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I'm genuinely not seeing the distinction here. I can be warned, banned, or suspended for violating the guidelines, I can be warned, banned, or suspended for vio

I'm genuinely not seeing the distinction here. I can be warned, banned, or suspended for violating the guidelines, I can be warned, banned, or suspended for violating the CoC. Both spell out values (be kind) as well as disallow certain actions (don't call names). The main difference I see is that the CoC also spells out enforcement actions and processes, while the enforcement process for the guidelines is whatever dang feels like it is. In other words from my perspective the CoC is less arbitrary.

belorn 6y ago
HN guideline is a set policies and conflict resolution document. The purpose of those are to define the community focus and get people back to cooperation if members start to falls into argument and conflict. An CoC on the other hand is exclusively about removal of members to achieve additional goals set by the CoC. It identify who is an "other" and gives power to a small group to opaquely remove the individual without constraints or liability. It also usually supersede any existing rules, goals and processes already existing in the community. The distinction is thus in purpose, methods and results. If we imagine that we replaced the articles CoC with the HN guideline, we can read this: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument". The Code of Conduct Enforcement Team could have talked to both Jeremy Howard and Joel Grus and steered the discussing on the factually arguments in favor or against the use of a Jupyter Notebook. They could have reminded both speakers to assume good faith, respond to the strongest plausible interpretation, and avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. It could remind them to focus on the purpose of the community, such as having a curious conversations with thoughtful and substantive comments. Instead they exercised the power granted by the CoC.
- Volundr 6y ago
  > An CoC on the other hand is exclusively about removal of members to achieve additional goals set by the CoC. Source? It seems like your assigning motives to others rather than listening to what they have to say. > Instead they exercised the power granted by the CoC. If you actually read the parent you'd know they explicitly did not follow the CoC. The CoC sets out a process very much like the one you described in which the enforcement team is actually supposed to have a discussion with everyone involved and get all accounts of what happened. The fact they ignored the CoC isn't a problem with the CoC, it's a problem with the human beings not following the process. Dang could start banning people at random, that wouldn't mean the HN guidelines are bad, it would mean dang decided not to follow the rules and has the power to do so.
  - belorn 6y ago
    Let say the enforcement team had a discussion with everyone involved and got all accounts of what happened. What would the purpose and motive be? To collect evidence, to determine if a person is guilty or not, and to measure out punishment if guilty. The goal of conflict resolution is not about determining who is guilty and measuring out punishment, but rather to deescalate situation and fixing problems before there is a need for someone to be punished. The best moderation are those that are not seen because intervention occurred early and without escalating something small into something big. The primary evidence for this exist in the names and words used in the CoC. A Enforcement Team is distinctly different than a Conflict Resolution team. A group full of mediators is different from a group full of enforcers. Enforcement is a different word from moderation. If a CoC were focused on conflict resolution and had teams full of mediators, and where enforcement only came afterward when the mediators has failed and there exist documented proof of failed deescalation, only then would we have a situation where a CoC and a guideline would be much more similar in purpose, method and result. In which case the CoC enforcement would likely be called under a different name.

belorn 6y ago

HN guideline is a set policies and conflict resolution document. The purpose of those are to define the community focus and get people back to cooperation if members start to falls into argument and conflict. An CoC on the other hand is exclusively about removal of members to achieve additional goals set by the CoC. It identify who is an "other" and gives power to a small group to opaquely remove the individual without constraints or liability. It also usually supersede any existing rules, goals and processes already existing in the community. The distinction is thus in purpose, methods and results. If we imagine that we replaced the articles CoC with the HN guideline, we can read this: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument". The Code of Conduct Enforcement Team could have talked to both Jeremy Howard and Joel Grus and steered the discussing on the factually arguments in favor or against the use of a Jupyter Notebook. They could have reminded both speakers to assume good faith, respond to the strongest plausible interpretation, and avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. It could remind them to focus on the purpose of the community, such as having a curious conversations with thoughtful and substantive comments. Instead they exercised the power granted by the CoC.

Volundr 6y ago
> An CoC on the other hand is exclusively about removal of members to achieve additional goals set by the CoC. Source? It seems like your assigning motives to others rather than listening to what they have to say. > Instead they exercised the power granted by the CoC. If you actually read the parent you'd know they explicitly did not follow the CoC. The CoC sets out a process very much like the one you described in which the enforcement team is actually supposed to have a discussion with everyone involved and get all accounts of what happened. The fact they ignored the CoC isn't a problem with the CoC, it's a problem with the human beings not following the process. Dang could start banning people at random, that wouldn't mean the HN guidelines are bad, it would mean dang decided not to follow the rules and has the power to do so.
- belorn 6y ago
  Let say the enforcement team had a discussion with everyone involved and got all accounts of what happened. What would the purpose and motive be? To collect evidence, to determine if a person is guilty or not, and to measure out punishment if guilty. The goal of conflict resolution is not about determining who is guilty and measuring out punishment, but rather to deescalate situation and fixing problems before there is a need for someone to be punished. The best moderation are those that are not seen because intervention occurred early and without escalating something small into something big. The primary evidence for this exist in the names and words used in the CoC. A Enforcement Team is distinctly different than a Conflict Resolution team. A group full of mediators is different from a group full of enforcers. Enforcement is a different word from moderation. If a CoC were focused on conflict resolution and had teams full of mediators, and where enforcement only came afterward when the mediators has failed and there exist documented proof of failed deescalation, only then would we have a situation where a CoC and a guideline would be much more similar in purpose, method and result. In which case the CoC enforcement would likely be called under a different name.