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They don't have to be, though. It's just this particular one, the Contributor Covenant - which was written and propagated by online social justice activists - h

They don't have to be, though. It's just this particular one, the Contributor Covenant - which was written and propagated by online social justice activists - happens to be the CoC organizations are increasingly being asked/encouraged/pressured (depending on the organization) to implement. I personally don't think the idea behind a code of conduct is bad at all, or that formally banning gender/orientation/race/etc.-based harassment and discrimination in open source projects is bad. It's just that the Contributor Covenant creators and advocates seem to have a much wider and stricter stance on what falls under that category than what I personally agree with, and some of them have a history of launching what I consider unjustified McCarthy-style witch hunts towards people who otherwise share a lot of their views. And I think a lot of other people who don't fully agree with all of their positions are kind of forced to keep quiet about it and just enforce what's increasingly becoming the status quo. The people not afraid of the backlash and who openly oppose it are often pretty right-wing and tend to spend all day lambasting SJWs on Twitter, or whatever, which is often much further than what an average CoC-detractor may be trying to do. The more right-leaning you are, the more likely you are to be honest about your opposition to it, which over time makes left-leaning people less honest about their opposition to it. They don't have a good middle option. Like what all the other polarization in the culture is causing, a left-leaning person who isn't fully on-board usually has no good option but to capitulate.

bitwize 7y ago
> They don't have to be, though. It's just this particular one, the Contributor Covenant - which was written and propagated by online social justice activists - happens to be the CoC organizations are increasingly being asked/encouraged/pressured (depending on the organization) to implement. I've heard/seen multiple accounts of anonymous drive-by commenters saying something to the effect of "I've noticed you have no code of conduct, and there are several pull requests by PoC that you have refused. You might want to consider adopting the Contributor Covenant." A sort of stealthy protection racket: "Nice project you have here. Wouldn't want a discrimination lawsuit to ruin it all." I suspect the anonymous commenters are either Coraline Ada Ehmke herself, or one of her lieutenants. > And I think a lot of other people who don't fully agree with all of their positions are kind of forced to keep quiet about it and just enforce what's increasingly becoming the status quo. The people not afraid of the backlash and who openly oppose it are often pretty right-wing and tend to spend all day lambasting SJWs on Twitter, or whatever, which is often much further than what an average CoC-detractor may be trying to do. The more right-leaning you are, the more likely you are to be honest about your opposition to it, which over time makes left-leaning people less honest about their opposition to it. I'm left-leaning, and I'm sick of this shit. I've gotten downmodded here on Hackernews and elsewhere for it, and I'm kind of glad to see that others on various communities not related to Kiwi Farms or the alt-right are starting to come around. Back in the day, open source was the closest thing around to the promised cybertopia of AT&T commercials. It wasn't all holding hands and getting along, but you learned to grow a thick skin, focus on technical concerns, and -- with a bit of learning and practice -- be a bit nicer. I've seen Christians, Muslims, and atheists, people on the left and right politically, collaborate in this way. And it's being ruined by this sort of entryism. Open source (the Linux development process in particular) was built to be resilient to sabotage by government agencies and corporations. If I were just such an agency or corporation and I wanted to undermine or destroy open source, I would be paying very close attention to, if not actively exploiting, social-justice entryism because it seems to have found a weak point.

bitwize 7y ago

> They don't have to be, though. It's just this particular one, the Contributor Covenant - which was written and propagated by online social justice activists - happens to be the CoC organizations are increasingly being asked/encouraged/pressured (depending on the organization) to implement. I've heard/seen multiple accounts of anonymous drive-by commenters saying something to the effect of "I've noticed you have no code of conduct, and there are several pull requests by PoC that you have refused. You might want to consider adopting the Contributor Covenant." A sort of stealthy protection racket: "Nice project you have here. Wouldn't want a discrimination lawsuit to ruin it all." I suspect the anonymous commenters are either Coraline Ada Ehmke herself, or one of her lieutenants. > And I think a lot of other people who don't fully agree with all of their positions are kind of forced to keep quiet about it and just enforce what's increasingly becoming the status quo. The people not afraid of the backlash and who openly oppose it are often pretty right-wing and tend to spend all day lambasting SJWs on Twitter, or whatever, which is often much further than what an average CoC-detractor may be trying to do. The more right-leaning you are, the more likely you are to be honest about your opposition to it, which over time makes left-leaning people less honest about their opposition to it. I'm left-leaning, and I'm sick of this shit. I've gotten downmodded here on Hackernews and elsewhere for it, and I'm kind of glad to see that others on various communities not related to Kiwi Farms or the alt-right are starting to come around. Back in the day, open source was the closest thing around to the promised cybertopia of AT&T commercials. It wasn't all holding hands and getting along, but you learned to grow a thick skin, focus on technical concerns, and -- with a bit of learning and practice -- be a bit nicer. I've seen Christians, Muslims, and atheists, people on the left and right politically, collaborate in this way. And it's being ruined by this sort of entryism. Open source (the Linux development process in particular) was built to be resilient to sabotage by government agencies and corporations. If I were just such an agency or corporation and I wanted to undermine or destroy open source, I would be paying very close attention to, if not actively exploiting, social-justice entryism because it seems to have found a weak point.