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I disagree. I think we should generalize more, beyond codes of conduct: If you are building an adjudication process for resolving non-criminal personal conflict
by defen 6y ago
I disagree. I think we should generalize more, beyond codes of conduct: If you are building an adjudication process for resolving non-criminal personal conflicts (whether that be a Code of Conduct, an HR department, a Title IX proceeding, a professional organization, or something else), you should take a look at Anglo-derived common law and the safeguards against abuse that have been evolved over the centuries.
That doesn't mean everything needs to go through the courts; it means that if your process allows something that Anglo common law does not allow, you should have a good answer for why that is. Does it allow anonymous accusations? Is the accused allowed to know the charges against them, before a finding of guilt is rendered? Is there a presumption of innocence? Is the accused allowed to have a trusted third party - one who knows the rules of the game - to advocate on their behalf? Who, exactly, is responsible for deciding matters of fact vs matters of "law"? Is there an appeals process to fix possibly incorrect decisions?
Going by the linked document by Valerie Aurora, a good Code of Conduct allows anonymous accusations, the accused does not get to know the charges against them before a finding is rendered, there is no presumption of innocence, the accused does not get a third party advocate, matters of fact are necessarily decided by the same committee that makes the rules, and there is no appeal process.
This doesn't mean that such a committee will always do wrong. But I think it's worth thinking about how people operating in bad faith (either on the committee, or reporters to it) can abuse those features to achieve goals that are not actually aligned with what the Code of Conduct is trying to do. Yes, it's true that people can't be put in jail for these sorts of things, but a poorly-run adjudication process can have significant negative personal and financial effects on people.
- tptacek 6y agoYour premise is that, rather than free association, every group of people owes a kind of due process to everyone else, presumptive of their right to associate. Sorry, I disagree: people can decide they don't want to associate with you or me for reasons we don't find justifiable. I can throw a party and not invite you simply for writing this comment; I can start a project and not allow you to contribute. You can relate to the rest of the world that I did that, and let them decide what that means to them. We've gone out of our way to encode into law the exceptions to that rule. We can talk all we want about "anglo-derived common law" in those cases.
- GeneralMayhem 6y agoI think the problem arises when people want to have it both ways. If you want to say "we don't like you, please leave", you're probably [1] within your rights to do so, but then you don't also get to claim to have a fair and impartial process. [1] This gets nastier when "you" is something like a corporation, a university, or the well-funded host committee of a generally public event. Legally and ethically, your latitude to exclude people from a private party is much greater than is your latitude to exclude people from a public-ish gathering that any person could show up to.
- mantap 6y agoYes the problem is giving the impression of a formal process and all that entails (i.e. fairness). If you want an informal process then the code of conduct should be informal: "Be nice, don't be a jerk".
- ScottBurson 6y agoIt's not "every group of people" -- it's organizations that invite the participation of the public, or at least of others they don't know well, as long as they adhere to the mores of the community. More importantly, I take the parent's point to be, not that such an organization "owes" anything to anyone, but simply that anyone formalizing a Code of Conduct and a committee to enforce it would do well to understand why the protections of due process exist. If their intention is truly to create a safe space for interaction, setting up a process that can be easily abused is not going to help with that.
- afiori 6y ago> it's organizations that invite the participation of the public, I feel like this is a very important classification: Inviting someone to an event with Byzantine rules and punishments should be frowned upon.
- thu2111 6y agoYour party wouldn't have a formal written document that claims to set out specific rules, wouldn't be inviting arbitrary members of the public on the basis of a shared interest, would make no claim to be anything other than an arbitrary group of people picked by you on the basis of whatever, and generally differs from this situation in a lot of ways. Nonetheless, if you invited a bunch of people to your party, then you and three others inexplicably ganged up on one of them, told them they were a bad person for claiming someone else was wrong, bullied them, made them cry and then banned them from future parties, then that sort of behaviour probably would get around and you'd soon develop a reputation for being an asshole. Before today's post I had no views on JupyterCon, after today's post my view is that it seems to be run by assholes; that will certainly impact my future decisions around Jupyter and its community if I end up in a position to need to make them. That outcome could have been avoided by the advice to follow best practices from the legal system. This unfortunate blog post could have been avoided, and JupyterCon would have its reputation intact.