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It is not a take. It's an objective description of what a CoC is and how it is designed to be used. There is no way around it. At all. I'm surprised you feel th

• tptacek 6y ago
  Hm, and me I thought most of them were just a way to assure newcomers that your project wasn't going to allow racist trolling on the mailing list. My take is that the problem with this code of conduct was that it was dumb. I want to recommend to you the degree to which it is easy and relaxing to just acknowledge that and move on, maybe with a note or two about what not to do in any code of conduct you write. It seems --- I could be wrong, I started today confidently wrong about bay leaves --- like the alternative is an exhausting vigilance about conspiracies to control and persecute. Even if you're right, nobody is going to believe you, so what's the point in letting your pulse quicken?
  • offbyone 6y ago
    Apropos of nothing related, I want to know: What, exactly, were you confident yet wrong about in regards to bay leaves?
    • tptacek 6y ago
      Someone asked on Twitter what, if any, flavor bay leaves had. I repeated advice I'd heard: supermarket bay leaves are bad, so just add a lot of them. Then I acted on another piece of advice: if you want to know what bay leaves taste like, steep them in water and taste the water. I did. Bay leaves are disgusting. Nobody should add more of them to anything.
      • ckiA4U61 6y ago
        What you're saying is true, but consider this also: America's Test Kitchen made identical versions of a bunch of recipes with identical ingredients on identical equipment simultaneously, and with no exceptions, the tasting panel preferred the ones containing bay leaves, but interestingly, they couldn't state exactly why.
        • arc-in-space 6y ago
          This here is more interesting than everything else in the thread. IIRC ATK is a TV show so I presume the experiment wasnt particularly rigorous, but it's still neat to learn.
      • GeneralMayhem 6y ago
        I wouldn't recommend making tea out of most herbs, including uncontroversial staples like basil and oregano. Doesn't mean they don't add useful flavors in the right dishes.
      • LeonB 6y ago
        Ha. I saw the saw the start of that conversation on Twitter. I didn’t know you went ahead and ran an experiment. Hilarious. Good work. They definitely add bitter/dark tones.
      • ricardobeat 6y ago
        It's a funny take. Have you tried oregano|paprika|basil|salt|pepper flavored tea? You'll end up not seasoning your food at all :) Bay leaves work their magic in stews, especially beans. Not much else. (I absolute hate licorice btw).
      • athriren 6y ago
        i should object to this strenuously as someone with mediterranean heritage, but this is absolutely not the bay leaf take i was expecting and i have to admit that astrigency you hate is like the whole point and i would never eat one by itself so i am torn here.
      • hobs 6y ago
  • skohan 6y ago
    > racist trolling on the mailing list Is this a widespread problem in software-related communities? I'm genuinely asking, because if it is maybe I am just not aware of it, but for example in the open-source projects I have been involved with the conversations tend to be extremely focused on the subject matter, and I'm not even aware of the race or gender of the people I'm conversing with.
    • rleigh 6y ago
      I have never encountered this in 23 years of participating in open source projects of all kinds. 20 years back (in Debian) there was some banter on the mailing lists, but never of that nature. It was mainly jokes about women. The community was primarily of young males, and that did stop as more women got involved. However, I should state for completeness that none of it was anything that anyone should have been banned over; sometimes a joke was just a joke, before humour was effectively outlawed lest anyone get even slightly offended.
    • jeltz 6y ago
      I don't think so. I have never seen it happen in my 10 years in open source.
      • wrsh07 6y ago
        If you've never seen racist trolling on GitHub, maybe it's because you're not looking rather than that it doesn't happen The laziest of Google searches quickly found people being racist on GitHub (... to a GitHub employee! With their own, non anonymous accounts!): https://www.tinykat.cafe/on-all-that-fuckery https://www.tinykat.cafe/on-all-that-fuckery (This incident also made it to hn iirc, but maybe you didn't read it that day)
        • throwaway894345 6y ago
          I don't think anyone was suggesting that it literally has never happened, so much as that it's very, very rare. Moreover, that kind of behavior would get you banned irrespective of any CoC, so the question remains: what does a CoC add here?
  • julianmarq 6y ago
    > [CoC are] a way to assure newcomers that your project wasn't going to allow racist trolling on the mailing list. The implication being that every project without an established code of conduct is awash with racism? Exhausting vigilance about conspiracies indeed.
    • Dylan16807 6y ago
      Did you skip over the word 'assure'? The implication is that other projects aren't performing that particular assurance. Problems such as a plague of racist jokes aren't omnipresent, but they show up often enough in the world that a little signpost at the front door about expectations can help with first impressions and understanding the community.
      • free_rms 6y ago
        If this were a signpost along the lines of "employees must wash hands", then there would be no problem. Of course employees should wash their hands. The problem is the weaponization against random people for obscure reasons. The blog poster here didn't make a presentation full of racist jokes, it's not even clear what they did. Lawful evil anti-social people exist in the world, we shouldn't let them bully people just because they're waving a rainbow flag while doing so.
      • throwaway894345 6y ago
        Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but is the idea that--apart from a CoC--people might venture into a community thinking racist jokes are okay?
        • Dylan16807 6y ago
          A lot of people will venture in thinking that maybe they're okay here, and they'll find out later.
    • wrsh07 6y ago
      The implication being that the coc gives clear guidance on what to do if it does happen Fun straw man though
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• csnover 6y ago
  Like any other system of laws, a code of conduct necessarily restricts the boundaries of what one individual is allowed to do in order to ensure there is a safe space for others. When used correctly, instead of inhibiting the free exchange of ideas, a CoC helps keep participants in an open and receptive mindset instead of a closed and defensive one. Acknowledging that people come from different backgrounds or belief systems where norms and customs are different, a good code of conduct offers a concise and easy-to-understand set of core expectations that the participants in a community agree to follow, along with a mechanism for reporting and curing violations when they occur. Curing violations should typically involve helping members learn and adopt better ways to communicate their ideas and interact with others, rather than shaming or punishing them for lacking these skills or for having a bad day. As a gross example, a functioning code of conduct should make the difference between someone saying “I don’t understand why anyone would believe X”, which is an open statement that invites thoughtful discussion, versus “X is stupid and anyone who believes it is an idiot”, which is a closed statement that triggers fighting instead. Or, it should make the difference between someone making sexual advances at a professional conference because they think it’s what the other person wants, versus someone not engaging in that behaviour—even if they still think that—because it’s outside of the norms listed in the code of conduct. It is certainly the case that codes of conduct are sometimes abused to create cultural echo chambers[0]. This isn’t because the concept of a code of conduct is flawed; rather, it is often (in my experience) because people adopt CoCs without having the knowledge and skill necessary to administer them. When this happens, the CoC can become a mechanism for suppressing disagreement instead of a mechanism for creating a healthy environment where ideas and relationships can thrive despite disagreement. [0] https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/10/idea-labs-echo-chambers.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/10/idea-labs-echo-chambers.html
  • skohan 6y ago
    In general I agree with your point that communities often need some sort of guard rails to ensure that they can stay productive, especially as a community grows. I think the challenge is in enforcement. A code of conduct should be a measure of last resort. In your example: > a functioning code of conduct should make the difference between someone saying “I don’t understand why anyone would believe X”, which is an open statement that invites thoughtful discussion, versus “X is stupid and anyone who believes it is an idiot”, which is a closed statement that triggers fighting instead. I don't think that the code of conduct should be invoked the first time someone steps a bit onto the side of expressing something in a hostile way. When collages are in the process of solving real problems, and getting real work done, it can be the case that disagreements occasionally get heated. If someone steps a bit over the line in terms of how they express themselves in such a disagreement, the first response should be for a colleague to put the metaphorical hand on the shoulder and invite the offender to reign it in a bit, equal-to-equal, rather than invoking the authority of the CoC right away. If someone repeatedly demonstrates abusive behavior, then it makes sense to escalate this to a matter of community governance. It's certainly not ideal if people express themselves in a hurtful or inflammatory way, but if everyone is self-censoring for fear of punishment, it can negatively affect the quality of work that gets done.
• ncallaway 6y ago
  It’s not a objective description. It’s a subjective one. You’re describing the intent of other people, which is really your interpretation of their intent.