4 ms·

> If someone can't create a PR without saying things that are racist, misogynist, etc. then frankly I don't want them in my community. That's confusing two iss

by adekok 10y ago

> If someone can't create a PR without saying things that are racist, misogynist, etc. then frankly I don't want them in my community. That's confusing two issues: code of conduct, and on-topic communication. If someone opens a PR which complains about a bug in a different piece of software, you would close it as off topic. If they kept doing so, you would block them as being abusive. The same should apply to racism, sexism, etc. The issue isn't that they're wrong, it's that they're off topic for a PR. You don't need a code of conduct that says "racism is bad" in (for example) a javascript library. For me, making moral and political statements in a software project raises all kinds of red flags.

ZoFreX 10y ago
The problem with this argument is a lot of language communities grow into large communities, and often have lots of discussion areas which are not central to the language topic. E.g. they may have a place to discuss video games, or other languages, or politics. Even if they don't it's not uncommon for people to chat socially during down-time. Unless you're going to outlaw all socialising, the "off-topic" approach doesn't work for large communities.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  But off-topic discussions in e.g. Github PRs? I don't think it belongs in the code base. If there were such a code, it could be shown/available wherever the discussion is taken place, e.g. forum, mailing list instead.
acdha 10y ago
The error you're making is in assuming that those are always clearly separate. There are many examples of people who were talking about on-topic technical concepts but used examples or made “jokes” which were not. Having a clear CoC is simply a shortcut: if, say, a speaker uses a bikini picture in a slide you can simply point to it and say “you broke the CoC” rather than rehashing the nth argument about how much sexualization is acceptable in a technical context. It's like the difference between having a standard license and contributor agreement versus making it up as you go along: more work up front but it avoids problems which become more time-consuming as the number of people involved grows.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  I don't see how a code of conduct helps the situation you just described. Most CoCs I know do not have a clear cut rule on this, merely broad statements which you can spend time arguing cover the case or not. This stuff is all shortcuts, to be honest.
  - acdha 10y ago
    Picking a random example: https://2016.djangocon.us/coc/ https://2016.djangocon.us/coc/ “All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for DjangoCon. Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave the conference without a refund at the sole discretion of the conference organizers.” So if someone decided that they wanted to have a bunch of bikini pictures in their slides or to crack jokes about something being ghetto it's starting from a different place. Because the conference organizers thought about this in advance they don't need to worry about making policy on the fly or having different people give different off-the-cuff answers and then be hammered for later changes. Just as something like a coding style guide doesn't solve every question in software, this doesn't solve every issue related to personal conduct but it sets an overall direction and gives people an idea of what to expect: someone going to a conference with that CoC would know that the expectations are set to “business professional” rather than “hanging with my bros at the bar”. You might think that something is obvious but once any event expands beyond a small homogeneous group of people all bets are off. (And, yes, it's shortcuts just as all policies, laws, etc. are because it's easier to have a general trend known in advance than to try to reason about it from first principles after the fact.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
wolfgke 10y ago
> The same should apply to racism, sexism, etc. The problem is that what is considered as racism, sexism, bad language etc. is very different in different cultures. So for example I know a person of Russian descent who says things that are appropriate in Russia, but considered as sexist in Germany (not to even start talking about the US). Or a person from Croatia whose swearing (in German) was very distinct. But he really insisted that it is very harmless in comparison how he would express things in Croatian (he insisted we really don't want to know details).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
pjc50 10y ago
> making moral and political statements in a software project All Free software projects come with a substantial moral and political ethos embedded in the GPL. Politics and dispute resolution is sadly inevitable when dealing with humans. Large enough projects become a community, and that requires a little bit of steering to ensure it's a happy, effective, inclusive community.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > to ensure it's a happy, effective, inclusive community. Why do you value happiness and inclusiveness here? I strongly prefer strongly prefer projects/communities that are managed by technical brilliant, cynical jerks over more inclusive ones if this decreases the effectivity.
  - rebeccaskinner 10y ago
    It's a matter of values and context. I think in general having a happy and inclusive community makes it more effective, and if I have to choose between the two I'll choose the happy and inclusive, if slightly less effective community. After all, who are we writing software for if not for people? There are of course some projects where the only effective option is one where jerks are allowed to keep others away- in that case I think that it should be seen as a bug in the community and something that someone should try to create a fix for, and not just something everyone is expected to live with.
  - justin66 10y ago
    > I strongly prefer strongly prefer projects/communities that are managed by technical brilliant, cynical jerks over more inclusive ones if this decreases the effectivity. If it's a strong preference, then the presence or absence of a CoC - and more generally, the existence of CoCs in some online communities - might be a very useful signal to you, I would think.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  > All Free software projects come with a substantial moral and political ethos embedded in the GPL. Bit of a stretch since there are other licences and business models that work with free software.

by adekok 10y ago

ZoFreX 10y ago

The problem with this argument is a lot of language communities grow into large communities, and often have lots of discussion areas which are not central to the language topic. E.g. they may have a place to discuss video games, or other languages, or politics. Even if they don't it's not uncommon for people to chat socially during down-time. Unless you're going to outlaw all socialising, the "off-topic" approach doesn't work for large communities.

guitarbill 10y ago
But off-topic discussions in e.g. Github PRs? I don't think it belongs in the code base. If there were such a code, it could be shown/available wherever the discussion is taken place, e.g. forum, mailing list instead.

acdha 10y ago

The error you're making is in assuming that those are always clearly separate. There are many examples of people who were talking about on-topic technical concepts but used examples or made “jokes” which were not. Having a clear CoC is simply a shortcut: if, say, a speaker uses a bikini picture in a slide you can simply point to it and say “you broke the CoC” rather than rehashing the nth argument about how much sexualization is acceptable in a technical context. It's like the difference between having a standard license and contributor agreement versus making it up as you go along: more work up front but it avoids problems which become more time-consuming as the number of people involved grows.

scrollaway 10y ago
I don't see how a code of conduct helps the situation you just described. Most CoCs I know do not have a clear cut rule on this, merely broad statements which you can spend time arguing cover the case or not. This stuff is all shortcuts, to be honest.
- acdha 10y ago
  Picking a random example: https://2016.djangocon.us/coc/ https://2016.djangocon.us/coc/ “All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for DjangoCon. Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave the conference without a refund at the sole discretion of the conference organizers.” So if someone decided that they wanted to have a bunch of bikini pictures in their slides or to crack jokes about something being ghetto it's starting from a different place. Because the conference organizers thought about this in advance they don't need to worry about making policy on the fly or having different people give different off-the-cuff answers and then be hammered for later changes. Just as something like a coding style guide doesn't solve every question in software, this doesn't solve every issue related to personal conduct but it sets an overall direction and gives people an idea of what to expect: someone going to a conference with that CoC would know that the expectations are set to “business professional” rather than “hanging with my bros at the bar”. You might think that something is obvious but once any event expands beyond a small homogeneous group of people all bets are off. (And, yes, it's shortcuts just as all policies, laws, etc. are because it's easier to have a general trend known in advance than to try to reason about it from first principles after the fact.)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

wolfgke 10y ago

> The same should apply to racism, sexism, etc. The problem is that what is considered as racism, sexism, bad language etc. is very different in different cultures. So for example I know a person of Russian descent who says things that are appropriate in Russia, but considered as sexist in Germany (not to even start talking about the US). Or a person from Croatia whose swearing (in German) was very distinct. But he really insisted that it is very harmless in comparison how he would express things in Croatian (he insisted we really don't want to know details).

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

pjc50 10y ago

> making moral and political statements in a software project All Free software projects come with a substantial moral and political ethos embedded in the GPL. Politics and dispute resolution is sadly inevitable when dealing with humans. Large enough projects become a community, and that requires a little bit of steering to ensure it's a happy, effective, inclusive community.

wolfgke 10y ago
> to ensure it's a happy, effective, inclusive community. Why do you value happiness and inclusiveness here? I strongly prefer strongly prefer projects/communities that are managed by technical brilliant, cynical jerks over more inclusive ones if this decreases the effectivity.
- rebeccaskinner 10y ago
  It's a matter of values and context. I think in general having a happy and inclusive community makes it more effective, and if I have to choose between the two I'll choose the happy and inclusive, if slightly less effective community. After all, who are we writing software for if not for people? There are of course some projects where the only effective option is one where jerks are allowed to keep others away- in that case I think that it should be seen as a bug in the community and something that someone should try to create a fix for, and not just something everyone is expected to live with.
- justin66 10y ago
  > I strongly prefer strongly prefer projects/communities that are managed by technical brilliant, cynical jerks over more inclusive ones if this decreases the effectivity. If it's a strong preference, then the presence or absence of a CoC - and more generally, the existence of CoCs in some online communities - might be a very useful signal to you, I would think.
guitarbill 10y ago
> All Free software projects come with a substantial moral and political ethos embedded in the GPL. Bit of a stretch since there are other licences and business models that work with free software.