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What I find positive in this outcome is that Jeremy Howard challenged the organisation to live up to their principles, and they are apparently going to do so. W

What I find positive in this outcome is that Jeremy Howard challenged the organisation to live up to their principles, and they are apparently going to do so. Without the CoC, this would not have been such a clear-cut issue. For those who would do away with CoCs entirely, I suggest you read the HN perennial The Tyrrany Of Structurelessness: https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm CoCs are complex in many ways, but it's much better to have a formal process that allows people to be held to account rather than a structureless void which enables people to discriminate without the ability to challenge them to something they've explicitly signed up to.

ac2u 6y ago
It wasn’t the CoC that resolved the issue in this instance, it was the fact that the he had the community clout to raise the profile of his mistreatment. Arguably it wouldn’t have been an issue if the CoC didn’t exist.
- frereubu 6y ago
  I don't agree that the CoC caused the issue - note that I said "this would not have been such a clear-cut issue". These people may have complained anyway, and if they were close with the higher-ups then Howard wouldn't have had anything to point to and say "Hey! That doesn't fit this!" Visibility on HN surely helps, but still, even if this had reach HN without a CoC the issue would have been easier to dismiss. This is the clarity that explicitly stating your aims offers.
_Nat_ 6y ago
Dunno how a CoC may've been material to resolving this situation. I mean, say there wasn't a CoC, then couldn't the accused still have written a blog post about how they were kicked out for merely saying that someone else was "wrong"? I think the concern is about a formal system being properly implemented. For example, say that we add a formal control mechanism to a door that wasn't previously automated. This has two advantages: (1) the door's now automatic; (2) we can ensure that the door is completely safe, never accidentally closing on anyone. Awesome, right? But, if the door's automation-logic is faulty, then it's not fully safe. In fact, it can now falsely close on people in situations where it couldn't before. I think that's what people are worried about here: the CoC appears to have enabled a destructive interaction that, absent the CoC, may've not occurred. In real life, we usually save legal battles for the big issues because working out formal rule systems can be so cumbersome. People dread going to court because of what a hassle it is! But I don't think that the legal system is malicious; it just takes a lot of effort to analyze things. Cheaper versions of the legal system could be scary, potentially enabling all sorts of faulty, undesirable behaviors. And that's what I think folks fear in CoC's: a naively implemented formal system running amok. They'd rather have to manually open a door every time than risk an automatic door mistakenly closing on them sometimes.

ac2u 6y ago

It wasn’t the CoC that resolved the issue in this instance, it was the fact that the he had the community clout to raise the profile of his mistreatment. Arguably it wouldn’t have been an issue if the CoC didn’t exist.

frereubu 6y ago
I don't agree that the CoC caused the issue - note that I said "this would not have been such a clear-cut issue". These people may have complained anyway, and if they were close with the higher-ups then Howard wouldn't have had anything to point to and say "Hey! That doesn't fit this!" Visibility on HN surely helps, but still, even if this had reach HN without a CoC the issue would have been easier to dismiss. This is the clarity that explicitly stating your aims offers.

_Nat_ 6y ago

Dunno how a CoC may've been material to resolving this situation. I mean, say there wasn't a CoC, then couldn't the accused still have written a blog post about how they were kicked out for merely saying that someone else was "wrong"? I think the concern is about a formal system being properly implemented. For example, say that we add a formal control mechanism to a door that wasn't previously automated. This has two advantages: (1) the door's now automatic; (2) we can ensure that the door is completely safe, never accidentally closing on anyone. Awesome, right? But, if the door's automation-logic is faulty, then it's not fully safe. In fact, it can now falsely close on people in situations where it couldn't before. I think that's what people are worried about here: the CoC appears to have enabled a destructive interaction that, absent the CoC, may've not occurred. In real life, we usually save legal battles for the big issues because working out formal rule systems can be so cumbersome. People dread going to court because of what a hassle it is! But I don't think that the legal system is malicious; it just takes a lot of effort to analyze things. Cheaper versions of the legal system could be scary, potentially enabling all sorts of faulty, undesirable behaviors. And that's what I think folks fear in CoC's: a naively implemented formal system running amok. They'd rather have to manually open a door every time than risk an automatic door mistakenly closing on them sometimes.