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I am always surprised at the backlash against such codes of conduct. One can point to numerous cases of harassment, abuse, and inequality in the tech community.

by soyiuz 9y ago

I am always surprised at the backlash against such codes of conduct. One can point to numerous cases of harassment, abuse, and inequality in the tech community. Who is harmed by a stronger CoC? Let's discuss an example where CoC led to a negative outcome for some group.

xyzzyz 9y ago
What’s the purpose of a Code of Conduct? If someone is abusive and harassing others, you can eject them without having some Code of Conduct giving the community permission to do so, and if you lack clout to eject someone for actual abuse and harrasment, how will CoC help you? Do you think that without CoC, people in the community believe that harrasment and abuse is OK, and it’s only CoC that will make them change their minds? Instituting the CoC is a power play. It allows you to increase your power and influence by pushing the boundaries of what counts as harrasment much further than it would otherwise be understood, for very simple reason — for most people, fighting against CoC is not the hill they want to die on, as nobody wants to be seen as defender of abuse and harrasment. It is similar to child pornography legislation — you can go to jail for hand drawn pictures of specialized children, which is pretty stupid if you think about it, but most people don’t care: they aren’t pedophiles and so they aren’t interested in sexualized content featuring children, and the personal gain of feeling good about defending individual freedom and liberty is not worth the status loss from, you know, defending actual pedophiles. With CoC it is similar — you are expanding your sphere of power and influence, and everyone opposed is just dirty defender of abuse and harrasment, and so basically a harraser herself, and thus we need to eject her for the good of the community.
- soyiuz 9y ago
  Let's take a starker example, for the sake of the argument. The building I live in today did not allow Jews, Asians, or people of color until the 1960s (my family would not be allowed in). An explicit Code of Conduct, now in our bylaws, prohibits discrimination based on those categories. Was it a "power play"? Would you make the same argument as above to justify not passing bylaw amendments that argue against discrimination? The BSD rules are a softer version of that starker example. I am truly perplexed by the resistance to it. It has huge benefits for a marginalized group and marginal inconvenience for those already in power, already privy to all of the benefits.
akerro 9y ago
FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) has a lot of problems right now, and rewriting CoC makes me think they put effort into completely wrong places. Hey FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) developers have you patched spectre and meltdown already? Have you fixed your communication issues with security researchers who stopped notifying you of serious bugs? No? Oh I would hug you to cheer you up, but it's now allowed now.
- 2trill2spill 9y ago
  > FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) has a lot of problems right now, and rewriting CoC makes me think they put effort into completely wrong places. You realize people and projects can work on multiple things at once right? > Hey FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) developers have you patched spectre and meltdown already? The FreeBSD and OpenBSD developers were notified 6 months late and you expect them to magically have a patch ready. > Have you fixed your communication issues with security researchers who stopped notifying you of serious bugs? FreeBSD did nothing wrong to security researchers so there isn't anything to fix. > Oh I would hug you to cheer you up, but it's now allowed now. You sound like a wonderful person, not! Seriously the COC is to keep toxic people like you away.
  - akerro 9y ago
    >Seriously the COC is to keep toxic people like you away. Then they did it right, I am most probably not going to donate to FreeBSD foundation first time in 5 years.
    - 2trill2spill 9y ago
      > Then they did it right, I am most probably not going to donate to FreeBSD foundation first time in 5 years. You must not care much about FreeBSD if a code of conduct saying don't be a asshole is what drove you to stop donating. Also I'm skeptical you ever donated, you were spreading misinformation in you previous post about FreeBSD and now your mad they wrote a CoC that say things like don't threaten violence or stalk people.
voidr 9y ago
Some of us don't want to be part of a community that ejects you for writing: "hug" Some of us just want to keep politics out of tech. We are probably the weirdos I guess.
- imsofuture 9y ago
  "Keep politics out of tech" is extremely disingenuous. This CoC can be summarized as "don't be a jerk to other people". I can't even fathom how that's a controversial or political statement, but yet, here we are.
  - ygaf 9y ago
    If the actual thing was summarized, it wouldn't be political. Instead it's sesame street time where we learn about systemic oppression.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > This CoC can be summarized as "don't be a jerk to other people". I can't even fathom how that's a controversial or political statement, but yet, here we are. Your summary is as disingenuous as someone summarizing the Republican party's platform as "run the US government well." It drops all of the important details to arrive at a meaningless platitude. I'm pretty sure you can fathom the controversy, but you're just being deliberately obtuse.
  - voidr 9y ago
    > This CoC can be summarized as "don't be a jerk to other people" That is true if in your world saying or writing the following is being a jerk: - hug, <3 - smoking is bad for you, you should eat healthier food, I think that food is disgusting - men have higher testosterone levels All of these violate their CoC. If all they wanted is a CoC that says "don't be a jerk" then they would have put that into their CoC and not what's in it currently, like many other projects had done so[1]. > I can't even fathom how that's a controversial or political statement, but yet, here we are. It's political because it's being pushed by political activist groups and it's controversial because not everyone agrees that writing hug should get you banned from a technical community. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNdQJSlg54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNdQJSlg54

by soyiuz 9y ago

xyzzyz 9y ago

What’s the purpose of a Code of Conduct? If someone is abusive and harassing others, you can eject them without having some Code of Conduct giving the community permission to do so, and if you lack clout to eject someone for actual abuse and harrasment, how will CoC help you? Do you think that without CoC, people in the community believe that harrasment and abuse is OK, and it’s only CoC that will make them change their minds? Instituting the CoC is a power play. It allows you to increase your power and influence by pushing the boundaries of what counts as harrasment much further than it would otherwise be understood, for very simple reason — for most people, fighting against CoC is not the hill they want to die on, as nobody wants to be seen as defender of abuse and harrasment. It is similar to child pornography legislation — you can go to jail for hand drawn pictures of specialized children, which is pretty stupid if you think about it, but most people don’t care: they aren’t pedophiles and so they aren’t interested in sexualized content featuring children, and the personal gain of feeling good about defending individual freedom and liberty is not worth the status loss from, you know, defending actual pedophiles. With CoC it is similar — you are expanding your sphere of power and influence, and everyone opposed is just dirty defender of abuse and harrasment, and so basically a harraser herself, and thus we need to eject her for the good of the community.

soyiuz 9y ago
Let's take a starker example, for the sake of the argument. The building I live in today did not allow Jews, Asians, or people of color until the 1960s (my family would not be allowed in). An explicit Code of Conduct, now in our bylaws, prohibits discrimination based on those categories. Was it a "power play"? Would you make the same argument as above to justify not passing bylaw amendments that argue against discrimination? The BSD rules are a softer version of that starker example. I am truly perplexed by the resistance to it. It has huge benefits for a marginalized group and marginal inconvenience for those already in power, already privy to all of the benefits.

akerro 9y ago

FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) has a lot of problems right now, and rewriting CoC makes me think they put effort into completely wrong places. Hey FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) developers have you patched spectre and meltdown already? Have you fixed your communication issues with security researchers who stopped notifying you of serious bugs? No? Oh I would hug you to cheer you up, but it's now allowed now.

2trill2spill 9y ago
> FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) has a lot of problems right now, and rewriting CoC makes me think they put effort into completely wrong places. You realize people and projects can work on multiple things at once right? > Hey FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) developers have you patched spectre and meltdown already? The FreeBSD and OpenBSD developers were notified 6 months late and you expect them to magically have a patch ready. > Have you fixed your communication issues with security researchers who stopped notifying you of serious bugs? FreeBSD did nothing wrong to security researchers so there isn't anything to fix. > Oh I would hug you to cheer you up, but it's now allowed now. You sound like a wonderful person, not! Seriously the COC is to keep toxic people like you away.
- akerro 9y ago
  >Seriously the COC is to keep toxic people like you away. Then they did it right, I am most probably not going to donate to FreeBSD foundation first time in 5 years.
  - 2trill2spill 9y ago
    > Then they did it right, I am most probably not going to donate to FreeBSD foundation first time in 5 years. You must not care much about FreeBSD if a code of conduct saying don't be a asshole is what drove you to stop donating. Also I'm skeptical you ever donated, you were spreading misinformation in you previous post about FreeBSD and now your mad they wrote a CoC that say things like don't threaten violence or stalk people.

voidr 9y ago

Some of us don't want to be part of a community that ejects you for writing: "hug" Some of us just want to keep politics out of tech. We are probably the weirdos I guess.

imsofuture 9y ago
"Keep politics out of tech" is extremely disingenuous. This CoC can be summarized as "don't be a jerk to other people". I can't even fathom how that's a controversial or political statement, but yet, here we are.
- ygaf 9y ago
  If the actual thing was summarized, it wouldn't be political. Instead it's sesame street time where we learn about systemic oppression.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > This CoC can be summarized as "don't be a jerk to other people". I can't even fathom how that's a controversial or political statement, but yet, here we are. Your summary is as disingenuous as someone summarizing the Republican party's platform as "run the US government well." It drops all of the important details to arrive at a meaningless platitude. I'm pretty sure you can fathom the controversy, but you're just being deliberately obtuse.
- voidr 9y ago
  > This CoC can be summarized as "don't be a jerk to other people" That is true if in your world saying or writing the following is being a jerk: - hug, <3 - smoking is bad for you, you should eat healthier food, I think that food is disgusting - men have higher testosterone levels All of these violate their CoC. If all they wanted is a CoC that says "don't be a jerk" then they would have put that into their CoC and not what's in it currently, like many other projects had done so[1]. > I can't even fathom how that's a controversial or political statement, but yet, here we are. It's political because it's being pushed by political activist groups and it's controversial because not everyone agrees that writing hug should get you banned from a technical community. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNdQJSlg54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNdQJSlg54