There are a lot of words defending CoCs and the culture around them in this article, despite the author having been screwed over by one. I think there is a bit

There are a lot of words defending CoCs and the culture around them in this article, despite the author having been screwed over by one. I think there is a bit of stockholm syndrome around these things. I know this is cliche, but despite mass famines under communism, you still hear people defending it saying "yes, but if implemented correctly...". At some point you need to admit that the repeated poor implementation of CoCs is fundamental to the concept. You can't just hand power to people and expect it to work out. Especially people with a permanent chip on their shoulders, who are not neutral parties in let's say the "culture war", who are the exact people most likely to adopt them. All CoCs are doing is allowing people in charge to exercise power without paying the social cost of having to look like they're using their judgement reasonably. Without a CoC, you were always allowed to kick someone out who was misbehaving, it's just you might look bad if people around you don't think you're being reasonable by doing so. Leaders of e.g. software projects were always dictators, but they still wanted people to like them and so there are natural limits on how much on an asshole you can be kicking people out who are misbehaving. All a CoC does is give these people a document they can point to to justify their actions on paper, so that they don't need to justify that it was a judgement call. Now they can kick people out more easily because all that's happened is that their accountability has been reduced. This can be used for good and for evil, it depends on the person. The actual contents of the document are nearly irrelevant, you'll find something in there to pin on someone you don't like. Then again, if I were writing this article I would pepper it with pro-social-justice shibboleths too, just because I wouldn't want people to write me off as alt-right or whatever and stop reading.