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The people who suffer under the behavior called out in CoCs tend to disagree. Can you give a reason why they are wrong and you are right?

by sgift 8y ago

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Not OP, but suffering is a sliding scale (sidenote: some suffering is good, it teaches you how to be a better human; think public speaking). You shouldn't be abused or attacked when interacting in a public project, of course, but you also don't have a right to not be offended or having your feelings not hurt. My personal sentiment is that CoCs have been weaponized (in the name of inclusion and protection) when it suits certain supporters of said CoCs to eject members of a collaboration they take issue with. TL;DR All things in moderation.
- theossuary 8y ago
  Can you show an example or two of such weaponization? I've never come across one. And even if it was weaponized, wouldn't that be the fault of the maintainers judging the situation? You saying it's the CoC's fault is like blaming a gun in a murder.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    It's often the original creator of the CoC doing the weaponizing. Here are a few examples: * https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004 https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004 * https://github.com/nodejs/CTC/issues/165 https://github.com/nodejs/CTC/issues/165 * https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 And really you can just go to CoralineAda's twitter to see that the CoC was designed as a political tool and an aggressive one at that.
    - theossuary 8y ago
      This probably isn't the best place to rehash the opal debacle. Suffice it to say I wouldn't feel comfortable committing to Opal, or working with "meh" after reading his tweets either. He's obviously willing to personally attack others with his own ignorance. I suppose I'm biased though. The nodejs example you linked to was a cluster-. I wouldn't blame the CoC for that though, the issue was/is with their organization. What should have been a conversation privately held between maintainers, turned into a public free-for-all; one put together by the maintainers themselves. I can't imagine PAM acting in the same fashion, I'd certainly expect a more professional approach. Like others have said, what'll really matter is how Linus presents himself publicly when he returns, and how his Lieutenants act publicly as well. I hope it'll lead to a better community, but changes like this can only be made in production, so only time will tell.
  - lmm 8y ago
    > Can you show an example or two of such weaponization? I've never come across one. Scalaz is my main encounter with codes of conduct. > And even if it was weaponized, wouldn't that be the fault of the maintainers judging the situation? You saying it's the CoC's fault is like blaming a gun in a murder. Tools guide the way they're used; some tools tend to lead to bad outcomes and it's best not to use them. I find a CoC as it tends to be applied in practice represents the worst of both worlds: maintainers often feel constrained by the code (particularly when bad actors carefully remain within the code), but it doesn't offer accused people the safeguards that a formal dispute resolution mechanism should. It's a pseudo-formal veneer over what is (again, in practice) fundamentally just the maintainer's human judgement. Far better to either acknowledge that the maintainer is applying a subjective judgement and give them the freedom to do what they think best, or set up a process to improve that judgement. A project that already has a good dispute-resolution mechanism in place might conceivably benefit from introducing a formalized code, but to introduce the code without the process is putting the cart before the horse. Where I've seen codes of conduct introduced it's been, if anything, instead of developing a robust process for making judgement calls about whether to kick out bad actors, and as such ends up not only useless but actively harmful.
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    Coraline subscribes to a specific kind of liberal politics that requires everyone to speak and act according to specific rules (not say/do other things). The way they push the CoC's is they apply to all mediums a person uses instead of just the project. The language being used by her and some here is that it's about stopping suffering and protecting minorities. Millions of minority members disagree with them by supporting civil, free speech. Those would be censored, too. They don't really care about anything but enforcing conformance with their views. And they need generally-worded rules with like-minded people in control of moderation to accomplish that. So, in the Opal thread, a maintainer disagreed with trans peoples' claimed identity... a common belief of tens of millions of people who support biological view... in a comment on Twitter (not the project itself). Coraline and a crowd of similarly-thinking people stormed into the project demanding the maintainer be removed for the political statement plus adoption of a CoC. https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 These people, who didn't contribute anything to the project, wanted a major contributor removed. Their attacks got more and more aggressive with both Coraline and another associate eventually setting the project rep up to look like he or she supports child rapists. They get down to name calling and talking about "burning bridges" in the end. A defender rightly asks what bridges they're talking about since most FOSS and business developers aren't radical, political activists like them. The whole thread shows how ideological, controlling, and vicious those kind of people are. So, I fight against these Codes of Conduct on any forum they're presented on since they're designed to be a tool of political subversion by radical, leftist activists. They always mislead people, too, just highlighting the worst stuff that we might all agree should be blocked. Once CoC is in place and they're in control, they begin censoring all the little things we don't agree on which violate their beliefs. Instead of all that crap, I just push for rules where conversations stay on topic, we stay civil just to be nice, no personal attacks, and people are judged on their contributions. Open-minded moderators, too, that don't filter most people based on activist, minority's views. EDIT: You can actually see this in action right now. malvosenior just linked to specific attempts to enforce political conformity by the author of Contributor Convenent who authored it to do exactly that. The comment is already grey at this moment. Some of the kinds of people it describes are apparently trying to make it go away so you don't see what they do. While we're at it, Slate Star Codex has an excellent article about their misdirections and weaponization of words: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...
  - jejones3141 8y ago
    "And even if it was weaponized, wouldn't that be the fault of the maintainers judging the situation?" Not necessarily--not pulling the trigger will be argued to be shirking the responsibility to enforce the CoC.
- rectang 8y ago
  I'm struggling to understand the utility of a CoC which must never be enforced (because "weaponization" is "bad"). Is HN moderation "weaponized"?
  - wccrawford 8y ago
    That's because you're looking at it in black and white, but the world is greyscale. There are ways to abuse CoC to harm people, instead of protect people. That's "weaponization". That doesn't mean you either always enforce it or never enforce it.
  - dx87 8y ago
    Enforcement isn't the issue, selective enforcement and trying to force the values of a very small subset of people onto a global community is the issue. You can see from other links in this thread where the people pushing for these CoC have a history of making racist and sexist comments on twitter, github, etc., but since it's about males or white people, they aren't punished. Bringing up the double standard about enforcement usually ends with the CoC pushers labeling anything they disagree with as "hate speech" or "racism" so they can say something like "hate isn't just a different opinion" and force out the person they disagree with. Some people forget that not everyone lives in the SV bubble, so they label things like increasing border security and deporting illegal immigrants as "racism" and "nationalism", or using the word "fuck" as sexual harrasment.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    I can most assuredly state that HN moderation isn't weaponized. Even when I've held what this forum might consider "extreme views" (such that it was unwise for Cloudflare to de-platform Stormfront from a freedom of speech perspective), they did not remove my comments nor ban me from HN (but I would argue this also stems from my efforts to argue in good faith at all times). In my view, the situations where CoCs appear to have been weaponized are anything but evenhanded and neutral; they appear more like witch hunt would. I care for civility and respect, but not witch hunts.
cb1002 8y ago
These people could start their own projects, but never seem to do so.
gizmo686 8y ago
I have no deep insight into the workings of Linux development, but from the outside, this CoC looks to be a distraction from solving any actual problems. Put simply, it is just a txt file, and nothing about it suggests any actual change in how issues are handled, nor does it (or its predessesor) describe the actual process beyond 'contact the technical advisory board with issues'. If Linux is having issues, the problem would have been in how the TAB handles them; and the new CoC offers no changes or insight into that process. Beyond that, neither version offers any significant insight into what acceptable behavior is. Again, not nessaserilly a problem (let TAB point out problems as they come up), but CoCs like the new Linux one seem to just be about saying they have a CoC.
- projektir 8y ago
  > I have no deep insight into the workings of Linux development, but from the outside, this CoC looks to be a distraction from solving any actual problems. Linus calling people names seems like a distraction from solving any actual problems.
  - GyYZTfWBfQw 8y ago
    He doesn't just call people names. He explains what his problem is.
  - gizmo686 8y ago
    That was the type of "actual problem" I was reffering to. And I stand by my assesment that the new CoC is a distraction from solving it. (Actually, given the timing, the new CoC might be a signal that he is trying to solve it, in which case I would still put it under the umbrella of distraction)
  - Paul-ish 8y ago
    You don't address gizmo686's concern, which is that rules without an enforcement or adjudication mechanism are ineffectual or unfairly applied. It's a valid criticism.
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago

The people who suffer under the behavior called out in CoCs tend to disagree. Can you give a reason why they are wrong and you are right?

by sgift 8y ago

The people who suffer under the behavior called out in CoCs tend to disagree. Can you give a reason why they are wrong and you are right?

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Not OP, but suffering is a sliding scale (sidenote: some suffering is good, it teaches you how to be a better human; think public speaking). You shouldn't be abused or attacked when interacting in a public project, of course, but you also don't have a right to not be offended or having your feelings not hurt. My personal sentiment is that CoCs have been weaponized (in the name of inclusion and protection) when it suits certain supporters of said CoCs to eject members of a collaboration they take issue with. TL;DR All things in moderation.

theossuary 8y ago
Can you show an example or two of such weaponization? I've never come across one. And even if it was weaponized, wouldn't that be the fault of the maintainers judging the situation? You saying it's the CoC's fault is like blaming a gun in a murder.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  It's often the original creator of the CoC doing the weaponizing. Here are a few examples: * https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004 https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004 * https://github.com/nodejs/CTC/issues/165 https://github.com/nodejs/CTC/issues/165 * https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 And really you can just go to CoralineAda's twitter to see that the CoC was designed as a political tool and an aggressive one at that.
  - theossuary 8y ago
    This probably isn't the best place to rehash the opal debacle. Suffice it to say I wouldn't feel comfortable committing to Opal, or working with "meh" after reading his tweets either. He's obviously willing to personally attack others with his own ignorance. I suppose I'm biased though. The nodejs example you linked to was a cluster-. I wouldn't blame the CoC for that though, the issue was/is with their organization. What should have been a conversation privately held between maintainers, turned into a public free-for-all; one put together by the maintainers themselves. I can't imagine PAM acting in the same fashion, I'd certainly expect a more professional approach. Like others have said, what'll really matter is how Linus presents himself publicly when he returns, and how his Lieutenants act publicly as well. I hope it'll lead to a better community, but changes like this can only be made in production, so only time will tell.
- lmm 8y ago
  > Can you show an example or two of such weaponization? I've never come across one. Scalaz is my main encounter with codes of conduct. > And even if it was weaponized, wouldn't that be the fault of the maintainers judging the situation? You saying it's the CoC's fault is like blaming a gun in a murder. Tools guide the way they're used; some tools tend to lead to bad outcomes and it's best not to use them. I find a CoC as it tends to be applied in practice represents the worst of both worlds: maintainers often feel constrained by the code (particularly when bad actors carefully remain within the code), but it doesn't offer accused people the safeguards that a formal dispute resolution mechanism should. It's a pseudo-formal veneer over what is (again, in practice) fundamentally just the maintainer's human judgement. Far better to either acknowledge that the maintainer is applying a subjective judgement and give them the freedom to do what they think best, or set up a process to improve that judgement. A project that already has a good dispute-resolution mechanism in place might conceivably benefit from introducing a formalized code, but to introduce the code without the process is putting the cart before the horse. Where I've seen codes of conduct introduced it's been, if anything, instead of developing a robust process for making judgement calls about whether to kick out bad actors, and as such ends up not only useless but actively harmful.
- nickpsecurity 8y ago
  Coraline subscribes to a specific kind of liberal politics that requires everyone to speak and act according to specific rules (not say/do other things). The way they push the CoC's is they apply to all mediums a person uses instead of just the project. The language being used by her and some here is that it's about stopping suffering and protecting minorities. Millions of minority members disagree with them by supporting civil, free speech. Those would be censored, too. They don't really care about anything but enforcing conformance with their views. And they need generally-worded rules with like-minded people in control of moderation to accomplish that. So, in the Opal thread, a maintainer disagreed with trans peoples' claimed identity... a common belief of tens of millions of people who support biological view... in a comment on Twitter (not the project itself). Coraline and a crowd of similarly-thinking people stormed into the project demanding the maintainer be removed for the political statement plus adoption of a CoC. https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 These people, who didn't contribute anything to the project, wanted a major contributor removed. Their attacks got more and more aggressive with both Coraline and another associate eventually setting the project rep up to look like he or she supports child rapists. They get down to name calling and talking about "burning bridges" in the end. A defender rightly asks what bridges they're talking about since most FOSS and business developers aren't radical, political activists like them. The whole thread shows how ideological, controlling, and vicious those kind of people are. So, I fight against these Codes of Conduct on any forum they're presented on since they're designed to be a tool of political subversion by radical, leftist activists. They always mislead people, too, just highlighting the worst stuff that we might all agree should be blocked. Once CoC is in place and they're in control, they begin censoring all the little things we don't agree on which violate their beliefs. Instead of all that crap, I just push for rules where conversations stay on topic, we stay civil just to be nice, no personal attacks, and people are judged on their contributions. Open-minded moderators, too, that don't filter most people based on activist, minority's views. EDIT: You can actually see this in action right now. malvosenior just linked to specific attempts to enforce political conformity by the author of Contributor Convenent who authored it to do exactly that. The comment is already grey at this moment. Some of the kinds of people it describes are apparently trying to make it go away so you don't see what they do. While we're at it, Slate Star Codex has an excellent article about their misdirections and weaponization of words: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-word...
- jejones3141 8y ago
  "And even if it was weaponized, wouldn't that be the fault of the maintainers judging the situation?" Not necessarily--not pulling the trigger will be argued to be shirking the responsibility to enforce the CoC.
rectang 8y ago
I'm struggling to understand the utility of a CoC which must never be enforced (because "weaponization" is "bad"). Is HN moderation "weaponized"?
- wccrawford 8y ago
  That's because you're looking at it in black and white, but the world is greyscale. There are ways to abuse CoC to harm people, instead of protect people. That's "weaponization". That doesn't mean you either always enforce it or never enforce it.
- dx87 8y ago
  Enforcement isn't the issue, selective enforcement and trying to force the values of a very small subset of people onto a global community is the issue. You can see from other links in this thread where the people pushing for these CoC have a history of making racist and sexist comments on twitter, github, etc., but since it's about males or white people, they aren't punished. Bringing up the double standard about enforcement usually ends with the CoC pushers labeling anything they disagree with as "hate speech" or "racism" so they can say something like "hate isn't just a different opinion" and force out the person they disagree with. Some people forget that not everyone lives in the SV bubble, so they label things like increasing border security and deporting illegal immigrants as "racism" and "nationalism", or using the word "fuck" as sexual harrasment.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  I can most assuredly state that HN moderation isn't weaponized. Even when I've held what this forum might consider "extreme views" (such that it was unwise for Cloudflare to de-platform Stormfront from a freedom of speech perspective), they did not remove my comments nor ban me from HN (but I would argue this also stems from my efforts to argue in good faith at all times). In my view, the situations where CoCs appear to have been weaponized are anything but evenhanded and neutral; they appear more like witch hunt would. I care for civility and respect, but not witch hunts.

cb1002 8y ago

These people could start their own projects, but never seem to do so.

gizmo686 8y ago

I have no deep insight into the workings of Linux development, but from the outside, this CoC looks to be a distraction from solving any actual problems. Put simply, it is just a txt file, and nothing about it suggests any actual change in how issues are handled, nor does it (or its predessesor) describe the actual process beyond 'contact the technical advisory board with issues'. If Linux is having issues, the problem would have been in how the TAB handles them; and the new CoC offers no changes or insight into that process. Beyond that, neither version offers any significant insight into what acceptable behavior is. Again, not nessaserilly a problem (let TAB point out problems as they come up), but CoCs like the new Linux one seem to just be about saying they have a CoC.

projektir 8y ago
> I have no deep insight into the workings of Linux development, but from the outside, this CoC looks to be a distraction from solving any actual problems. Linus calling people names seems like a distraction from solving any actual problems.
- GyYZTfWBfQw 8y ago
  He doesn't just call people names. He explains what his problem is.
- gizmo686 8y ago
  That was the type of "actual problem" I was reffering to. And I stand by my assesment that the new CoC is a distraction from solving it. (Actually, given the timing, the new CoC might be a signal that he is trying to solve it, in which case I would still put it under the umbrella of distraction)
- Paul-ish 8y ago
  You don't address gizmo686's concern, which is that rules without an enforcement or adjudication mechanism are ineffectual or unfairly applied. It's a valid criticism.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago