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To be honest, I've never understood how people can see a code of conduct as being a divisive agenda. Every one I've seen has been strongly in favour of inclusiv

To be honest, I've never understood how people can see a code of conduct as being a divisive agenda. Every one I've seen has been strongly in favour of inclusivity.

josteink 8y ago
I've seen numerous examples of such documents codifying that it's completely OK to indulge in both sexism and racism if the person on the receiving end belongs to the wrong race, sex or has the wrong sexual orientation. I find it hard to support such initiatives. And again: It detracts from what should be the focus: code.
- mijoharas 8y ago
  Could you cite one of these? It's not something I've ever seen.
  - josteink 8y ago
    TODOGroup's OpenCOC[1] would be the most prominent example: > Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: > ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’" So if someone white or asian, straight or "regular" gay, of regular sex, or whatever are explicitly excluded from a community initiative and someone finds that objectionable, their COC says that kind of racism and sexism is OK. > Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts If you have problem with such principles, that's also not acceptable to discuss. Hardly a healthy environment for open debate. I think more people need to acknowledge that these COCs are 1. Controversial as opposed to universal. Trying to frame it as universal, and then excluding anyone who disagrees with that, just shows that it by definition is the opposite of inclusive. 2. The noise generated from the above controversy is detracting from other work on the project. IMO such measures should be avoided at all cost, as far as possible, especially considering how most FOSS projects are healthy, an that in most cases controversy like this is not needed and will do more harm than good. [1] http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/ http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/
    - vertex-four 8y ago
      I'm sure many workplaces were healthy before the success of feminism and the introduction of women to many traditionally male workplaces and jobs last century, too.
      - josteink 8y ago
        > Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts > If you have problem with such principles, that's also not acceptable to discuss. Hardly a healthy environment for open debate. This is funny in a way because I said these things encouraged toxic discussions and exclusion of non-agreeing view-points. And now this entire thread is flagged. Way to be proven right, I guess.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - mijoharas 8y ago
      You may have a point there. However, another reading of these facts could be that they the maintainers are human and have limited bandwidth to deal with such problems. If you observed that there was a high frequency of erroneous complaints that wasted your time citing "reverse-isms" you would be right to exclude them. Similarly if a lot of people wanted to try and bring you into debates that you didn't feel were productive, you would also ban those discussions. I'm sure if they similarly experienced any cases where, say, cis white men were genuinely discriminated against, they would then revisit the code of conduct. I tend to think code of conducts try and say that a community will be accepting and inclusive of people within it. They are made by people with limited bandwidth trying to do their best to deal with discrimination and harassment problems as they come up. > So if someone white or asian, straight or "regular" gay, of regular sex, or whatever are explicitly excluded from a community initiative and someone finds that objectionable, their COC says that kind of racism and sexism is OK. Here is the crux of the matter. Their code of conduct does not explicitly ban the behaviour you outlined. I would not say that the code of conduct says that is ok. The code of conduct does not explicitly ban fox hunting, but I do not take it to say that it condones that. If the group started to have a problem with fox hunting disrupting all of the planned work and activities it would move to stop that. To me it sounds like the group may have started having a problem with people wasting time by trying to incorrectly cite "reverse-racism" e.t.c. as a method of causing harrassment and moved to stamp it out. Seems very reasonable to me.

To be honest, I've never understood how people can see a code of conduct as being a divisive agenda. Every one I've seen has been strongly in favour of inclusivity.

josteink 8y ago

I've seen numerous examples of such documents codifying that it's completely OK to indulge in both sexism and racism if the person on the receiving end belongs to the wrong race, sex or has the wrong sexual orientation. I find it hard to support such initiatives. And again: It detracts from what should be the focus: code.

mijoharas 8y ago
Could you cite one of these? It's not something I've ever seen.
- josteink 8y ago
  TODOGroup's OpenCOC[1] would be the most prominent example: > Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: > ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’" So if someone white or asian, straight or "regular" gay, of regular sex, or whatever are explicitly excluded from a community initiative and someone finds that objectionable, their COC says that kind of racism and sexism is OK. > Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts If you have problem with such principles, that's also not acceptable to discuss. Hardly a healthy environment for open debate. I think more people need to acknowledge that these COCs are 1. Controversial as opposed to universal. Trying to frame it as universal, and then excluding anyone who disagrees with that, just shows that it by definition is the opposite of inclusive. 2. The noise generated from the above controversy is detracting from other work on the project. IMO such measures should be avoided at all cost, as far as possible, especially considering how most FOSS projects are healthy, an that in most cases controversy like this is not needed and will do more harm than good. [1] http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/ http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/
  - vertex-four 8y ago
    I'm sure many workplaces were healthy before the success of feminism and the introduction of women to many traditionally male workplaces and jobs last century, too.
    - josteink 8y ago
      > Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts > If you have problem with such principles, that's also not acceptable to discuss. Hardly a healthy environment for open debate. This is funny in a way because I said these things encouraged toxic discussions and exclusion of non-agreeing view-points. And now this entire thread is flagged. Way to be proven right, I guess.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - mijoharas 8y ago
    You may have a point there. However, another reading of these facts could be that they the maintainers are human and have limited bandwidth to deal with such problems. If you observed that there was a high frequency of erroneous complaints that wasted your time citing "reverse-isms" you would be right to exclude them. Similarly if a lot of people wanted to try and bring you into debates that you didn't feel were productive, you would also ban those discussions. I'm sure if they similarly experienced any cases where, say, cis white men were genuinely discriminated against, they would then revisit the code of conduct. I tend to think code of conducts try and say that a community will be accepting and inclusive of people within it. They are made by people with limited bandwidth trying to do their best to deal with discrimination and harassment problems as they come up. > So if someone white or asian, straight or "regular" gay, of regular sex, or whatever are explicitly excluded from a community initiative and someone finds that objectionable, their COC says that kind of racism and sexism is OK. Here is the crux of the matter. Their code of conduct does not explicitly ban the behaviour you outlined. I would not say that the code of conduct says that is ok. The code of conduct does not explicitly ban fox hunting, but I do not take it to say that it condones that. If the group started to have a problem with fox hunting disrupting all of the planned work and activities it would move to stop that. To me it sounds like the group may have started having a problem with people wasting time by trying to incorrectly cite "reverse-racism" e.t.c. as a method of causing harrassment and moved to stamp it out. Seems very reasonable to me.