8 ms·

The problem with the Code of Conduct

95 points by kragniz 9y ago

hprotagonist 9y ago
My problem, for good or ill, with codes of conduct, is that they are written in the language of HR--which is to say, the defensive language of ass-covering--and thus I cannot trust them. Sounds like this author feels similarly.
- dmurray 9y ago
  Agreed. The author has some sympathy for organisations which decide "we need to have a CoC to get X grant from body Y". And if that's the reason to have a CoC, of course it should be written in the appropriate HRy, ass-covering language, because that's what Y expects and is paying you for. Of course no organisation of fewer than say a hundred thousand people can actually abide by all the provisions of a HR-worthy CoC. The problem is then with the organisations that instead of saying "we have this ass-covering CoC to keep the grant, but here are the actual things we will do to enforce acceptable behaviour" escape with "we've done our bit to prevent unacceptable behaviour -- look, you can read our code of conduct".
- dictum 9y ago
  Recent sociopolitical debates on professional matters have a distinct corporate aura/tone, perhaps by way of most participants working at such corporations. When those debates leave the world of corporate work and enter the world of voluntary (or ideally-voluntary - see the "you need open source contributions" advice to job seekers) efforts (e.g. open source) they still keep the corporate aura.
kasbah 9y ago
I am faced with feeling pressured to add a CoC for one of my own projects in order to apply for funding. I am unsure what to put up. It seems like a massive task to me. I quite like the CoC of the EMF camp as it seems to the point, un-ambigious and written in language I understand. I may try and adapt it for online interaction. What do others think? https://www.emfcamp.org/code-of-conduct https://www.emfcamp.org/code-of-conduct
- seany 9y ago
  https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC might be better.
  - kasbah 9y ago
    I feel like that would just be avoiding the issue (burying my head in the sand, so to speak).
    - Trombone12 9y ago
      That Code of Conduct feels more like it is about burying someone else's head in the sand: > Have you considered, that they are either having a bad day, are a bad listener, or possibly, you are wrong? Uh, yeah, great advice to have in the FAQ for what is supposedly your anti-harassment policy. -_-
      - favorited 9y ago
        One of several red flags. Another thing that set off alarm bells was the strawman reference to penis slang. That's not something I've ever seen referenced by someone who is serious about having a conversation about codifying personal conduct expectations.
    - seany 9y ago
      I mean, kind of the point is to tell people who demand CoC's to piss off. So... sort of?
- epicureanideal 9y ago
  How does that work? Are your VCs requesting a code of conduct or... what's going on?
  - kasbah 9y ago
    No, there is a question on a grant application form to link to the code of conduct if there is one. _Mild_ pressure to have one I should have said maybe.
phyzome 9y ago
This was a better post than I was expecting. It's written from the heart, and from a non-dismissive standpoint. Worth reading the whole thing. I really liked the example about accessibility. It's a great point—organizations should be honest with themselves about what they can actually offer. I disagreed with some other parts, in particular the part about how a lot of orgs aren't actually prepared to handle harassment complaints professionally. While that's definitely something to work on, I think that's something that's going to be true for many orgs regardless of whether they have a CoC. Not welcoming people to come forward with complaints is... probably worse, right? Or am I missing something?
- nitwit005 9y ago
  If someone feels they aren't capable of handling harassment issues, they're probably correct. Handing off the job to someone incapable does seem like an issue. In general, telling an organization they need a process for something doesn't work out unless they genuinely buy into the idea. It tends to result in a bunch of process documents getting written, but no practical changes to how things are run.
  - phyzome 9y ago
    Yeah, I think my big take-away from this document is: If you're going to have a CoC, you'd better be able to stand by what you say in it. Don't just copy-paste from someone else's and thereby unthinkingly overpromise.
rectang 9y ago
The world is separating into bastions: with CoC and without CoC. I'm much happier in one of those than the other.
art187 9y ago
Disclaimer, I help run an organization that requires CoC's on all events. I like this article but it doesn't go into the positives of a CoC. There are many problems but if you don't weigh them against the positive characteristics, you don't see the full picture. My organization NumFOCUS, asks all conferences and projects working with us to adopt some CoC. Why do we do this? First it has been shown in our community to help encourage minority groups to participate. Second it outlines a real procedure if something does go wrong. Finally, it sets the expectation of professionalism early. Our numbers on diversity have skyrocketed as we enforces CoCs. It's not just a bandaid, it's an invitation to people of all types that we, the organizers, will protect your right to be at our event. I don't think event organizers are in any position to think they can solve all the problems in tech but at least they can create an inviting space. Without a CoC, the procedure on how to handle a harasser is very grey. What legal grounds does a person have to tell someone to leave an event? If it is any grounds then why for some and not others? Who makes these decisions? I've seen conferences not deal with up front and have to resort to the local law enforcement to intervene. Which brings me to my last point, set expectations up front. It's like the big silver punch bowl at the new years party. We expect you to be an adult and treat everyone else like an adult. A CoC clearly lays out that your event is intended to be professional. I don't think it is the end of all discussions, in fact only the beginning. Our staff put together more things to consider, https://github.com/numfocus/DISCOVER-Cookbook https://github.com/numfocus/DISCOVER-Cookbook, but a CoC is the simplist.
- WhitneyLand 9y ago
  Your post is so right I don’t understand how it’s not self evident. How could anyone be against the very concept of setting or codifying expectations? What would Voltaire say after finding we’re still debating perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of good? An imperfect document can’t invalidate the entire concept. A code of conduct is not a solution, it’s just another form of communications and standards that may do some good if you iterate on and refine it enough to be useful.
  - flukus 9y ago
    > Your post is so right I don’t understand how it’s not self evident. How could anyone be against the very concept of setting or codifying expectations? The first is that they are often overly broad and police what people can say in entirely different contexts, the second is that they become weaponised so that people can only contribute if their entire political position doesn't offend somebody. Neither are usually intended consequences, but the people putting CoC's in place don't tend to realize they are potential consequences at all.
tylermenezes 9y ago
It seems like the point of the article is not sufficient to make a community feel welcoming and safe. Which is a great point: lots of shitty communities have a Code of Conduct that's ignored. That doesn't mean a Code of Conduct is not a necessary step. Teaching people to be good members of your community, and being proactive in removing bad members, isn't possible until you define what that means.
- matte_black 9y ago
  There can’t be effective learning if there aren’t clear and public post mortems on instances where the Code of Conduct was violated or wrongly invoked and what the correct action should have been. No one really does this. I was at a conference once where someone was arrested and taken away in handcuffs. To this day I have no clue what he could have done to realistically end up in that situation besides physical assault.
  - TillE 9y ago
    If somebody was arrested, it's obviously because they were believed to have committed a crime. There are many crimes available. Codes of conduct are generally about behavior that isn't criminal, because once you've crossed that line the appropriate response should be obvious.
  - Trombone12 9y ago
    Maybe they didn't have a green card or something? Honestly, action by law enforcement is unlikely to be due to a Code of Conduct except as a trigger for violent behaviour.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > Teaching people to be good members of your community, and being proactive in removing bad members, isn't possible until you define what that means. Maybe you also have to realize that, just like human societies in general, no community is ever going to be perfect, and focusing too much on rules,rules,rules, can become counter-productive.
- aleister_777 9y ago
smileysteve 9y ago
COCs are virtue signaling at best (as mentioned in checklist items) and a catch ~~all~~ most for immature behavior at worst. Really, it would help if we could trust adults to be adults, or at least 16 year olds, but this speaks to bigger industry and societal problems. Recently, I heard conference attendees bragging of how they messed up a presentation by trying to connect to the bluetooth device being demonstrated. And I've been lucky to have never worked at a place where changing the background to pornography or setting an inappropriate facebook status was a thing. The truth is that the tech industry (among others) still has people who are less mature than the people at lan parties I went to when I was 14-16.
- polemic 9y ago
  > COCs are virtue signaling at best Well, it's virtue signalling at _worst_. Which is to say, the worst case is you're signalling virtues with no intention of upholding those values. Secondly, virtue signalling is, you know, useful. If you are clear about your values and the values you expect in others, then you've at least stated an intention to do better.
- ncallaway 9y ago
  Nearly every form of communication is a form of signaling your values in one way or another ("virtue signaling"). Your post is filled with things that signal your virtues. Why is virtue signaling bad? How is it not just a standard part of humans communicating with each other?
  - Vendan 9y ago
    Virtue signaling has become a perjorative term: "In recent years, the term has become more commonly used as a pejorative characterization by commentators to criticize what they regard as empty, or superficial support of certain political views, and also used within groups to criticize their own members for valuing outward appearance over substantive action. ... Examples of behavior described as virtue signalling include changing Facebook profile pictures to support a cause, participation in the Ice Bucket Challenge, offering thoughts and prayers after a tragedy, celebrity speeches during award shows, politicians pandering to constituents on ideological issues."
matte_black 9y ago
It’s important to remember a conference is not a space, it’s the people in that space. In a conference there are no safe spaces, only safe people. What we need are social structures to help keep safe people around other safe people, if that’s where they want to be. We need an effective way of calibrating a person’s safety profile. An individual for instance may be perfectly safe for a minority, but unsafe for all but the most hardened women.
anon6357814 9y ago
I feel excluded by CoCs. Not because they prohibit behavior which I otherwise relish to engage in on a daily basis, more because of fear of coming under some behavioral rule enforcing institution within a community because some behavior could be interpreted as violating the rules when seen under a bad light. This is mostly a gut reaction, a feeling that CoCs serve more to tighten the overton window and fear that I might find myself on the wrong side of sharp demarcation which should be more of a soft gradient. It's like a wanted poster, being declared a thought criminal. Of course many things in a CoC are individually sensible rules, but as a larger set they feel like a demand for a flawless human who is always genuinely nice, polite and only makes perfectly inoffensive jokes and never raises their voice while arguing things etc. I'm quite aware that I am not that perfect human, I have issues with empathy and following what was considered group consensus (it has cost me friends and a job before). Those CoCs just feel a bit like a "only people with A-grade social skills welcome here" sign to me.
- WhitneyLand 9y ago
  That’s wrong that you feel excluded, I wish you didn’t because that’s a hurtful thing. But the very concept of having any code of conduct is likely not the cause. Even the exact same document will make people feel more or less comfortable depending on other factors like the culture of an org or the people you commonly run into.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    But it is by design. A code of conduct is meant to exclude people based on their behaviour. Most of these alleged codes have no clear guidelines how to exercise them and so are either ignored or applied to the letter without the spirit. Or the examples are strawmen. You can easily spot these by a nonspecific, generalized language or lawyering up. Our rule set (not some CoC) provides concrete examples of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. (Quotes and actual descriptions of things that actually happened.)
- phyzome 9y ago
  I sometimes get this anxiety too. And then I remember that if I were black, or a woman, or etc. etc. etc. I'd maybe have a similar anxiety as a baseline: « a demand for a flawless human who is always genuinely nice, polite and only makes perfectly inoffensive jokes and never raises their voice while arguing things » Yeah, that sounds similar to the frustrations I've heard from women and people of color, being held to a higher standard than their white or male colleagues. I'm societally allowed to be rude, even threatening! And I'm rarely called on it. But that's not actually a good thing. So I think it's totally fair to have a CoC that says "be nice to people" and has some teeth and makes white men a little nervous. "A little nervous" is kind of a baseline for a lot of people. Think of it as educational.
sn 9y ago
This seems like more of an argument against bad CoCs and against CoCs for all organizations, rather than a CoC always being bad for every organization. There's also a difference between specifying a CoC and enforcing a CoC. Maybe there needs to be a different name for expectations that aren't going to be enforced, either because they're too imprecise or the people running things are incapable of doing so.
draw_down 9y ago
Codes of conduct either do not enough (for people who actually experience harassment or discrimination in groups/conferences), or too much (for people who are convinced that any attempt to rein in bad behavior is a harbinger for the antifa SJW bolshevik jackboots who will take over their programming language conference any day now). I don't know how you bridge that gap in an inclusive way. Soon some groups may have to make tough choices.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Don't Hit On The Students! But also (and this is my main issue with such points) CoC are a reaction to things that went bad, and an attempt to fix these issues. I briefly talked for a time with a guy who knew I had life threatening respiratory problems and he tried to talk me into meeting him in person, while swearing my health and welfare were his highest priority and intentionally leaving out the fact that he was a smoker and a toker. When it finally came out in conversation, I had a cow and he pulled this nonsense about "If it is that important, you should have asked." Um, no. I was so upset by the whole thing, I briefly considered putting something in my profile on the forum where we met specifying "No smokers, no tokers." Then decided this is about as useful as putting up a dating profile that says "No rapists, no pedophiles." He knew it was not acceptable. This is why he hid the information. Any BS justification for his behavior after the fact is just part of the headfuckery. And, unfortunately, a lot of CoCs seem to be along those lines of explicitly forbidding behaviors that we already understand are bad, as if that will somehow stop people who already know what they are doing is not socially acceptable. The areas where people are oblivious due to entrenched prejudice of some sort will not be fixed by spelling it out in some detailed list. We are catering to the lowest common denominator by spelling out what is and is not acceptable. This isn't a means to foster a civil environment.
- delinka 9y ago
  I’ve never seen Codes of Conduct as attempting to prevent (no more than any other lists of prohibited activity actually prevent such activities), but more to be an automatic defense for the organizers when they have to kick someone out for misbehaving.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Every restaurant I have ever been to seems to have a sign saying "We reserve the right to refuse service." They also sometimes say "No shirt, no shoes, no service." That's about it. Somehow, they don't seem to typically have big problems with people behaving badly while having lunch or whatever.
    - 9y ago
legostormtroopr 9y ago
I find it telling that she felt it necessary to include the disclaimer "I am a queer woman". When discussing issues around Codes of Conduct I see all too often people leaning on personal attributes that give them social permission to critique them.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  It has become necessary because we regularly discard people's opinions based on identity politics these days. It's sad.
Veedrac 9y ago
> I believe that this person honestly cares about feminism and CoC, but that they are unable to be aware of how their own actions are going to far and come over as threatening. They do respect every aspect of a CoC, but refuse to be qualified with those "vague terms" as it is possible to interpret them in so many ways and are, of course, impossible to prove. > How is a CoC helping me here, when CoC offer so many gray zones to play with, when the line between insecurity and harassment is so thin that it is almost impossible to distinguish one from another? This is exactly the sort of thing a CoC should help with. Without explicit policy, you have no explicitly stated means of defense. With a CoC, you should be able to simply tell the people in charge of upholding it that this person's actions come across as threatening and harrassing. I am not saying this will work everywhere. A CoC also only enables you to know what defenses you have, it does not create them. But I feel at least the spirit is in the right place, and I know of at least one community where IMO it works very well.
kardashev 9y ago
One thing that's worrying about CoCs is that many of them seem political in nature and are used as excuses to abuse other members of the community who don't conform to certain opinions. Bryan Lunduke has chronicled a few examples of this occurring and causing destruction of otherwise healthy communities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s087Ca9JnYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s087Ca9JnYw
AstralStorm 9y ago
Well, we have rules but we don't have a silly prescriptive law in our hackerspace. The rules are all made by experience not guesswork and intentions. Sample rules that were retired: * any member may ask anyone else to desist and go away or shut up and you have to comply (hasn't been invoked yet to any real extent - people tend to comply) * any member may ask a non-member to leave (likewise) - criminal stuff is covered already * we have a list of persona non grata - preferably do not let them in or keep them under constant supervision - list gets outdated, these people tend to not show up, new members have no idea * do not take excessive phone calls in open space - just asking is good enough Rules that we kept: * is not a hotel or sleeping space - do not abuse the coach - crashing is fine, doing that many times in a row is not * is not a pub - take excessive drinking elsewhere, likewise drug use or dealing * members can be banned by a vote in a specific matter - it has happened * keep the place clean (esp. put things back in their designated places, take out the trash and keep fridge clean of old mold) * how meetings and rule changes are made (consensus on an actual face to face meeting announced at least 48h ahead; must be at least one person from steering committee which is also chosen by consensus on a big meet by majority) Note there is nothing about harassment since there is no need to. The general rules are fine. There is also clear definition of who is responsible for upholding the rules. If we had a CoC like one of those "inclusive" ones we'd have to ban half to two thirds of the members. They are fond of religious and sometimes lewd jokes. Or are sometimes abrasive or crude. Abuse (incl. verbal, stalking) is not tolerated regardless since it is a bad plan and if it recurs it will get you banned - it has in the past. We do not write it in rules as it is dealt with on case by case basis. Mostly as it requires a vote and vote requires a discussion and presenting the points clearly. And anything illegal and disruptive will get the police called on you. Obviously.
ksec 9y ago
A Silly question, is CoC a thing in Commonwealth / EU countries? Or is it mostly an US thing?
edanm 9y ago
I don't know. I helped organize a conference where we were required to use a code of conduct by the parent organization (to be fair, we'd probably have put a code of conduct up either way). From my point of view, as someone who is likely not going to be subject to bad behavior, I felt like a lot of it was standard HR boilerplate feel-good stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's good to signal quite clearly the behavior you think is right and wrong. But I think that in some cases it helped more than that. It really does give you specific benefits: 1. It gives you something to aspire to. Yes, our CoC included accessibility issues. No, we weren't amazing at dealing with them, since it was our first time and it's not an easy topic to take care of. But the CoC certainly helps make it a priority, if only because people may (rightly!) call you out on failings. Most people will be understanding with you even if you don't get everything right, as long as you're trying. 2. I think specifying specific contacts (male and female) in case of certain abuse situations is a good thing. Of course whoever is the contact is not necessarily trained in dealing with trauma - but that's usually not the situation we're talking about. If someone is raped or physically asaulted, it's a matter for the police. We're talking about much lighter but still problematic cases, where hopefully the victim wants something done, but doesn't need a trauma specialist or anything. The idea of the CoC isn't to be instead of law enforcement, it's to be another layer on top of that providing specific rules about what is and isn't considered professional behavior in this kind of conference. No more, no less.

95 points by kragniz 9y ago

My problem, for good or ill, with codes of conduct, is that they are written in the language of HR--which is to say, the defensive language of ass-covering--and thus I cannot trust them. Sounds like this author feels similarly.

dmurray 9y ago
Agreed. The author has some sympathy for organisations which decide "we need to have a CoC to get X grant from body Y". And if that's the reason to have a CoC, of course it should be written in the appropriate HRy, ass-covering language, because that's what Y expects and is paying you for. Of course no organisation of fewer than say a hundred thousand people can actually abide by all the provisions of a HR-worthy CoC. The problem is then with the organisations that instead of saying "we have this ass-covering CoC to keep the grant, but here are the actual things we will do to enforce acceptable behaviour" escape with "we've done our bit to prevent unacceptable behaviour -- look, you can read our code of conduct".
dictum 9y ago
Recent sociopolitical debates on professional matters have a distinct corporate aura/tone, perhaps by way of most participants working at such corporations. When those debates leave the world of corporate work and enter the world of voluntary (or ideally-voluntary - see the "you need open source contributions" advice to job seekers) efforts (e.g. open source) they still keep the corporate aura.

kasbah 9y ago

I am faced with feeling pressured to add a CoC for one of my own projects in order to apply for funding. I am unsure what to put up. It seems like a massive task to me. I quite like the CoC of the EMF camp as it seems to the point, un-ambigious and written in language I understand. I may try and adapt it for online interaction. What do others think? https://www.emfcamp.org/code-of-conduct https://www.emfcamp.org/code-of-conduct

seany 9y ago
https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC might be better.
- kasbah 9y ago
  I feel like that would just be avoiding the issue (burying my head in the sand, so to speak).
  - Trombone12 9y ago
    That Code of Conduct feels more like it is about burying someone else's head in the sand: > Have you considered, that they are either having a bad day, are a bad listener, or possibly, you are wrong? Uh, yeah, great advice to have in the FAQ for what is supposedly your anti-harassment policy. -_-
    - favorited 9y ago
      One of several red flags. Another thing that set off alarm bells was the strawman reference to penis slang. That's not something I've ever seen referenced by someone who is serious about having a conversation about codifying personal conduct expectations.
  - seany 9y ago
    I mean, kind of the point is to tell people who demand CoC's to piss off. So... sort of?
epicureanideal 9y ago
How does that work? Are your VCs requesting a code of conduct or... what's going on?
- kasbah 9y ago
  No, there is a question on a grant application form to link to the code of conduct if there is one. _Mild_ pressure to have one I should have said maybe.

phyzome 9y ago

This was a better post than I was expecting. It's written from the heart, and from a non-dismissive standpoint. Worth reading the whole thing. I really liked the example about accessibility. It's a great point—organizations should be honest with themselves about what they can actually offer. I disagreed with some other parts, in particular the part about how a lot of orgs aren't actually prepared to handle harassment complaints professionally. While that's definitely something to work on, I think that's something that's going to be true for many orgs regardless of whether they have a CoC. Not welcoming people to come forward with complaints is... probably worse, right? Or am I missing something?

nitwit005 9y ago
If someone feels they aren't capable of handling harassment issues, they're probably correct. Handing off the job to someone incapable does seem like an issue. In general, telling an organization they need a process for something doesn't work out unless they genuinely buy into the idea. It tends to result in a bunch of process documents getting written, but no practical changes to how things are run.
- phyzome 9y ago
  Yeah, I think my big take-away from this document is: If you're going to have a CoC, you'd better be able to stand by what you say in it. Don't just copy-paste from someone else's and thereby unthinkingly overpromise.

rectang 9y ago

The world is separating into bastions: with CoC and without CoC. I'm much happier in one of those than the other.

art187 9y ago

Disclaimer, I help run an organization that requires CoC's on all events. I like this article but it doesn't go into the positives of a CoC. There are many problems but if you don't weigh them against the positive characteristics, you don't see the full picture. My organization NumFOCUS, asks all conferences and projects working with us to adopt some CoC. Why do we do this? First it has been shown in our community to help encourage minority groups to participate. Second it outlines a real procedure if something does go wrong. Finally, it sets the expectation of professionalism early. Our numbers on diversity have skyrocketed as we enforces CoCs. It's not just a bandaid, it's an invitation to people of all types that we, the organizers, will protect your right to be at our event. I don't think event organizers are in any position to think they can solve all the problems in tech but at least they can create an inviting space. Without a CoC, the procedure on how to handle a harasser is very grey. What legal grounds does a person have to tell someone to leave an event? If it is any grounds then why for some and not others? Who makes these decisions? I've seen conferences not deal with up front and have to resort to the local law enforcement to intervene. Which brings me to my last point, set expectations up front. It's like the big silver punch bowl at the new years party. We expect you to be an adult and treat everyone else like an adult. A CoC clearly lays out that your event is intended to be professional. I don't think it is the end of all discussions, in fact only the beginning. Our staff put together more things to consider, https://github.com/numfocus/DISCOVER-Cookbook https://github.com/numfocus/DISCOVER-Cookbook, but a CoC is the simplist.

WhitneyLand 9y ago
Your post is so right I don’t understand how it’s not self evident. How could anyone be against the very concept of setting or codifying expectations? What would Voltaire say after finding we’re still debating perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of good? An imperfect document can’t invalidate the entire concept. A code of conduct is not a solution, it’s just another form of communications and standards that may do some good if you iterate on and refine it enough to be useful.
- flukus 9y ago
  > Your post is so right I don’t understand how it’s not self evident. How could anyone be against the very concept of setting or codifying expectations? The first is that they are often overly broad and police what people can say in entirely different contexts, the second is that they become weaponised so that people can only contribute if their entire political position doesn't offend somebody. Neither are usually intended consequences, but the people putting CoC's in place don't tend to realize they are potential consequences at all.

tylermenezes 9y ago

It seems like the point of the article is not sufficient to make a community feel welcoming and safe. Which is a great point: lots of shitty communities have a Code of Conduct that's ignored. That doesn't mean a Code of Conduct is not a necessary step. Teaching people to be good members of your community, and being proactive in removing bad members, isn't possible until you define what that means.

matte_black 9y ago
There can’t be effective learning if there aren’t clear and public post mortems on instances where the Code of Conduct was violated or wrongly invoked and what the correct action should have been. No one really does this. I was at a conference once where someone was arrested and taken away in handcuffs. To this day I have no clue what he could have done to realistically end up in that situation besides physical assault.
- TillE 9y ago
  If somebody was arrested, it's obviously because they were believed to have committed a crime. There are many crimes available. Codes of conduct are generally about behavior that isn't criminal, because once you've crossed that line the appropriate response should be obvious.
- Trombone12 9y ago
  Maybe they didn't have a green card or something? Honestly, action by law enforcement is unlikely to be due to a Code of Conduct except as a trigger for violent behaviour.
ekianjo 9y ago
> Teaching people to be good members of your community, and being proactive in removing bad members, isn't possible until you define what that means. Maybe you also have to realize that, just like human societies in general, no community is ever going to be perfect, and focusing too much on rules,rules,rules, can become counter-productive.
aleister_777 9y ago

smileysteve 9y ago

COCs are virtue signaling at best (as mentioned in checklist items) and a catch ~~all~~ most for immature behavior at worst. Really, it would help if we could trust adults to be adults, or at least 16 year olds, but this speaks to bigger industry and societal problems. Recently, I heard conference attendees bragging of how they messed up a presentation by trying to connect to the bluetooth device being demonstrated. And I've been lucky to have never worked at a place where changing the background to pornography or setting an inappropriate facebook status was a thing. The truth is that the tech industry (among others) still has people who are less mature than the people at lan parties I went to when I was 14-16.

polemic 9y ago
> COCs are virtue signaling at best Well, it's virtue signalling at _worst_. Which is to say, the worst case is you're signalling virtues with no intention of upholding those values. Secondly, virtue signalling is, you know, useful. If you are clear about your values and the values you expect in others, then you've at least stated an intention to do better.
ncallaway 9y ago
Nearly every form of communication is a form of signaling your values in one way or another ("virtue signaling"). Your post is filled with things that signal your virtues. Why is virtue signaling bad? How is it not just a standard part of humans communicating with each other?
- Vendan 9y ago
  Virtue signaling has become a perjorative term: "In recent years, the term has become more commonly used as a pejorative characterization by commentators to criticize what they regard as empty, or superficial support of certain political views, and also used within groups to criticize their own members for valuing outward appearance over substantive action. ... Examples of behavior described as virtue signalling include changing Facebook profile pictures to support a cause, participation in the Ice Bucket Challenge, offering thoughts and prayers after a tragedy, celebrity speeches during award shows, politicians pandering to constituents on ideological issues."

matte_black 9y ago

It’s important to remember a conference is not a space, it’s the people in that space. In a conference there are no safe spaces, only safe people. What we need are social structures to help keep safe people around other safe people, if that’s where they want to be. We need an effective way of calibrating a person’s safety profile. An individual for instance may be perfectly safe for a minority, but unsafe for all but the most hardened women.

anon6357814 9y ago

I feel excluded by CoCs. Not because they prohibit behavior which I otherwise relish to engage in on a daily basis, more because of fear of coming under some behavioral rule enforcing institution within a community because some behavior could be interpreted as violating the rules when seen under a bad light. This is mostly a gut reaction, a feeling that CoCs serve more to tighten the overton window and fear that I might find myself on the wrong side of sharp demarcation which should be more of a soft gradient. It's like a wanted poster, being declared a thought criminal. Of course many things in a CoC are individually sensible rules, but as a larger set they feel like a demand for a flawless human who is always genuinely nice, polite and only makes perfectly inoffensive jokes and never raises their voice while arguing things etc. I'm quite aware that I am not that perfect human, I have issues with empathy and following what was considered group consensus (it has cost me friends and a job before). Those CoCs just feel a bit like a "only people with A-grade social skills welcome here" sign to me.

WhitneyLand 9y ago
That’s wrong that you feel excluded, I wish you didn’t because that’s a hurtful thing. But the very concept of having any code of conduct is likely not the cause. Even the exact same document will make people feel more or less comfortable depending on other factors like the culture of an org or the people you commonly run into.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  But it is by design. A code of conduct is meant to exclude people based on their behaviour. Most of these alleged codes have no clear guidelines how to exercise them and so are either ignored or applied to the letter without the spirit. Or the examples are strawmen. You can easily spot these by a nonspecific, generalized language or lawyering up. Our rule set (not some CoC) provides concrete examples of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. (Quotes and actual descriptions of things that actually happened.)
phyzome 9y ago
I sometimes get this anxiety too. And then I remember that if I were black, or a woman, or etc. etc. etc. I'd maybe have a similar anxiety as a baseline: « a demand for a flawless human who is always genuinely nice, polite and only makes perfectly inoffensive jokes and never raises their voice while arguing things » Yeah, that sounds similar to the frustrations I've heard from women and people of color, being held to a higher standard than their white or male colleagues. I'm societally allowed to be rude, even threatening! And I'm rarely called on it. But that's not actually a good thing. So I think it's totally fair to have a CoC that says "be nice to people" and has some teeth and makes white men a little nervous. "A little nervous" is kind of a baseline for a lot of people. Think of it as educational.

sn 9y ago

This seems like more of an argument against bad CoCs and against CoCs for all organizations, rather than a CoC always being bad for every organization. There's also a difference between specifying a CoC and enforcing a CoC. Maybe there needs to be a different name for expectations that aren't going to be enforced, either because they're too imprecise or the people running things are incapable of doing so.

draw_down 9y ago

Codes of conduct either do not enough (for people who actually experience harassment or discrimination in groups/conferences), or too much (for people who are convinced that any attempt to rein in bad behavior is a harbinger for the antifa SJW bolshevik jackboots who will take over their programming language conference any day now). I don't know how you bridge that gap in an inclusive way. Soon some groups may have to make tough choices.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

Don't Hit On The Students! But also (and this is my main issue with such points) CoC are a reaction to things that went bad, and an attempt to fix these issues. I briefly talked for a time with a guy who knew I had life threatening respiratory problems and he tried to talk me into meeting him in person, while swearing my health and welfare were his highest priority and intentionally leaving out the fact that he was a smoker and a toker. When it finally came out in conversation, I had a cow and he pulled this nonsense about "If it is that important, you should have asked." Um, no. I was so upset by the whole thing, I briefly considered putting something in my profile on the forum where we met specifying "No smokers, no tokers." Then decided this is about as useful as putting up a dating profile that says "No rapists, no pedophiles." He knew it was not acceptable. This is why he hid the information. Any BS justification for his behavior after the fact is just part of the headfuckery. And, unfortunately, a lot of CoCs seem to be along those lines of explicitly forbidding behaviors that we already understand are bad, as if that will somehow stop people who already know what they are doing is not socially acceptable. The areas where people are oblivious due to entrenched prejudice of some sort will not be fixed by spelling it out in some detailed list. We are catering to the lowest common denominator by spelling out what is and is not acceptable. This isn't a means to foster a civil environment.

delinka 9y ago
I’ve never seen Codes of Conduct as attempting to prevent (no more than any other lists of prohibited activity actually prevent such activities), but more to be an automatic defense for the organizers when they have to kick someone out for misbehaving.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Every restaurant I have ever been to seems to have a sign saying "We reserve the right to refuse service." They also sometimes say "No shirt, no shoes, no service." That's about it. Somehow, they don't seem to typically have big problems with people behaving badly while having lunch or whatever.
  - 9y ago

legostormtroopr 9y ago

I find it telling that she felt it necessary to include the disclaimer "I am a queer woman". When discussing issues around Codes of Conduct I see all too often people leaning on personal attributes that give them social permission to critique them.

ekianjo 9y ago
It has become necessary because we regularly discard people's opinions based on identity politics these days. It's sad.

Veedrac 9y ago

> I believe that this person honestly cares about feminism and CoC, but that they are unable to be aware of how their own actions are going to far and come over as threatening. They do respect every aspect of a CoC, but refuse to be qualified with those "vague terms" as it is possible to interpret them in so many ways and are, of course, impossible to prove. > How is a CoC helping me here, when CoC offer so many gray zones to play with, when the line between insecurity and harassment is so thin that it is almost impossible to distinguish one from another? This is exactly the sort of thing a CoC should help with. Without explicit policy, you have no explicitly stated means of defense. With a CoC, you should be able to simply tell the people in charge of upholding it that this person's actions come across as threatening and harrassing. I am not saying this will work everywhere. A CoC also only enables you to know what defenses you have, it does not create them. But I feel at least the spirit is in the right place, and I know of at least one community where IMO it works very well.

kardashev 9y ago

One thing that's worrying about CoCs is that many of them seem political in nature and are used as excuses to abuse other members of the community who don't conform to certain opinions. Bryan Lunduke has chronicled a few examples of this occurring and causing destruction of otherwise healthy communities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s087Ca9JnYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s087Ca9JnYw

AstralStorm 9y ago

Well, we have rules but we don't have a silly prescriptive law in our hackerspace. The rules are all made by experience not guesswork and intentions. Sample rules that were retired: * any member may ask anyone else to desist and go away or shut up and you have to comply (hasn't been invoked yet to any real extent - people tend to comply) * any member may ask a non-member to leave (likewise) - criminal stuff is covered already * we have a list of persona non grata - preferably do not let them in or keep them under constant supervision - list gets outdated, these people tend to not show up, new members have no idea * do not take excessive phone calls in open space - just asking is good enough Rules that we kept: * is not a hotel or sleeping space - do not abuse the coach - crashing is fine, doing that many times in a row is not * is not a pub - take excessive drinking elsewhere, likewise drug use or dealing * members can be banned by a vote in a specific matter - it has happened * keep the place clean (esp. put things back in their designated places, take out the trash and keep fridge clean of old mold) * how meetings and rule changes are made (consensus on an actual face to face meeting announced at least 48h ahead; must be at least one person from steering committee which is also chosen by consensus on a big meet by majority) Note there is nothing about harassment since there is no need to. The general rules are fine. There is also clear definition of who is responsible for upholding the rules. If we had a CoC like one of those "inclusive" ones we'd have to ban half to two thirds of the members. They are fond of religious and sometimes lewd jokes. Or are sometimes abrasive or crude. Abuse (incl. verbal, stalking) is not tolerated regardless since it is a bad plan and if it recurs it will get you banned - it has in the past. We do not write it in rules as it is dealt with on case by case basis. Mostly as it requires a vote and vote requires a discussion and presenting the points clearly. And anything illegal and disruptive will get the police called on you. Obviously.

ksec 9y ago

A Silly question, is CoC a thing in Commonwealth / EU countries? Or is it mostly an US thing?

edanm 9y ago

I don't know. I helped organize a conference where we were required to use a code of conduct by the parent organization (to be fair, we'd probably have put a code of conduct up either way). From my point of view, as someone who is likely not going to be subject to bad behavior, I felt like a lot of it was standard HR boilerplate feel-good stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's good to signal quite clearly the behavior you think is right and wrong. But I think that in some cases it helped more than that. It really does give you specific benefits: 1. It gives you something to aspire to. Yes, our CoC included accessibility issues. No, we weren't amazing at dealing with them, since it was our first time and it's not an easy topic to take care of. But the CoC certainly helps make it a priority, if only because people may (rightly!) call you out on failings. Most people will be understanding with you even if you don't get everything right, as long as you're trying. 2. I think specifying specific contacts (male and female) in case of certain abuse situations is a good thing. Of course whoever is the contact is not necessarily trained in dealing with trauma - but that's usually not the situation we're talking about. If someone is raped or physically asaulted, it's a matter for the police. We're talking about much lighter but still problematic cases, where hopefully the victim wants something done, but doesn't need a trauma specialist or anything. The idea of the CoC isn't to be instead of law enforcement, it's to be another layer on top of that providing specific rules about what is and isn't considered professional behavior in this kind of conference. No more, no less.