9 ms·

The idea that you should define a code of conduct first just sounds awful. The best small gatherings are organic and informal. This just (I'll use a word from s

by vvpan 8y ago

The idea that you should define a code of conduct first just sounds awful. The best small gatherings are organic and informal. This just (I'll use a word from somebody else in the thread) politicizes the whole thing. In other words, if I am looking to join a group of 3-4 people and they have a code of conduct already defined - I am just not going to come, simple as that. In general the author seems to be into formalizing things. Organizing events is a wonderful skill, but if you look like you are overthinking you'd be a excluding a broad swath of people to whom formality is the opposite of friendly warm relationships they are looking for. For example: Every Wednesday I attend a board game night at somebody's house. I know everybody there, but we are not necessarily all friends. Both sexes and a range of ages are represented. If one day the hosts came up with a formal set of rules I think Wednesday game night would be over.

winningcontinue 8y ago
interesting. Organizing isn't free and even if it's just a casual group without an explicit code of conduct, people don't just show up for no reason. They look for other people and see who else is showing up. There is an organizer. Whether it's the venue owner, who will tell you they're not going to do a meeting because of a holiday, or a core group of regular attendees who rely on each other to show up and get a signal of whether or not there will be enough of a quorum to launch a game/discussion. Sometimes people on the outside will show up not knowing, and find out that the meeting has been canceled. It's only when the rules become too onerous and exclusionary that people decide not to join in. In a board game group, the rules are kind of reinforced through people who don't show up on time not being able to be in a game and wait. In a study group or book club it can get annoying as hell catching up the person up to speed so they don't recover something that they missed out on because of lateness.
Todd 8y ago
She said under Code of Conduct, "This was something I didn't always have when first organizing groups years ago, and I learned over time why it's necessary." I was curious about that and hoped that she would elaborate.
- csa 8y ago
  Not the author, but... Here is a link to one she uses for large groups: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-con... If you look at the list of unacceptable behaviors, each one of those is pretty much guaranteed to happen given a sufficiently large group and enough time. The amount of time it takes for the code to be clearly violated is typically far less that you expect or want it to be. The interesting thing is that many/most offenders don’t think they are breaking the code even if they had read it. That’s why the wording is important — it helps during the intervention stage.
  - wccrawford 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 ---- Yes, at least one of those will eventually happen. And when it does, the person should be pointed to the rules and told that they should have known it was unacceptable. What happens from that point is the question. IMO, if they can't accept those rules, I don't want them around. They're pretty basic, IMO. If they accept them, but continually violate them, I also don't want them around.
    - hliyan 8y ago
      Agreed. A number of defensive comments here seem to be emotional reactions to perceived attempts at being 'told what to do', when in fact, most codes of conduct are not much more than social contracts. Or at least, that is how they have worked in most groups I have been a member of.
      - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
        Part of the problem is how one puts a CoC forth. The CoC's come from a "don't do these things we disapprove of". Trolling, doxxinng, harassment, sexualization (that doesn't directly pertain to the discussion). This is pretty much a "don't be an ass to people". The problem arises when a CoC is started or introduced. it's usually because of a single person being an ass, and 1 or more people taking the brunt. But when the organizers put this forth, they too can either do it without shame and blame, or with (and thus violating their 'dont be an ass' set of codes). Example of a better way to introduce these: "Last year we had someone act terribly to member(s). We apologize for having to do this as almost all the people act with dignity and respect. But we are unfortunately put in the position of spelling out what acting decent entails, and what it does not." The hard one there is the 'unwelcome sexual advances' - the mating signal is tough as hell, and is different per person. It's this awkward dance, to show interest but not act 'creepy'. I've even met some that expect others to know they aren't showing any signals - and thus every sexual advance is unwelcome even if they say nothing about it being unwelcome.
stone-monkey 8y ago
> if I am looking to join a group of 3-4 people and they have a code of conduct already defined - I am just not going to come, simple as that. I don't see why this is bad - groups shouldn't necessarily reach out to as broad an audience as possible. Like a sales funnel, the advertising in the group works better when it serves to filter out people who are incompatible with the group. Your mindset reminds me of the ask/guess culture post on metafilter, which is a framework where people typically adopt either an attitude of explicitly asking for social expectations vs intuiting them through social context. You seem to prefer the latter, where people are expected to understand the implicit boundaries of the group through personal observation. There's nothing wrong with that; it doesn't mean the other way is inherently wrong, though.
- losteric 8y ago
  I think their expectation is that any small group of adults should be able to respectfully communicate with each other, especially a voluntary collaboration around shared interests. Formalizing rules in that situation usually means the group has at least one major asshole or bureaucrat causing problems (often the same person).
  - hliyan 8y ago
    Or, perhaps the group aspires to grow larger.
  - corodra 8y ago
    You mean adults should act like adults? That’s madness! But yea, small groups shouldn’t be formalized. If people can’t get along, that’s a sign of poor social skills or someone is a total asshole in the group. Which, again, be adults and learn how to deal with people in a proper manner. A manner that doesn’t need the Twatter or the internet in general.
- dwild 8y ago
  > an attitude of explicitly asking for social expectations vs intuiting them through social context Formalizing rules isn't an attitude of explicitly asking them, but an attitude of explicitly telling them. When you ask for them, there's fluidity into them, it's a communication, they can change when you add someone. Once it's formal, they tends to be less fluid and more forced toward any new person.
hliyan 8y ago
The code of conduct is not for you guys. It's for that one future bad apple who will bring down everything you've worked hard to build.
- echelon 8y ago
  We're all adults here. Why do we need to put gloves on and treat everyone like they're high school students? If someone acts up, kick them out. That's simple, and it doesn't treat people like pre-offenders. Why are there rules for meeting in public? This isn't dangerous machinery; we're not warning people against behavior that causes loss of life or limb. It feels incredibly unwelcoming.
  - watwut 8y ago
    > If someone acts up, kick them out. That means implicit unstated arbitrary code of conduct where participants are expected to guess it. If you are in position to enforce arbitrary rules on whim, that is fine. If however there is expectation on fairness and kicked person has option to complain about you, the it is better written.
    - dymk 8y ago
      It depends on the size and formality of the event, but part of being an adult is understanding that there's an implicit code of conduct (our social rules), and observing those by being on this planet for more than 20 years or so. Having to explain to be respectful to an adult is just pandering unless they've already shown themselves to be a disrespectful person.
    - echelon 8y ago
      > participants are expected to guess it Guess? We should know the difference between right and wrong, welcome and unwelcome. We don't have to be told not to murder or steal. If there is a line that gets crossed, it can be dealt with, or even turned into a teaching moment so long as it wasn't too egregious. > kicked person has option to complain about you I'm not going to get upset if someone complains about me kicking them out. No big deal. Maybe that's it? The actual point where I disagree. I expect people to be adults _and_ to have thick skin. This is why code of conducts feel like coddling to me. Maybe I'm in a place of privilege and there are people that get repeatedly harassed. I get that, and I sympathize. But damn does it feel like being called a "bad boy" when there's a set of additional rules that feel like platitudes. It's kind of like the feeling you get when being followed by a cop even though you've made no traffic violations.
afarrell 8y ago
Thats because the one unstated rule is clear: Don't lead the owners of the house to believe you should no longer be invited. There, it doesn’t matter if its not a “violation”, you can get excluded if you’re just bad at making socially-appropriate eye-contact or if you’re a boring conversationalist or whatever. But some people (myself included) feel really uncomfortable with that model because they aren’t confident in their social skills.
pjc50 8y ago
Do you immediately walk out of bars that say "no shirt no service", even if you're wearing a shirt?
- dwild 8y ago
  I would probably if that was a big list of things not to do. Defining a few not okays things that may happens, that's fine. The issue is when it become TOO formal. I don't expect the same from a small gathering at work, or from a night with friends. There's certainly things that shouldn't happen in both, but they aren't the same at all. She said code of conduct, but her example is an actual guideline that is way more specific on what will be done. https://pastebin.com/6kA93uPV https://pastebin.com/6kA93uPV So I send you back your example, would you go on a bar that have that huge list that you need to agree with when you enter? - You can come in, take a few drinks in exchange of money - You can make small talks, but only related to the drink you just took - Try to use the I when talking about drinks - Ask people first if they want suggestion toward another drinks - Don't share what you talked about with anyone else etc... Someone else here gave another example which I would agree without any issue, about sexualized language, attention or advances (which funnily enough, I would agree with theses terms even in a bar setting, would you?), trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks, public or private harassment.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
As an anecdote: We attended a renaissance/medieval dance event. This event would bring 150-200 people together. In years past, it was understood that you treated people with respect. Turns out last year, a teacher was grabbing a transgender female dancer and forced them to the man's position for the dance, along with chastising them for dancing on the woman's side. The teacher was warned that this was completely unacceptable. (Be aware, that this is a private event, and she could be ejected for, you know, battery of forcefully moving student.)Ok. Fast forward to this year.... All the past teachers are invited to propose a class to teach. My wife usually teaches the beginner dances. During that, the event steward, then says to sign this paper that was a code of conduct in the form of a loyalty oath. She refused to sign it immediately and opened dialog as to why this is being put to teachers - it felt like it was a "you have been horrible in the past and this tries to fix it". It had the shame and insulting tone that we familiarly see with CoC's. In the end, my wife chose not to sign, and chose not to teach the beginner's class. And when we showed up at the event, we saw some striking things. We had ~95 people attend the event, as opposed to 150-200. We had at 12 classes (normal is 4 tracks from 10-4, minus lunch, for 20 classes normally). Now, obviously correlation != causation... But the only factor that was significantly changed was demanding a CoC signed as a loyalty oath.
- pjc50 8y ago
  This is a tone argument, isn't it? Not the content of the code itself, but the manner in which it was put to you?
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    No. The event required all teachers to not only agree to the CoC, but to sign and return it. There is a distinct difference between "Our policies are now this", and "You will sign and affirm that you will follow our policies." One is a loyalty oath. I don't like loyalty oaths, and I certainly don't take them without significant consideration.
scottlocklin 8y ago
It's amazing how through all of human history (until ~2010 or so) we managed to do without written "codes of conduct" and things worked just fine without them.
- pjc50 8y ago
  More like "since 1750 BCE" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
lukev 8y ago
Code of conducts are simply not for people who feel like you do. And that's fine. For certain classes of people, attending a small, relatively intimate group with strangers represents a material risk that someone in the group will be creepy or abusive. This shit happens all the time. A CoC is a low cost, low effort way to mitigate the probability of that occurring up front, and also serves as a social signal to potential attendees that the organizers of an event are are at least aware of these issues and will be sympathetic in the event of a problem. EDIT: I should add, nobody is trying to tell you how to run your game night. If you're all friends and comfortable with eachother then obviously introducing a CoC would be stupid. Stephanie's post is about how to productively and safely get together a group of (former) strangers.
akudha 8y ago
I feel the same. Rules definitely have their place, but starting something with rules is just weird. As the group grows, slowly rules can be added, only as needed - that would make more sense.

by vvpan 8y ago

winningcontinue 8y ago

interesting. Organizing isn't free and even if it's just a casual group without an explicit code of conduct, people don't just show up for no reason. They look for other people and see who else is showing up. There is an organizer. Whether it's the venue owner, who will tell you they're not going to do a meeting because of a holiday, or a core group of regular attendees who rely on each other to show up and get a signal of whether or not there will be enough of a quorum to launch a game/discussion. Sometimes people on the outside will show up not knowing, and find out that the meeting has been canceled. It's only when the rules become too onerous and exclusionary that people decide not to join in. In a board game group, the rules are kind of reinforced through people who don't show up on time not being able to be in a game and wait. In a study group or book club it can get annoying as hell catching up the person up to speed so they don't recover something that they missed out on because of lateness.

Todd 8y ago

She said under Code of Conduct, "This was something I didn't always have when first organizing groups years ago, and I learned over time why it's necessary." I was curious about that and hoped that she would elaborate.

csa 8y ago
Not the author, but... Here is a link to one she uses for large groups: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-con... If you look at the list of unacceptable behaviors, each one of those is pretty much guaranteed to happen given a sufficiently large group and enough time. The amount of time it takes for the code to be clearly violated is typically far less that you expect or want it to be. The interesting thing is that many/most offenders don’t think they are breaking the code even if they had read it. That’s why the wording is important — it helps during the intervention stage.
- wccrawford 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 ---- Yes, at least one of those will eventually happen. And when it does, the person should be pointed to the rules and told that they should have known it was unacceptable. What happens from that point is the question. IMO, if they can't accept those rules, I don't want them around. They're pretty basic, IMO. If they accept them, but continually violate them, I also don't want them around.
  - hliyan 8y ago
    Agreed. A number of defensive comments here seem to be emotional reactions to perceived attempts at being 'told what to do', when in fact, most codes of conduct are not much more than social contracts. Or at least, that is how they have worked in most groups I have been a member of.
    - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
      Part of the problem is how one puts a CoC forth. The CoC's come from a "don't do these things we disapprove of". Trolling, doxxinng, harassment, sexualization (that doesn't directly pertain to the discussion). This is pretty much a "don't be an ass to people". The problem arises when a CoC is started or introduced. it's usually because of a single person being an ass, and 1 or more people taking the brunt. But when the organizers put this forth, they too can either do it without shame and blame, or with (and thus violating their 'dont be an ass' set of codes). Example of a better way to introduce these: "Last year we had someone act terribly to member(s). We apologize for having to do this as almost all the people act with dignity and respect. But we are unfortunately put in the position of spelling out what acting decent entails, and what it does not." The hard one there is the 'unwelcome sexual advances' - the mating signal is tough as hell, and is different per person. It's this awkward dance, to show interest but not act 'creepy'. I've even met some that expect others to know they aren't showing any signals - and thus every sexual advance is unwelcome even if they say nothing about it being unwelcome.

stone-monkey 8y ago

> if I am looking to join a group of 3-4 people and they have a code of conduct already defined - I am just not going to come, simple as that. I don't see why this is bad - groups shouldn't necessarily reach out to as broad an audience as possible. Like a sales funnel, the advertising in the group works better when it serves to filter out people who are incompatible with the group. Your mindset reminds me of the ask/guess culture post on metafilter, which is a framework where people typically adopt either an attitude of explicitly asking for social expectations vs intuiting them through social context. You seem to prefer the latter, where people are expected to understand the implicit boundaries of the group through personal observation. There's nothing wrong with that; it doesn't mean the other way is inherently wrong, though.

losteric 8y ago
I think their expectation is that any small group of adults should be able to respectfully communicate with each other, especially a voluntary collaboration around shared interests. Formalizing rules in that situation usually means the group has at least one major asshole or bureaucrat causing problems (often the same person).
- hliyan 8y ago
  Or, perhaps the group aspires to grow larger.
- corodra 8y ago
  You mean adults should act like adults? That’s madness! But yea, small groups shouldn’t be formalized. If people can’t get along, that’s a sign of poor social skills or someone is a total asshole in the group. Which, again, be adults and learn how to deal with people in a proper manner. A manner that doesn’t need the Twatter or the internet in general.
dwild 8y ago
> an attitude of explicitly asking for social expectations vs intuiting them through social context Formalizing rules isn't an attitude of explicitly asking them, but an attitude of explicitly telling them. When you ask for them, there's fluidity into them, it's a communication, they can change when you add someone. Once it's formal, they tends to be less fluid and more forced toward any new person.

hliyan 8y ago

The code of conduct is not for you guys. It's for that one future bad apple who will bring down everything you've worked hard to build.

echelon 8y ago
We're all adults here. Why do we need to put gloves on and treat everyone like they're high school students? If someone acts up, kick them out. That's simple, and it doesn't treat people like pre-offenders. Why are there rules for meeting in public? This isn't dangerous machinery; we're not warning people against behavior that causes loss of life or limb. It feels incredibly unwelcoming.
- watwut 8y ago
  > If someone acts up, kick them out. That means implicit unstated arbitrary code of conduct where participants are expected to guess it. If you are in position to enforce arbitrary rules on whim, that is fine. If however there is expectation on fairness and kicked person has option to complain about you, the it is better written.
  - dymk 8y ago
    It depends on the size and formality of the event, but part of being an adult is understanding that there's an implicit code of conduct (our social rules), and observing those by being on this planet for more than 20 years or so. Having to explain to be respectful to an adult is just pandering unless they've already shown themselves to be a disrespectful person.
  - echelon 8y ago
    > participants are expected to guess it Guess? We should know the difference between right and wrong, welcome and unwelcome. We don't have to be told not to murder or steal. If there is a line that gets crossed, it can be dealt with, or even turned into a teaching moment so long as it wasn't too egregious. > kicked person has option to complain about you I'm not going to get upset if someone complains about me kicking them out. No big deal. Maybe that's it? The actual point where I disagree. I expect people to be adults _and_ to have thick skin. This is why code of conducts feel like coddling to me. Maybe I'm in a place of privilege and there are people that get repeatedly harassed. I get that, and I sympathize. But damn does it feel like being called a "bad boy" when there's a set of additional rules that feel like platitudes. It's kind of like the feeling you get when being followed by a cop even though you've made no traffic violations.

afarrell 8y ago

Thats because the one unstated rule is clear: Don't lead the owners of the house to believe you should no longer be invited. There, it doesn’t matter if its not a “violation”, you can get excluded if you’re just bad at making socially-appropriate eye-contact or if you’re a boring conversationalist or whatever. But some people (myself included) feel really uncomfortable with that model because they aren’t confident in their social skills.

pjc50 8y ago

Do you immediately walk out of bars that say "no shirt no service", even if you're wearing a shirt?

dwild 8y ago
I would probably if that was a big list of things not to do. Defining a few not okays things that may happens, that's fine. The issue is when it become TOO formal. I don't expect the same from a small gathering at work, or from a night with friends. There's certainly things that shouldn't happen in both, but they aren't the same at all. She said code of conduct, but her example is an actual guideline that is way more specific on what will be done. https://pastebin.com/6kA93uPV https://pastebin.com/6kA93uPV So I send you back your example, would you go on a bar that have that huge list that you need to agree with when you enter? - You can come in, take a few drinks in exchange of money - You can make small talks, but only related to the drink you just took - Try to use the I when talking about drinks - Ask people first if they want suggestion toward another drinks - Don't share what you talked about with anyone else etc... Someone else here gave another example which I would agree without any issue, about sexualized language, attention or advances (which funnily enough, I would agree with theses terms even in a bar setting, would you?), trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks, public or private harassment.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

As an anecdote: We attended a renaissance/medieval dance event. This event would bring 150-200 people together. In years past, it was understood that you treated people with respect. Turns out last year, a teacher was grabbing a transgender female dancer and forced them to the man's position for the dance, along with chastising them for dancing on the woman's side. The teacher was warned that this was completely unacceptable. (Be aware, that this is a private event, and she could be ejected for, you know, battery of forcefully moving student.)Ok. Fast forward to this year.... All the past teachers are invited to propose a class to teach. My wife usually teaches the beginner dances. During that, the event steward, then says to sign this paper that was a code of conduct in the form of a loyalty oath. She refused to sign it immediately and opened dialog as to why this is being put to teachers - it felt like it was a "you have been horrible in the past and this tries to fix it". It had the shame and insulting tone that we familiarly see with CoC's. In the end, my wife chose not to sign, and chose not to teach the beginner's class. And when we showed up at the event, we saw some striking things. We had ~95 people attend the event, as opposed to 150-200. We had at 12 classes (normal is 4 tracks from 10-4, minus lunch, for 20 classes normally). Now, obviously correlation != causation... But the only factor that was significantly changed was demanding a CoC signed as a loyalty oath.

pjc50 8y ago
This is a tone argument, isn't it? Not the content of the code itself, but the manner in which it was put to you?
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  No. The event required all teachers to not only agree to the CoC, but to sign and return it. There is a distinct difference between "Our policies are now this", and "You will sign and affirm that you will follow our policies." One is a loyalty oath. I don't like loyalty oaths, and I certainly don't take them without significant consideration.

scottlocklin 8y ago

It's amazing how through all of human history (until ~2010 or so) we managed to do without written "codes of conduct" and things worked just fine without them.

pjc50 8y ago
More like "since 1750 BCE" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

lukev 8y ago

Code of conducts are simply not for people who feel like you do. And that's fine. For certain classes of people, attending a small, relatively intimate group with strangers represents a material risk that someone in the group will be creepy or abusive. This shit happens all the time. A CoC is a low cost, low effort way to mitigate the probability of that occurring up front, and also serves as a social signal to potential attendees that the organizers of an event are are at least aware of these issues and will be sympathetic in the event of a problem. EDIT: I should add, nobody is trying to tell you how to run your game night. If you're all friends and comfortable with eachother then obviously introducing a CoC would be stupid. Stephanie's post is about how to productively and safely get together a group of (former) strangers.

akudha 8y ago

I feel the same. Rules definitely have their place, but starting something with rules is just weird. As the group grows, slowly rules can be added, only as needed - that would make more sense.