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Can you point to an instance of offensive behaviour towards minorities in the Rust community? I'm not involved in Rust, and I have no strongly held opinions on

by bauerd 9y ago

Can you point to an instance of offensive behaviour towards minorities in the Rust community? I'm not involved in Rust, and I have no strongly held opinions on the topic at hand. However I cannot recall coming across the abuse you describe on GitHub's issue trackers, nor in the IRC channels I frequent, nor somewhere else. Sure, just because I don't notice it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Same goes for biased wording in the docs. A common line of argument is that "being more welcoming" will lead to more contributors and thus to more diverse perspectives. Browsing through Rust's documentation and bug tracker alone makes me skeptical of that. I can't find a thing that will turn away someone interested in Rust. There's definitely sexism in the industry, no question. But I have yet to see someone present numbers of how e.g. their Code of Conduct lead to more contributors. I doubt that any of these undertakings do, unless the project really does have an asshole community. But Rust surely doesn't.

emilk 9y ago
Some people will simply not engage in a project if there is no set code of conduct for it. The logic presumable being that even if there is no problem now, problem may come in the future, and a agreed upon code of conduct can nip such problems in the bud.
- teacup50 9y ago
  Or create problems, since they give a huge amount of leverage to those interested in dominating others through purely institutional/bureaucratic power games.
  - Sir_Substance 9y ago
    Which is why I go out of my way to avoid projects that feel the need to wave their codes of conduct like flags. No matter how egalitarian your code of conduct is, there's no substitute for not being a shitty person.
    - galangalalgol 9y ago
      Yes! It is similar to how no amount of software process can protect you from one bad team member. Also, somehow that bad team/forum member always ends up being the person to use those processes or codes of conduct to crush others.
  - doomrobo 9y ago
    Can you point to an instance of this in the Rust project or another comparable community?
    - nickpsecurity 9y ago
      Rust draws on Coraline Ada's Code of Conduct ("Contributor Covenant") which was straight-up designed to force politics on people. She's aggressively pushed it in as many places as possible so they can ban people later for essentially saying what people like her disagree with in any forum (not just project itself). Here's one mob attack over a Twitter comment that didn't work featuring her with appearance of a Rust team member appearing to throw in some support. At one point, the political attackers set the maintainer up to look like he or she supports pedophiles. Dirty, dirty tactics pushing politics that don't even necessarily represent the beliefs of those they claim to protect. People in minority groups have a wide range of beliefs with many contradicting what these "social-justice warriors" act like they believe. They'll censor them, too, if deemed necessary. https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 I don't follow the Rust conversations enough to tell you anything about what goes on there. That they adopt and enforce a Code of Conduct designed for censorship of non-believers in that cause with a few, strong supporters on the team is enough to worry anti-censorship people. Regardless of Rust project or somewhere else, we opponents block it on grounds of fighting forced compliance with political views with no consensus. Fighting political domination on forums that are supposed to be about tech. That its author has hit many places from Opal to Github means we prefer to block her CoC even more. Rather have a Code of Merit with clauses for keeping things civil. Minimal to no politics: just project-focused code, docs, and support of people in project-related conversations. That's it. https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit/blob/master/CODE_OF_MERIT.md https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit/blob/master/CODE_O...
      - steveklabnik 9y ago
        > Rust draws on Coraline Ada's Code of Conduct ("Contributor Covenant") I have no idea what you're talking about. Rust's code of conduct is older than the Contributor Covenant, and we've modified it very, very slightly since its inception. (I also disagree with the rest of your post as well, but that's offtopic and I don't particularly care to discuss it.)
DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
> Can you point to an instance of offensive behaviour towards minorities in the Rust community? I cannot, because I haven't investigated to see if it exists or not - hence this exercise :)

by bauerd 9y ago

emilk 9y ago

Some people will simply not engage in a project if there is no set code of conduct for it. The logic presumable being that even if there is no problem now, problem may come in the future, and a agreed upon code of conduct can nip such problems in the bud.

teacup50 9y ago
Or create problems, since they give a huge amount of leverage to those interested in dominating others through purely institutional/bureaucratic power games.
- Sir_Substance 9y ago
  Which is why I go out of my way to avoid projects that feel the need to wave their codes of conduct like flags. No matter how egalitarian your code of conduct is, there's no substitute for not being a shitty person.
  - galangalalgol 9y ago
    Yes! It is similar to how no amount of software process can protect you from one bad team member. Also, somehow that bad team/forum member always ends up being the person to use those processes or codes of conduct to crush others.
- doomrobo 9y ago
  Can you point to an instance of this in the Rust project or another comparable community?
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    Rust draws on Coraline Ada's Code of Conduct ("Contributor Covenant") which was straight-up designed to force politics on people. She's aggressively pushed it in as many places as possible so they can ban people later for essentially saying what people like her disagree with in any forum (not just project itself). Here's one mob attack over a Twitter comment that didn't work featuring her with appearance of a Rust team member appearing to throw in some support. At one point, the political attackers set the maintainer up to look like he or she supports pedophiles. Dirty, dirty tactics pushing politics that don't even necessarily represent the beliefs of those they claim to protect. People in minority groups have a wide range of beliefs with many contradicting what these "social-justice warriors" act like they believe. They'll censor them, too, if deemed necessary. https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 I don't follow the Rust conversations enough to tell you anything about what goes on there. That they adopt and enforce a Code of Conduct designed for censorship of non-believers in that cause with a few, strong supporters on the team is enough to worry anti-censorship people. Regardless of Rust project or somewhere else, we opponents block it on grounds of fighting forced compliance with political views with no consensus. Fighting political domination on forums that are supposed to be about tech. That its author has hit many places from Opal to Github means we prefer to block her CoC even more. Rather have a Code of Merit with clauses for keeping things civil. Minimal to no politics: just project-focused code, docs, and support of people in project-related conversations. That's it. https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit/blob/master/CODE_OF_MERIT.md https://github.com/rosarior/Code-of-Merit/blob/master/CODE_O...
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      > Rust draws on Coraline Ada's Code of Conduct ("Contributor Covenant") I have no idea what you're talking about. Rust's code of conduct is older than the Contributor Covenant, and we've modified it very, very slightly since its inception. (I also disagree with the rest of your post as well, but that's offtopic and I don't particularly care to discuss it.)

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

> Can you point to an instance of offensive behaviour towards minorities in the Rust community? I cannot, because I haven't investigated to see if it exists or not - hence this exercise :)