforce civility.
- rantanplan 10y ago
  > If I call you an idiot, is that insult covered by the law? Yes. In Greece I can sue you over that. If that's worth my time or not is a different issue, but if I can somehow prove it, you're in trouble and I can ask for restitution for the psychological effect it had on me. I bet it's the same for all civilized countries. CoCs have nothing to do with the rest of the things you're saying. They are not enforceable by law, they won't get you any kind of conviction. Best case scenario, you shun the person that didn't adhere by it. Which guess what? You can do that anyways, without any CoC in place. So really, I have no clue why you think that redundant things like CoC have any practical use. EDIT: instead of downvotes just explain where I'm wrong. Too many feelings here, very few logical arguments.
  - hyperpape 10y ago
    Aside from the minor detail that I ought not be legally prohibited from expressing my opinion that an idiot is an idiot, the even bigger issue is that this law is destined to protect powerful and corrupt people at the expense of their critics. There is a reason most dictators pass laws against insulting the monarchy. It has no hope of being fairly applied.
    - rantanplan 10y ago
      You should add another minor detail, which is that I should not be legally prohibited from taking a walk, or walk my dog, without a crazy person following me around calling me an idiot. I would call that harassment/abuse. You can express your opinion on people in public office as much as you want. We weren't talking about Presidents and dictators though right? So maybe we should get back to the topic of how CoCs have no merit or practical use?
      - hyperpape 10y ago
        Depending on some details, that would quite possibly count as harassment or stalking. If, on the other hand, it's on twitter, you use the block button, and other private matters. And we can't really get back to to the subject, because your whole idea was "codes of conduct are bad, but legally prosecuting people for the same thing would be great!"
        rantanplan 10y ago
        <<And we can't really get back to to the subject, because your whole idea was... >> No it wasn't. No reason to invent stuff that I supposedly said. You can re-read all my answers in this thread if you want.
        hyperpape 10y ago
        It's exactly what you said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667496.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  > It is just impractical to rely on the law to enforce civility. Laws shouldn't be used for that anyway. They're far too inflexible. Always remember that historically, what was thought to be civilised usually turns out to be pretty barbaric in hindsight. Laws to enforce such behaviour just slow down progress, so limiting persons via laws should be done with extreme caution and after thorough consideration only. In practice, communities already enforce certain behaviours (through various methods e.g. peer pressure, shaming and many others). I think in general this is necessary for coexistence, cooperation, and cohesion. But codifying them is probably the least flexible and doesn't allow for any nuance. Besides, any set of rules will have either loopholes or vagueness. Better not to write them down, who knows how people will interpret them.

hyperpape 10y ago

Perhaps it's a linguistic confusion? Civility means that I'm polite as I correct your mistake, and laws should not cover civility. What laws cover is harassment and threats. In some places there are also classes of hate speech that are prohibited by law. That's still much narrower than a general rule of civility. It's also a bad idea in my opinion, even though I'm a big ole SJW.

rantanplan 10y ago
No confusion. See my answer here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667732

pg314 10y ago

If I call you an idiot, is that insult covered by the law? Which law? Which jurisdiction? How will you find out about my identity? How will you enforce any potential judgment if I'm in Somalia? How much time and money will it cost you to a) get a conviction, and b) try to enforce it? A lot of software projects have contributors from all over the world. It is just impractical to rely on the law to enforce civility.

rantanplan 10y ago
> If I call you an idiot, is that insult covered by the law? Yes. In Greece I can sue you over that. If that's worth my time or not is a different issue, but if I can somehow prove it, you're in trouble and I can ask for restitution for the psychological effect it had on me. I bet it's the same for all civilized countries. CoCs have nothing to do with the rest of the things you're saying. They are not enforceable by law, they won't get you any kind of conviction. Best case scenario, you shun the person that didn't adhere by it. Which guess what? You can do that anyways, without any CoC in place. So really, I have no clue why you think that redundant things like CoC have any practical use. EDIT: instead of downvotes just explain where I'm wrong. Too many feelings here, very few logical arguments.
- hyperpape 10y ago
  Aside from the minor detail that I ought not be legally prohibited from expressing my opinion that an idiot is an idiot, the even bigger issue is that this law is destined to protect powerful and corrupt people at the expense of their critics. There is a reason most dictators pass laws against insulting the monarchy. It has no hope of being fairly applied.
  - rantanplan 10y ago
    You should add another minor detail, which is that I should not be legally prohibited from taking a walk, or walk my dog, without a crazy person following me around calling me an idiot. I would call that harassment/abuse. You can express your opinion on people in public office as much as you want. We weren't talking about Presidents and dictators though right? So maybe we should get back to the topic of how CoCs have no merit or practical use?
    - hyperpape 10y ago
      Depending on some details, that would quite possibly count as harassment or stalking. If, on the other hand, it's on twitter, you use the block button, and other private matters. And we can't really get back to to the subject, because your whole idea was "codes of conduct are bad, but legally prosecuting people for the same thing would be great!"
      - rantanplan 10y ago
        <<And we can't really get back to to the subject, because your whole idea was... >> No it wasn't. No reason to invent stuff that I supposedly said. You can re-read all my answers in this thread if you want.
        hyperpape 10y ago
        It's exactly what you said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667496.
guitarbill 10y ago
> It is just impractical to rely on the law to enforce civility. Laws shouldn't be used for that anyway. They're far too inflexible. Always remember that historically, what was thought to be civilised usually turns out to be pretty barbaric in hindsight. Laws to enforce such behaviour just slow down progress, so limiting persons via laws should be done with extreme caution and after thorough consideration only. In practice, communities already enforce certain behaviours (through various methods e.g. peer pressure, shaming and many others). I think in general this is necessary for coexistence, cooperation, and cohesion. But codifying them is probably the least flexible and doesn't allow for any nuance. Besides, any set of rules will have either loopholes or vagueness. Better not to write them down, who knows how people will interpret them.