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I don't see why folk are getting so frustrated about this Code of Conduct. I'm far from a so-called SJW but to me it's just common sense written down and forma

I don't see why folk are getting so frustrated about this Code of Conduct. I'm far from a so-called SJW but to me it's just common sense written down and formalised. Examples of behavior that contributes to creating a positive environment include: Using welcoming and inclusive language Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences Gracefully accepting constructive criticism Focusing on what is best for the community Showing empathy towards other community members What is wrong here? Isn't this how any professional should act in the workplace? Why shouldn't this apply to one of the largest open source projects around? Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include: The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or advances Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks Public or private harassment Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting Same here. Most of this is illegal and morally wrong to do inside (or even outside) the workplace too. Seems like a few people getting annoyed over nothing.

jayess 8y ago
> The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or advances Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks Public or private harassment Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting These sorts of terms are impossible to define, so the decision to ban people comes down to personal, subjective interpretation. In the name of setting standards, there are no standards at all.
- sagichmal 8y ago
  Yes, it's almost as if a body politic of human beings will have to exercise subjective judgment. Luckily, we humans are both capable of, and justified in, making these kinds of assessments.
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Only in the sense that everything is subject to personal interpretation of those who are responsible for enforcing a set of rules. But wouldn't you agree that it's generally better to have a set of pretty clear guidelines that might not always be watertight, versus an _entirely_ personal, subjective set of inscrutable rules?
  - enriquto 8y ago
    Maybe, but these guidelines are anything but clear.
    - matthewmacleod 8y ago
      On the contrary, these guidelines seem to be entirely clear, generally benign, and completely in-line with the general behaviour that anybody would expect in a professional environment. Of course there are grey areas. There inevitably are with any set of guidelines. But what do you realistically expect them to contain? An itemised list of every action which is allowed or proscribed? Instead, these are a general set of guidelines as to how a community should conduct itself – subject as any are to interpretation by those with influence – but a useful reference nonetheless. I'm frankly baffled at the idea that people find this hard to grasp.
  - pfortuny 8y ago
    If you need a judiciary, you had better build it well. You already have one: the granted by the Law. ...
  - cabraca 8y ago
    I dont see "pretty clear guidelines". I see an attempt to regulate complex human behaviour in a one dimensional document. it does not consider culture, tradition and upbringing in different regions. a friendly comment in one culture could be seen as unwelcoming or even sexist in another. the same with "Focusing on what is best for the community" .. there is no single "best" and no single "community". its a melting pot of cultures, countries and people. what benefits one might not benefit the others. this CoC is just an attempt to regulate what you cant regulate. maybe just replace it with "dont be an idiot, respect others and assume good intentions".
- Daishiman 8y ago
  How has this never been the case? This is just being clear about a reality that exists in all communities with moderation standards. Moderation has to be enforced by someone and there isn't always an objective test to determine harassment or trolling. Yet most communities that are successful in the long run have some policy like this, whether explicit or implicit.
- neom 8y ago
  Rules without values are indeed no better than no rules at all.
- Jare 8y ago
  > These sorts of terms are impossible to define As described in the article by a CoC critic, it used to be: "only whether their code was good" Not exactly a shining example of clearly defined, objective, universal judgement. Of course, back then it could really "if Linus thinks their code is good", which is a lot more clear. But that time has passed. The CoC tries to address the problem where people ARE in fact being excluded or lost by the Linux community, in less visible and obvious ways than a straight ban, for reasons equally less visible and obvious, but no less real. You may or may not believe that this happens, that this is a problem, that the CoC helps or doesn't help with this problem, and even that the net effect of the CoC is positive or negative.
  - bigbugbag 8y ago
    One way or the other people are lost to the linux kernel development by what actually matters is which ones provide the best code. Is Sage Sharp contributing better code to the linux kernel than Theo Ts’o ? Would you replace all Ts'o contributions by Sharp's ?
enriquto 8y ago
The part of the CoC that you post looks very unreasonable to me (because it is so ambiguous that just about anything can fall into the definition of "unacceptable behavior"). Nothing good can come from the infinite power that these ambiguous norms confer.
- ILMostro7 8y ago
  In an effort to create a Utopian environment while pushing out all assholes they become assholes themselves. I'm a die-hard liberal, but this is getting ridiculous now. Move on, do your work, learn to deal with difficult people in the world. I think we're done here. Although...lulz.com is the source for this? Interesting.
  - bigbugbag 8y ago
    That's the paradoxical part of all utopias, they're actually dictatorships that have to suppress subversion and different way of thinking to exist.
- pas 8y ago
  It looks like a regular mailing list policy. And Linux development is mainly that. Do you know of a better policy for mailing lists?
sremani 8y ago
Are you a Linux developer ? I am not asking in a snarky way.. I would really like to know, because I firmly believe it is for that group to decide the direction and subsequent actions. If a project has done well for 20+ years without CoCs and bringing in CoC is creating fissures and conflict may be CoC is not good this group, but again that is for them to decide with proper process what ever it is.
- benbristow 8y ago
  No, I'm not. Although I'm a heavy Linux user if that means anything at all. I'm just stating the plain obvious.
- pas 8y ago
  Linus and GregKH are Linux devs, and they committed the new CoC, maybe they know what they want after all. Or do you think they are simply ignoring the vast majority of their fellow devs?
jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
Because: "In all that time I never had to know or care whether my fellow contributors were white, black, male, female, straight, gay, or from the planet Mars, only whether their code was good’; namely, in a project that receives contributions from volunteers who are anonymous beyond a chosen handle, specious claims of exclusion and harassment crumble beneath the most haphazard scrutiny. Contributors reveal as much about their race, sex, and orientation as they want because no one cares about that tangential shit at the end of the day. If there really was some “straight white males only” mentality, the community would insist on determining whether a new contributor is “one of us” before accepting their code, but they don’t do that in the slightest. Thus, it’s patently clear there is no culture of exclusion, but rather a culture of total indifference to individual differences beyond coding ability. The rhetoric of diversity and inclusiveness is just a weapon being used to attack a community that is inherently opposed to identity politics, which is why they’re seen as such a threat to these SJW gestapo." The CoC is nothing but force feeding political vomit down coders throats. Who by the way, don't give two shits weather a contributor is a woman, black, gay, etc.
- KirinDave 8y ago
  What part of the CoC requires you reveal anything? It simply says you can't treat people unprofessionally. Why do you want to treat people unprofessionally?
  - cabraca 8y ago
    if you read his post again, you will see he never said that he wants to treat people unprofessionally. he sees the CoC as a tool to push identity politics in a community thats based on merit.
    - KirinDave 8y ago
      And that's his read on it. I think it's objectively wrong. If someone wanted to use a CoC to do that, you'd write a very different CoC. This one is so soft-touch it barely does anything other than say, "Keep it SFW, kids!"
kaneua 8y ago
> Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting You can apply this vague description to the very wide range of things. This "Contributor's Covenant" has a lot of potential to be abused by the ones who want to ban others. You can dig anyone's social media or public comment history and find something that matches this description. It's a lot of common sense statements that shouldn't even be written with few very vague statements with high abuse potential.
nailer 8y ago
Because the Contributor Code of Conduct has and is used as a political tool to threaten and harass people, per both the examples in the article.
em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
Eric S. Raymond explined the conflict well [1]...in summary: "Every group of cooperating humans has a telos, a mutually understood purpose towards which they are working (or playing). Again, this purpose may be unwritten and is not necessarily even conscious. But one thing is always true: the ethos derives from the telos, not the other way around. The goal precedes the instrument." "It is normal for the group ethos to evolve. It will get pulled in one direction or another as the goals of individuals and coalitions inside the group shift. In a well-functioning group the ethos tends to evolve to reward behaviors that achieve the telos more efficiently, and punish behaviors that retard progess towards it." "What we have now is a situation in which a subgroup within the Linux kernel's subculture threatens destructive revolt because not only do they think the slider been pushed too high in a normative direction, but because they think the CoC is an attempt to change the group's telos." [1] http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/06864.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/06864.html
true_religion 8y ago
Codes of conducts sound like laws, but they arent written by legislatures, arent enforced by experienced judges, and do not get reviewed to balance their goals against any high minded ideals like free speech, or even fairness to minority opinion groups. For example, while a CoC will ban something utterly because it is the easiest way to enforce, an actual law would throw in a caveat about malice being required, or dilineate how many chances you get before the ban hammer comes down. Ironically, many internet forums have rules much more similar laws than these new CoCs. Code of conducts sound like the ten commandments, they are good common sense but we need more than that to run a society... even a little one. We need to know who will enforce something, how much lineincy can be given, and what punishments there will be.
aortega 8y ago
Simple: Because basically it's all subjective. The rules are not clear, and also you cannot impose new restrictive rules on people an expect to everybody be happy about it. >Using welcoming and inclusive language I don't know what inclusive language is. Seriously, no idea. >Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences What is being respectful? who says when I'm not being respectful? its not binary. >Gracefully accepting constructive criticism What the fuck is Gracefully?? You see, it's impossible to see when you are breaking the code, not all situations are black and white, and it's in the gray that there are always problems.

jayess 8y ago

> The use of sexualized language or imagery and unwelcome sexual attention or advances Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks Public or private harassment Publishing others’ private information, such as a physical or electronic address, without explicit permission Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting These sorts of terms are impossible to define, so the decision to ban people comes down to personal, subjective interpretation. In the name of setting standards, there are no standards at all.

sagichmal 8y ago
Yes, it's almost as if a body politic of human beings will have to exercise subjective judgment. Luckily, we humans are both capable of, and justified in, making these kinds of assessments.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
Only in the sense that everything is subject to personal interpretation of those who are responsible for enforcing a set of rules. But wouldn't you agree that it's generally better to have a set of pretty clear guidelines that might not always be watertight, versus an _entirely_ personal, subjective set of inscrutable rules?
- enriquto 8y ago
  Maybe, but these guidelines are anything but clear.
  - matthewmacleod 8y ago
    On the contrary, these guidelines seem to be entirely clear, generally benign, and completely in-line with the general behaviour that anybody would expect in a professional environment. Of course there are grey areas. There inevitably are with any set of guidelines. But what do you realistically expect them to contain? An itemised list of every action which is allowed or proscribed? Instead, these are a general set of guidelines as to how a community should conduct itself – subject as any are to interpretation by those with influence – but a useful reference nonetheless. I'm frankly baffled at the idea that people find this hard to grasp.
- pfortuny 8y ago
  If you need a judiciary, you had better build it well. You already have one: the granted by the Law. ...
- cabraca 8y ago
  I dont see "pretty clear guidelines". I see an attempt to regulate complex human behaviour in a one dimensional document. it does not consider culture, tradition and upbringing in different regions. a friendly comment in one culture could be seen as unwelcoming or even sexist in another. the same with "Focusing on what is best for the community" .. there is no single "best" and no single "community". its a melting pot of cultures, countries and people. what benefits one might not benefit the others. this CoC is just an attempt to regulate what you cant regulate. maybe just replace it with "dont be an idiot, respect others and assume good intentions".
Daishiman 8y ago
How has this never been the case? This is just being clear about a reality that exists in all communities with moderation standards. Moderation has to be enforced by someone and there isn't always an objective test to determine harassment or trolling. Yet most communities that are successful in the long run have some policy like this, whether explicit or implicit.
neom 8y ago
Rules without values are indeed no better than no rules at all.
Jare 8y ago
> These sorts of terms are impossible to define As described in the article by a CoC critic, it used to be: "only whether their code was good" Not exactly a shining example of clearly defined, objective, universal judgement. Of course, back then it could really "if Linus thinks their code is good", which is a lot more clear. But that time has passed. The CoC tries to address the problem where people ARE in fact being excluded or lost by the Linux community, in less visible and obvious ways than a straight ban, for reasons equally less visible and obvious, but no less real. You may or may not believe that this happens, that this is a problem, that the CoC helps or doesn't help with this problem, and even that the net effect of the CoC is positive or negative.
- bigbugbag 8y ago
  One way or the other people are lost to the linux kernel development by what actually matters is which ones provide the best code. Is Sage Sharp contributing better code to the linux kernel than Theo Ts’o ? Would you replace all Ts'o contributions by Sharp's ?

enriquto 8y ago

The part of the CoC that you post looks very unreasonable to me (because it is so ambiguous that just about anything can fall into the definition of "unacceptable behavior"). Nothing good can come from the infinite power that these ambiguous norms confer.

ILMostro7 8y ago
In an effort to create a Utopian environment while pushing out all assholes they become assholes themselves. I'm a die-hard liberal, but this is getting ridiculous now. Move on, do your work, learn to deal with difficult people in the world. I think we're done here. Although...lulz.com is the source for this? Interesting.
- bigbugbag 8y ago
  That's the paradoxical part of all utopias, they're actually dictatorships that have to suppress subversion and different way of thinking to exist.
pas 8y ago
It looks like a regular mailing list policy. And Linux development is mainly that. Do you know of a better policy for mailing lists?

sremani 8y ago

Are you a Linux developer ? I am not asking in a snarky way.. I would really like to know, because I firmly believe it is for that group to decide the direction and subsequent actions. If a project has done well for 20+ years without CoCs and bringing in CoC is creating fissures and conflict may be CoC is not good this group, but again that is for them to decide with proper process what ever it is.

benbristow 8y ago
No, I'm not. Although I'm a heavy Linux user if that means anything at all. I'm just stating the plain obvious.
pas 8y ago
Linus and GregKH are Linux devs, and they committed the new CoC, maybe they know what they want after all. Or do you think they are simply ignoring the vast majority of their fellow devs?

jaxtellerSoA 8y ago

Because: "In all that time I never had to know or care whether my fellow contributors were white, black, male, female, straight, gay, or from the planet Mars, only whether their code was good’; namely, in a project that receives contributions from volunteers who are anonymous beyond a chosen handle, specious claims of exclusion and harassment crumble beneath the most haphazard scrutiny. Contributors reveal as much about their race, sex, and orientation as they want because no one cares about that tangential shit at the end of the day. If there really was some “straight white males only” mentality, the community would insist on determining whether a new contributor is “one of us” before accepting their code, but they don’t do that in the slightest. Thus, it’s patently clear there is no culture of exclusion, but rather a culture of total indifference to individual differences beyond coding ability. The rhetoric of diversity and inclusiveness is just a weapon being used to attack a community that is inherently opposed to identity politics, which is why they’re seen as such a threat to these SJW gestapo." The CoC is nothing but force feeding political vomit down coders throats. Who by the way, don't give two shits weather a contributor is a woman, black, gay, etc.

KirinDave 8y ago
What part of the CoC requires you reveal anything? It simply says you can't treat people unprofessionally. Why do you want to treat people unprofessionally?
- cabraca 8y ago
  if you read his post again, you will see he never said that he wants to treat people unprofessionally. he sees the CoC as a tool to push identity politics in a community thats based on merit.
  - KirinDave 8y ago
    And that's his read on it. I think it's objectively wrong. If someone wanted to use a CoC to do that, you'd write a very different CoC. This one is so soft-touch it barely does anything other than say, "Keep it SFW, kids!"

kaneua 8y ago

> Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting You can apply this vague description to the very wide range of things. This "Contributor's Covenant" has a lot of potential to be abused by the ones who want to ban others. You can dig anyone's social media or public comment history and find something that matches this description. It's a lot of common sense statements that shouldn't even be written with few very vague statements with high abuse potential.

nailer 8y ago

Because the Contributor Code of Conduct has and is used as a political tool to threaten and harass people, per both the examples in the article.

em3rgent0rdr 8y ago

Eric S. Raymond explined the conflict well [1]...in summary: "Every group of cooperating humans has a telos, a mutually understood purpose towards which they are working (or playing). Again, this purpose may be unwritten and is not necessarily even conscious. But one thing is always true: the ethos derives from the telos, not the other way around. The goal precedes the instrument." "It is normal for the group ethos to evolve. It will get pulled in one direction or another as the goals of individuals and coalitions inside the group shift. In a well-functioning group the ethos tends to evolve to reward behaviors that achieve the telos more efficiently, and punish behaviors that retard progess towards it." "What we have now is a situation in which a subgroup within the Linux kernel's subculture threatens destructive revolt because not only do they think the slider been pushed too high in a normative direction, but because they think the CoC is an attempt to change the group's telos." [1] http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/06864.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/06864.html

true_religion 8y ago

Codes of conducts sound like laws, but they arent written by legislatures, arent enforced by experienced judges, and do not get reviewed to balance their goals against any high minded ideals like free speech, or even fairness to minority opinion groups. For example, while a CoC will ban something utterly because it is the easiest way to enforce, an actual law would throw in a caveat about malice being required, or dilineate how many chances you get before the ban hammer comes down. Ironically, many internet forums have rules much more similar laws than these new CoCs. Code of conducts sound like the ten commandments, they are good common sense but we need more than that to run a society... even a little one. We need to know who will enforce something, how much lineincy can be given, and what punishments there will be.

aortega 8y ago

Simple: Because basically it's all subjective. The rules are not clear, and also you cannot impose new restrictive rules on people an expect to everybody be happy about it. >Using welcoming and inclusive language I don't know what inclusive language is. Seriously, no idea. >Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences What is being respectful? who says when I'm not being respectful? its not binary. >Gracefully accepting constructive criticism What the fuck is Gracefully?? You see, it's impossible to see when you are breaking the code, not all situations are black and white, and it's in the gray that there are always problems.