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Almost more surprising is that this was removed: > When interpreting the words and actions of others, participants should always assume good intentions. In fa

Almost more surprising is that this was removed: > When interpreting the words and actions of others, participants should always assume good intentions. In favor of this: > Participants should speak and act with good intentions, but understand that intent and impact are not equivalent. Also changed yesterday: > Behaviour which can be reasonably considered harassment will not be tolerated. became: > Behaviour which can be considered harassment against protected classes will not be tolerated. The updated CoC is here: https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/blob/master/en/conduct/index.md https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/blob/master/en/con... This is very weird because fundamentally it stems from a failure of the moderators. If someone makes a sexist joke you don't just let them because you're "assuming good intentions", that clause means that you tell them it's not appropriate here, and if they apologize you assume they are sincere, and if they don't you swiftly boot them. But there is no substitute for good moderation, shifting words around won't help much. Aside: Open source discussion opening with "My rationale for these changes are documented on Twitter: [link]" also seems somewhat crazy. And I love Twitter, it just seems very odd to link to a thread of tweets instead of restating your case in the proper medium.

zkldi 5y ago
Yeah - no longer assuming good intentions is a weird thing to change. I guess it makes it easier to claim bad intentions?
- mannykannot 5y ago
  Having a position of always assuming good intentions can be gamed by people with bad intentions.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    It also is an issue for all others. FX I don’t know if it is appropriate to say “you guys” to a mixed crowd anymore, but if I hadn’t seen that some people get upset about that I wouldn’t think twice about it and just emulated American movies. Buffy isn’t exactly sexist and she says it often and to a mixed crowd.
    - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
      At least in English you have the neutral word "they". In french you only have the plural of "he" or "she". This means that when you point to a mixed crowd, you must choose which of the plurals you use. The grammatical rule is that one male flips the plural gender to male. If you do not know the sexes, the plural is male. As a French, the construction comes naturally because we've been taught that at school since kindergarten. This always sounded a bit weird, though. I do not approve some "grammatical inclusivity" horrors that are being invented from time to time, but some innovative-but-not-distruptive changes would be welcome.
      - Bayart 5y ago
        >As a French, the construction comes naturally because we've been taught that at school since kindergarten. This always sounded a bit weird, though. If you follow the grammatical history of French, the neutral gender just got folded into masculine. >but some innovative-but-not-distruptive changes would be welcome You can't really produce grammar by decree, at best you can systematize what already exists. The only "sane" way to have explicit neutral in French would be to go back in time, reimplement declensions and possibly mangle phonology in the process. That won't happen. All forms of "inclusive writing" are from the outset destined and meant to be an elitist signal rather than an actual linguistic feature. They won't survive and they'll been seen in the future as a strange, idiosyncratic trend of the age. A bit like Renaissance orthography, where countless letters were added without meaning to simply look fancier.
        eloisant 5y ago
        > If you follow the grammatical history of French, the neutral gender just got folded into masculine. This is not just grammatical history, this is the current grammar rules. However some people are trying to force a change of the rule by making up new words and rules, such as "iels" instead of "ils/elles".
        BrandoElFollito 5y ago
        Like I said, I do not approve of the horrible ideas we have, with dots everywhere - this transforms words that are fine as they are. I am for simplification, though (nothing to do with the current topic, just a thought). What I am missing are the concepts young people are bringing in more and more, where they have words that become unisex (potes for instance). I listen to my children and (without any scientific analysis), it sounds to me that there is less of a boy/girl cut that there was in my times (this may be regional - this is for west of Paris). And I agree with you that only naturally appearing changes will stay, not the ones forced on us. A typical example are the surrealist ideas of the 90's to have French equivalents for everything computer. Some stayed, the majority is now part of comedies.
  - Rd6n6 5y ago
    Do you really not see that the opposite is also true? Having a position where good intentions are not assumed can be gamed far more easily by people with bad intentions
    - mannykannot 5y ago
      Do you really not see that either extreme is more exploitable and less resilient than a more pragmatic middle ground? Personally, my guess is that the optimum is usually towards assuming the best, but that it shifts depending on the level of antagonism present.
- eli 5y ago
  It makes it easier to fight trolls who hide behind bad faith arguments.
  - andrew_ 5y ago
    Ironic reply is full of irony.
  - ameister14 5y ago
    Changing it enables a certain kind of flame-war where people become entrenched in thinking the other side is out to get them and actually evil. Assuming the best intentions is a good way to make sure you combat what someone is doing rather than attacking them as a person.
  - dijit 5y ago
    "Did you intend to say that you dislike me because I'm gay?" is a pretty easy way to route out a troll. Sincere apology or not, you get to know. I've been moderating communities for 15 years, I've seen tricks from all manner of trolls and handling trolls with an even hand is still tricky; but being genuinely inquisitive is usually the easiest way to get around it. Even when tensions are high it makes people feel heard and understand their impact.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      Direct and to the point. Do you have any other examples?
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      I wish it was that easy. Very often trolls feed on attention and love the sealioning.
    - staysafeanon 5y ago
      "I'm just highlight how fragile and deranged you are, funny how you instantly tied it to homosexuality though, must be suppressed hatred! I'm surprised your wife's boyfriend lets you post such stupid garbage."/s You don't get to know anything. Good trolls have also been trolling for 15 years, they've seen tricks from all manner of jannies... See where I'm going with that? Saying that, I do agree with you, staying inquisitive and positive with bad trolls typically tampers down their rage.
- Seattle3503 5y ago
  Their position is that intention doesn't matter, what matters is how an action is received.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    But this opens up an enormous hole for abuse! Somebody might be offended by just anything, if they choose to!
    - armenarmen 5y ago
      How dare you! /s
- goodpoint 5y ago
  It makes sense to be objective rather than assuming good intentions. Assuming good intentions enable troll to engage in endless sealioning.
- gbanfalvi 5y ago
  It covers the case when someone makes an inappropriate joke then defends themselves saying it was just a joke. The person being inappropriate will always hide behind their intent because they can only argue about their own role in the exchange (e.g. they can't argue that the target person/group isn't really hurt). When a conversation is derailed away from the damage caused to the intent, the harasser wins. What are you going to do? Establishing a default assumption takes that away. Always have good defaults :)
  - atq2119 5y ago
    This is largely true, but there remains the issue that there are some people who, for whatever reason, almost seem to go out of their way to assume bad intent and interpret what was said or written in the worst possible way. There is probably some sad history behind many of those individuals, but reasonable people can disagree about how to deal with the situation. The current fashion implies that as soon as one such person enters the community, everybody has to start metaphorically walking on tip toes. Maybe a better outcome overall would be for the person to get therapy. Everybody has a line somewhere for what they consider "too easily offended". This is true even for the staunchest defenders of the current fashion, because even they understand implicitly that offense can be faked. So yeah, you need good defaults, but that's really a discussion about where exactly that line should be drawn. I doubt either extreme is the right answer.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      Perhaps we can pair serial 'it was just a joke' with serial 'that's offensive' people in an infinite outrage loop and then go on with our lives?
  - josefx 5y ago
    > It covers the case when someone makes an inappropriate joke then defends themselves saying it was just a joke. Tell them to not make these jokes here and flag their account, repeat a handful of times and kick them out if it persists despite warnings. No need to interpret intent, no ability to hide behind ignorance after several warnings. > Always have good defaults :) It is impossible to harass people if you just ban every new account under the assumption of guilt.
zozbot234 5y ago
"Protected class" means stuff like race, sex or veteran status. So if you harass a random conference-goer at a Ruby-focused event, that cannot be addressed under the CoC because you haven't evidenced harassment towards a protected class as a whole (e.g. all veterans)? How does that even make sense?
- eli 5y ago
  No, many other rules would still apply including “Behavior which can be reasonably considered harassment will not be tolerated.”
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonas21 5y ago
    That's one of the rules they removed.
    - eli 5y ago
      No it isn't? It's unchanged in the linked PR.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        It was changed later.[1] [1] https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/commit/7e96640e1ca9fc74ac31e0f33d7c01692801eb66 https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/commit/7e96640e1ca...
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        "Also changed yesterday" The line about protected classes is not in addition to a general rule against harassment, or emphasizing that kind of harassment in particular, it replaced that rule. There is a separate rule against personal attacks, but is that rule supposed to take over harassment in general? That sort of makes sense in a vacuum, but then it leaves the exact meaning of the 'harassment against protected classes' rule kind of confusing. What does harassing a class mean exactly, and can you harass a non-protected class?
ronsor 5y ago
These updates have a very nebulous definition of harassment. According to the new CoC, almost anything can be considered harassment. As far as the "intent and impact" of the intentions, assuming that someone acts in bad faith is a good way to turn a misunderstanding into actual hatred. Such a result should be considered worse than having to deal with a few bad apples who try to take advantage.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  They're meant to further empower accusers and reduce burden of proof and remove the need for critical thinking, empathy, and nuance. Accusations equal guilt.
  - gbanfalvi 5y ago
    Or maybe it just puts more responsibility on people to think "how could my intent be read?", "what impact might it have?" It's quite common to have someone express a personal opinion that they themselves don't interpret as harassment (e.g. because they don't belong to the group they're talking about, they see no issue with the way they talk or maybe they might be upset) only to be incredibly surprised and defensive when someone later calls them out.
    - jwond 5y ago
      With the way that the realm of what is socially acceptable to say has been shifting so constantly in recent years, the only way someone who is not terminally online could be sure to avoid offending someone would be to become a mind reader, or to not say anything at all. There is also the fact that in this modern social climate, victimhood has become a valuable currency. There is incentive for people take offense where none could reasonably be presumed to have been given, and to blow minor transgressions out of proportion. “When victimhood becomes currency, there are bound to be counterfeiters.“
      - gbanfalvi 5y ago
        Society changes and evolves. With it, we start recognising and understanding ever-smaller demographic groups. There was a time when making jokes at the expense of women was ok, there was a time when making fun of gays was ok, there was a time when mocking trans people was ok... now it's not. > The only way someone who is not terminally online could be sure to avoid offending someone would be to become a mind reader, or to not say anything at all It's just society developing empathy. Think most people understand that how we see other groups of people is not a fixed thing. > There is also the fact that in this modern social climate, victimhood has become a valuable currency. There is incentive for people take offense where none could reasonably be presumed to have been given, and to blow minor transgressions out of proportion. People are getting "called out" and "cancelled" more than ever, for sure. But I don't think it's necessarily victimhood. Given the original topic, it's interesting that this is how you're attributing intent. Do you feel that there might be genuine reasons for acting the way they do? Could the grievances be genuine?
setpatchaddress 5y ago
This just seems to be establishing proper boundaries? I don't know what specifically motivated this PR, but I assume something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning .
- geofft 5y ago
  > I don't know what specifically motivated this PR It's mentioned in passing a couple of comments in. To highlight it (because it's easy to miss): "I watched a group of people use these specific phrases to justify making sexist remarks over a communication channel that falls under these guidelines."
  - morpunkee 5y ago
    Apparently this mailing list comment triggered this reaction: http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/441433 http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/...
    - seattle_spring 5y ago
      I tried really hard to follow the threading in that but I came away being completely unable to parse it, at least on mobile. What was the attempted "joke"?
      - morpunkee 5y ago
        http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/441396 http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/...
      - jrootabega 5y ago
        Guy reports a behavior where date math doesn't return the result he expected and jokes that it might have to do with how women don't like to admit when they're aging.
bawolff 5y ago
Isn't protected class an american legal term? Seems weirdly ameri-centric for a document of this nature. Not to mention that gay people weren't even a protected class in the usa until last year afaik. Not exactly a very inclusive definition. Not to mention the implication that harrasment is somehow ok against people who are not members of the protected class? I appreciate minorities get a lot of shit that others don't, but its not like bigioted assholes are the only people who harrass other people.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Like it or not, the ameri-centric views spill around the world causing tensions and misunderstandings. In countries with practically no colored people and no history of slavery certain things seem a bit ridiculous if imposed on the whole community.
  - brabel 5y ago
    Which countries do you think have no slavery in their history?
    - dym_sh 5y ago
      those re/formed within last 100 years. (and those who actively deny its existence /s)
      - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
        You are right. It also depends if you include serfdom in slavery. In any case, just to generalize, the countries that practiced slavery were mostly those that colonized the world the most. Many of those who didn't colonize the world used serfs, like most of Eastern Europe. For these people there is no cultural association between slavery and the present. Also the proportions are different: in most countries the non-serfs were a relatively small minority. So waking up one day and reading that, say, all references to slavery are banned seems somewhat strange in other cultures.
rdiddly 5y ago
"My views on verbal abuse are summarized on [verbal abuse platform]."
traloid 5y ago
Wtf is "protected classes"? Harassement against non protected class will be tolerated? If not, why is it explicitely singled out so? What a load of commie bull...
- morpunkee 5y ago
  Protected class is a programming term ;)
  - traloid 5y ago
    That doesnt explain any of that.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Behaviour which can be considered harassment against protected classes will not be tolerated. That's... interesting? Some of the most vitriolic flamewars I've seen on the internet were between western straight white males. I don't see the point of special casing this clause.
elihu 5y ago
Regarding the "good intentions" change, the explanation in the linked twitter thread makes sense to me: in some contexts, assuming good intentions is a way of excusing bad behavior. It's hard to agree on the exact boundary between enabling a jerk and making an issue out of nothing. But the old "assume good intentions" policy does sound to me uncomfortably similar to "if you're offended it's your own fault". Which is generally how people treat victims of harassment in communities where that sort of harassment is tolerated.
- scotty79 5y ago
  I don't know. Assuming good intentions is an advice for you, so you don't get offended. And assuming good intentions doesn't justify the impact. Even if you assume good intentions of a driver, if he drove badly and did some damage he is still responsible for the damage. Assuming hus good intentions doesn't change anything. Skill, following the rules and effect are what matters when it comes to judging.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  That is misunderstanding of the principle. Of course you still need to use your head. For a community to be welcoming for people that aren't too extroverted, not fitting anyone on that mailing list really, your approach is very counter productive if you really want to empower voices that normally don't speak up. It is also required for completely dry technical discussions. I am not sure I would want that in open source communities though, but that is certainly a preference.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Next time you get in a car accident maybe the police should throw you in jail for wilful destruction of property. It doesn't matter if you did not intend to damage the other car since intentions don't matter. You did the crime you should do the time.
type0 5y ago
Protected class if definition even exist can mean completely different things. Saying that US definition is the only one that matters is unwelcoming to people from other countries. edit: non just unwelcoming, it can be considered discriminating
hiisukun 5y ago
In Australian law, and I'd imagine generally in many other countries, intent is a big part of judging a wrong. But of course, it's possible to cause harm without intending to, so there are other things to consider. Common phrases are 'reckless disregard', 'willfully ignorant', 'negligent' or sometimes 'lack of consideration' (which is different to intent). Obviously it isn't a binary situation with either intent or impact being the sole arbiter - so the baseline used in almost all situations is the 'ordinary' or 'objective' standards. These can vary depending on the environment and context, and are simply defined because they are hard to define across all scenarios. I guess I find it surprising that a code of conduct like this should sway between intent and impact in quite so binary a fashion -- human behaviour isn't software.
- MadeThisToReply 5y ago
  > intent is a big part of judging a wrong As well as being a bedrock principle of the law, it's also basic common sense. If I accidentally step on your toe, that's obviously different to me deliberately stamping on your toe in an intentional attempt to injure you. If you set out to deliberately injure your colleagues then this is OBVIOUSLY different from doing the same thing accidentally and should be treated differently - and anyone with a working brain can see this. The idea that "intent doesn't matter" is preposterous. Accepting it as a premise leads to insane and preposterous conclusions that no-one believes. People who say that "intent doesn't matter" don't actually believe it.
  - brabel 5y ago
    People do believe it, because thinking that intent matters makes it impossible to defend their other position: that the most important thing is how the "offense" is received. If intent matters (as you say, anyone with half a brain knows it does), then if you receive my comment as being offensive, I am still right because I didn't mean to offend you. What they want is to make sure they can tell me I'm wrong anyway because the person was offended... hence, my intention didn't matter.
    - ungamed 5y ago
tmmx 5y ago
Also, now mods don't have to tolerate opposing views. :)
- mantas 5y ago
  Now the big question is if mods are a part of the protected class or not :)
david38 5y ago
So if a woman accused a while man of having “small hands” for having some opinion, that’s not sexual harassment because white men are not a protected class?
- occamrazor 5y ago
  White men, identified by race and sex, are legally a protected class. People with small hands are not, unless the smallness of their hands is considered a disability.
  - gwagon 5y ago
    We've got a lot of lawsuits on our hands then.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    This is correct, assuming US 'protected class' works broadly the same as UK 'protected characteristic'. I don't know why this comment is being objected to? It's about discrimination on the basis of the value of someone's <characteristic>, not that particular values ('white', or 'female', etc.) are held in some special regard. The obvious example is hiring: you can (should) hire white people, black people, men, women, and so on. You can't (legally) hire someone because of one of those traits, or allow it influence your judgement. (It's why I find quotas/diversity reporting a bit troubling - it sort of assumes an equal outcome, or something close to it, is a natural state, since you can't say 'hire more women' if you find that's what's lacking; you can only try to remove existing (illegal! conscious or not) bias in the other direction. But what if the lacking group didn't have equal opportunity, so on merit they really weren't the best hires? - I know, that old argument - point is, if that's the case, hiring for an equal outcome, so-called 'affirmative/positive action' is actually illegal.) (IANAL but I have to assume there are exceptions where an otherwise protected characteristic is actually required due to the nature of the work. The police need a certain number of women, (and men, but that's the problem side) diversity aside. Primary schools presumably have the opposite problem.)
  - projektfu 5y ago
    It's true. Protected classes are people of a certain race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc. For example, an airline in the US that wanted to hire only female flight attendants would likely face a lawsuit from male candidates.
mpfundstein 5y ago
i am so done with OSS communities.
- BoHerfVJrEsq 5y ago
  Understandable reaction, but too broad. Like a lot of other areas of the culture war, there's a big faction you'd agree with. I'll never have a CoC on any project I work on. I consider protecting my projects from wokeism the same as protecting them from cancer, and I'm not the only one who thinks like that.
undecisive 5y ago
One of my many misgivings about CoCs is their over-reliance on the unenforcable. This is an excellent example - because the original said exactly what needed to be said, but it wasn't being interpreted correctly. Instead of improving the wording, and saying something like "participants should always assume good intentions. However, intention does not make a person's actions immune from criticism, and while assuming good intentions we will kindly encourage each other toward a higher standard of behaviour." ... they instead have chosen to weaken the specificity and balance of the CoC. Throughout the discussion, and on the twitter thread, the overriding message is: Triggering the hurt of a protected party is always punishable. And it's a sad viewpoint, because it becomes not "Matz is nice and so we are nice", it becomes "We are nice to avoid the ire of a protected party"
- MadeThisToReply 5y ago
  > to weaken the specificity and balance of the CoC. This is a feature, not a bug. When the rules are clear and specific, they can be enforced fairly. When they're vague and unclear, then the only consistent principle is that the people who "enforce" the "rules" can do whatever they want and you have no recourse or due process.
  - basilgohar 5y ago
    I don't know why you've been downvoted, but anyone that has seen how laws have been selectively enforced since whenever should be able to easily see how this is the case as well. It's the "everyone is guilty of breaking some law" principle, but applied to what is currently considered fashionable good behavior. It's a different kind of slippery slope and we'll know it when the wrong kind of people get into positions where they can enforce these to suit their needs rather than protecting marginalized communities. But speaking out against that will be seen as the same thing as an attack on marginalized, so most folks will either be quiet or move on, and these power-hungry folks will get to keep their fiefdoms.
    - undecisive 5y ago
      I absolutely agree about both the impetus and the danger of this currently prevailing viewpoint. I will speak to the motivation however, because I'm a reconcillatory kind of person most of the time, and unlike this CoC I do believe intent is important. I believe that the intent behind those adopting these documents is protection and general social good, and I believe their adoption is very very bad because those adopting them are blindsided. Because the people writing them are not lawyers, and are not expecting them to be used as laws to be enforced, but as "good feeling reinforcers". Effectively, corporate virtue signalling (and, in some cases probably also personal virtue signalling - with all the negative connotations that brings). The fact is, when you introduce a set of rules, you have to expect those rules to be interpreted by people with some extreme biases, and ensure that the wording produces a fair outcome regardless. It doesn't matter whether you call these rules "guidelines", or a "code", or even a "statement of intent". They will be used as rules, and if they aren't, then what is the point of writing them?
inglor_cz 5y ago
The very core of the problem is that impact of anything on human minds is, in fact, not objectively measurable. Even formalized attempts to do this - e.g. psychology - suffer from a major replication crisis. In that scenario, the situation degenerates into "he said - she said". Traditional response was "in dubio pro reo" = "in doubt, let the accused go free". But modern woke movements generally hollow out this principle and replace it by "believe the marginalized / weaker / oppressed side" and "be strict and hostile against the privileged side", as defined by the contemporary academic ladder of oppression. This leads to a very paranoid society and I think it will take at most 10-20 years to reverse again, as bad cases start to heap. One of the universal qualities of humanity is that we can all be manipulative dicks, regardless of gender, color and creed, and once you shift the balance of power to the accuser, you will empower manipulative people across the board. And they are perfectly able to poison the common well for everyone. Edit: 2 downvotes within 20 seconds and zero attempt at rebuttal.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Really developing backwards on all accounts. This is a purity spiral. If you allow it to infect your community, you can be sure it will at some point consist of toxic people that feel slighted on every opportunity they can get. This is exactly why many people were not really open to COCs because this is an eternal battleground with creeping behavior expectations because of some unsolved personal problems.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tlogan 5y ago
Exactly. The moderators need to be better. A reasonable moderator should flag a joke as this as not appropriate in professional conversation without any CoC changes: # Maybe this has been written for women, having calculated their age ;) When they say “there will be no jokes”: a joke told by professionals in professional setting might have different meaning than originally intended.
ghostoftiber 5y ago
You beat me to it - I saw the updated CoC this morning and wrote https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/issues/2694 https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/issues/2694 My thoughts follow yours entirely - the author is tweaked about the failure of the moderators and twitter is not a place for commentary on a pull request. (There's a certain irony here to the author of the PR complaining about the difference between the intent and impact of a statement and then... completely missing the point of why their PR is meaningless).
flandish 5y ago
> A sexist joke ...against a protected class. All others are allowed, apparently?
Xevi 5y ago
What is a protected class? I don't understand why harassment would be fine against some, but not others. That sound like the very thing that a CoC is meant to prevent.

zkldi 5y ago

Yeah - no longer assuming good intentions is a weird thing to change. I guess it makes it easier to claim bad intentions?

mannykannot 5y ago
Having a position of always assuming good intentions can be gamed by people with bad intentions.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  It also is an issue for all others. FX I don’t know if it is appropriate to say “you guys” to a mixed crowd anymore, but if I hadn’t seen that some people get upset about that I wouldn’t think twice about it and just emulated American movies. Buffy isn’t exactly sexist and she says it often and to a mixed crowd.
  - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
    At least in English you have the neutral word "they". In french you only have the plural of "he" or "she". This means that when you point to a mixed crowd, you must choose which of the plurals you use. The grammatical rule is that one male flips the plural gender to male. If you do not know the sexes, the plural is male. As a French, the construction comes naturally because we've been taught that at school since kindergarten. This always sounded a bit weird, though. I do not approve some "grammatical inclusivity" horrors that are being invented from time to time, but some innovative-but-not-distruptive changes would be welcome.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      >As a French, the construction comes naturally because we've been taught that at school since kindergarten. This always sounded a bit weird, though. If you follow the grammatical history of French, the neutral gender just got folded into masculine. >but some innovative-but-not-distruptive changes would be welcome You can't really produce grammar by decree, at best you can systematize what already exists. The only "sane" way to have explicit neutral in French would be to go back in time, reimplement declensions and possibly mangle phonology in the process. That won't happen. All forms of "inclusive writing" are from the outset destined and meant to be an elitist signal rather than an actual linguistic feature. They won't survive and they'll been seen in the future as a strange, idiosyncratic trend of the age. A bit like Renaissance orthography, where countless letters were added without meaning to simply look fancier.
      - eloisant 5y ago
        > If you follow the grammatical history of French, the neutral gender just got folded into masculine. This is not just grammatical history, this is the current grammar rules. However some people are trying to force a change of the rule by making up new words and rules, such as "iels" instead of "ils/elles".
      - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
        Like I said, I do not approve of the horrible ideas we have, with dots everywhere - this transforms words that are fine as they are. I am for simplification, though (nothing to do with the current topic, just a thought). What I am missing are the concepts young people are bringing in more and more, where they have words that become unisex (potes for instance). I listen to my children and (without any scientific analysis), it sounds to me that there is less of a boy/girl cut that there was in my times (this may be regional - this is for west of Paris). And I agree with you that only naturally appearing changes will stay, not the ones forced on us. A typical example are the surrealist ideas of the 90's to have French equivalents for everything computer. Some stayed, the majority is now part of comedies.
- Rd6n6 5y ago
  Do you really not see that the opposite is also true? Having a position where good intentions are not assumed can be gamed far more easily by people with bad intentions
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    Do you really not see that either extreme is more exploitable and less resilient than a more pragmatic middle ground? Personally, my guess is that the optimum is usually towards assuming the best, but that it shifts depending on the level of antagonism present.
eli 5y ago
It makes it easier to fight trolls who hide behind bad faith arguments.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  Ironic reply is full of irony.
- ameister14 5y ago
  Changing it enables a certain kind of flame-war where people become entrenched in thinking the other side is out to get them and actually evil. Assuming the best intentions is a good way to make sure you combat what someone is doing rather than attacking them as a person.
- dijit 5y ago
  "Did you intend to say that you dislike me because I'm gay?" is a pretty easy way to route out a troll. Sincere apology or not, you get to know. I've been moderating communities for 15 years, I've seen tricks from all manner of trolls and handling trolls with an even hand is still tricky; but being genuinely inquisitive is usually the easiest way to get around it. Even when tensions are high it makes people feel heard and understand their impact.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Direct and to the point. Do you have any other examples?
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    I wish it was that easy. Very often trolls feed on attention and love the sealioning.
  - staysafeanon 5y ago
    "I'm just highlight how fragile and deranged you are, funny how you instantly tied it to homosexuality though, must be suppressed hatred! I'm surprised your wife's boyfriend lets you post such stupid garbage."/s You don't get to know anything. Good trolls have also been trolling for 15 years, they've seen tricks from all manner of jannies... See where I'm going with that? Saying that, I do agree with you, staying inquisitive and positive with bad trolls typically tampers down their rage.
Seattle3503 5y ago
Their position is that intention doesn't matter, what matters is how an action is received.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  But this opens up an enormous hole for abuse! Somebody might be offended by just anything, if they choose to!
  - armenarmen 5y ago
    How dare you! /s
goodpoint 5y ago
It makes sense to be objective rather than assuming good intentions. Assuming good intentions enable troll to engage in endless sealioning.
gbanfalvi 5y ago
It covers the case when someone makes an inappropriate joke then defends themselves saying it was just a joke. The person being inappropriate will always hide behind their intent because they can only argue about their own role in the exchange (e.g. they can't argue that the target person/group isn't really hurt). When a conversation is derailed away from the damage caused to the intent, the harasser wins. What are you going to do? Establishing a default assumption takes that away. Always have good defaults :)
- atq2119 5y ago
  This is largely true, but there remains the issue that there are some people who, for whatever reason, almost seem to go out of their way to assume bad intent and interpret what was said or written in the worst possible way. There is probably some sad history behind many of those individuals, but reasonable people can disagree about how to deal with the situation. The current fashion implies that as soon as one such person enters the community, everybody has to start metaphorically walking on tip toes. Maybe a better outcome overall would be for the person to get therapy. Everybody has a line somewhere for what they consider "too easily offended". This is true even for the staunchest defenders of the current fashion, because even they understand implicitly that offense can be faked. So yeah, you need good defaults, but that's really a discussion about where exactly that line should be drawn. I doubt either extreme is the right answer.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Perhaps we can pair serial 'it was just a joke' with serial 'that's offensive' people in an infinite outrage loop and then go on with our lives?
- josefx 5y ago
  > It covers the case when someone makes an inappropriate joke then defends themselves saying it was just a joke. Tell them to not make these jokes here and flag their account, repeat a handful of times and kick them out if it persists despite warnings. No need to interpret intent, no ability to hide behind ignorance after several warnings. > Always have good defaults :) It is impossible to harass people if you just ban every new account under the assumption of guilt.

zozbot234 5y ago

"Protected class" means stuff like race, sex or veteran status. So if you harass a random conference-goer at a Ruby-focused event, that cannot be addressed under the CoC because you haven't evidenced harassment towards a protected class as a whole (e.g. all veterans)? How does that even make sense?

eli 5y ago
No, many other rules would still apply including “Behavior which can be reasonably considered harassment will not be tolerated.”
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jonas21 5y ago
  That's one of the rules they removed.
  - eli 5y ago
    No it isn't? It's unchanged in the linked PR.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      It was changed later.[1] [1] https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/commit/7e96640e1ca9fc74ac31e0f33d7c01692801eb66 https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/commit/7e96640e1ca...
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      "Also changed yesterday" The line about protected classes is not in addition to a general rule against harassment, or emphasizing that kind of harassment in particular, it replaced that rule. There is a separate rule against personal attacks, but is that rule supposed to take over harassment in general? That sort of makes sense in a vacuum, but then it leaves the exact meaning of the 'harassment against protected classes' rule kind of confusing. What does harassing a class mean exactly, and can you harass a non-protected class?

ronsor 5y ago

These updates have a very nebulous definition of harassment. According to the new CoC, almost anything can be considered harassment. As far as the "intent and impact" of the intentions, assuming that someone acts in bad faith is a good way to turn a misunderstanding into actual hatred. Such a result should be considered worse than having to deal with a few bad apples who try to take advantage.

andrew_ 5y ago
They're meant to further empower accusers and reduce burden of proof and remove the need for critical thinking, empathy, and nuance. Accusations equal guilt.
- gbanfalvi 5y ago
  Or maybe it just puts more responsibility on people to think "how could my intent be read?", "what impact might it have?" It's quite common to have someone express a personal opinion that they themselves don't interpret as harassment (e.g. because they don't belong to the group they're talking about, they see no issue with the way they talk or maybe they might be upset) only to be incredibly surprised and defensive when someone later calls them out.
  - jwond 5y ago
    With the way that the realm of what is socially acceptable to say has been shifting so constantly in recent years, the only way someone who is not terminally online could be sure to avoid offending someone would be to become a mind reader, or to not say anything at all. There is also the fact that in this modern social climate, victimhood has become a valuable currency. There is incentive for people take offense where none could reasonably be presumed to have been given, and to blow minor transgressions out of proportion. “When victimhood becomes currency, there are bound to be counterfeiters.“
    - gbanfalvi 5y ago
      Society changes and evolves. With it, we start recognising and understanding ever-smaller demographic groups. There was a time when making jokes at the expense of women was ok, there was a time when making fun of gays was ok, there was a time when mocking trans people was ok... now it's not. > The only way someone who is not terminally online could be sure to avoid offending someone would be to become a mind reader, or to not say anything at all It's just society developing empathy. Think most people understand that how we see other groups of people is not a fixed thing. > There is also the fact that in this modern social climate, victimhood has become a valuable currency. There is incentive for people take offense where none could reasonably be presumed to have been given, and to blow minor transgressions out of proportion. People are getting "called out" and "cancelled" more than ever, for sure. But I don't think it's necessarily victimhood. Given the original topic, it's interesting that this is how you're attributing intent. Do you feel that there might be genuine reasons for acting the way they do? Could the grievances be genuine?

setpatchaddress 5y ago

This just seems to be establishing proper boundaries? I don't know what specifically motivated this PR, but I assume something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning .

geofft 5y ago
> I don't know what specifically motivated this PR It's mentioned in passing a couple of comments in. To highlight it (because it's easy to miss): "I watched a group of people use these specific phrases to justify making sexist remarks over a communication channel that falls under these guidelines."
- morpunkee 5y ago
  Apparently this mailing list comment triggered this reaction: http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/441433 http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/...
  - seattle_spring 5y ago
    I tried really hard to follow the threading in that but I came away being completely unable to parse it, at least on mobile. What was the attempted "joke"?
    - morpunkee 5y ago
      http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/441396 http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/...
    - jrootabega 5y ago
      Guy reports a behavior where date math doesn't return the result he expected and jokes that it might have to do with how women don't like to admit when they're aging.

bawolff 5y ago

Isn't protected class an american legal term? Seems weirdly ameri-centric for a document of this nature. Not to mention that gay people weren't even a protected class in the usa until last year afaik. Not exactly a very inclusive definition. Not to mention the implication that harrasment is somehow ok against people who are not members of the protected class? I appreciate minorities get a lot of shit that others don't, but its not like bigioted assholes are the only people who harrass other people.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
Like it or not, the ameri-centric views spill around the world causing tensions and misunderstandings. In countries with practically no colored people and no history of slavery certain things seem a bit ridiculous if imposed on the whole community.
- brabel 5y ago
  Which countries do you think have no slavery in their history?
  - dym_sh 5y ago
    those re/formed within last 100 years. (and those who actively deny its existence /s)
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      You are right. It also depends if you include serfdom in slavery. In any case, just to generalize, the countries that practiced slavery were mostly those that colonized the world the most. Many of those who didn't colonize the world used serfs, like most of Eastern Europe. For these people there is no cultural association between slavery and the present. Also the proportions are different: in most countries the non-serfs were a relatively small minority. So waking up one day and reading that, say, all references to slavery are banned seems somewhat strange in other cultures.

rdiddly 5y ago

"My views on verbal abuse are summarized on [verbal abuse platform]."

traloid 5y ago

Wtf is "protected classes"? Harassement against non protected class will be tolerated? If not, why is it explicitely singled out so? What a load of commie bull...

morpunkee 5y ago
Protected class is a programming term ;)
- traloid 5y ago
  That doesnt explain any of that.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Behaviour which can be considered harassment against protected classes will not be tolerated. That's... interesting? Some of the most vitriolic flamewars I've seen on the internet were between western straight white males. I don't see the point of special casing this clause.

elihu 5y ago

Regarding the "good intentions" change, the explanation in the linked twitter thread makes sense to me: in some contexts, assuming good intentions is a way of excusing bad behavior. It's hard to agree on the exact boundary between enabling a jerk and making an issue out of nothing. But the old "assume good intentions" policy does sound to me uncomfortably similar to "if you're offended it's your own fault". Which is generally how people treat victims of harassment in communities where that sort of harassment is tolerated.

scotty79 5y ago
I don't know. Assuming good intentions is an advice for you, so you don't get offended. And assuming good intentions doesn't justify the impact. Even if you assume good intentions of a driver, if he drove badly and did some damage he is still responsible for the damage. Assuming hus good intentions doesn't change anything. Skill, following the rules and effect are what matters when it comes to judging.
raxxorrax 5y ago
That is misunderstanding of the principle. Of course you still need to use your head. For a community to be welcoming for people that aren't too extroverted, not fitting anyone on that mailing list really, your approach is very counter productive if you really want to empower voices that normally don't speak up. It is also required for completely dry technical discussions. I am not sure I would want that in open source communities though, but that is certainly a preference.
_-david-_ 5y ago
Next time you get in a car accident maybe the police should throw you in jail for wilful destruction of property. It doesn't matter if you did not intend to damage the other car since intentions don't matter. You did the crime you should do the time.

type0 5y ago

Protected class if definition even exist can mean completely different things. Saying that US definition is the only one that matters is unwelcoming to people from other countries. edit: non just unwelcoming, it can be considered discriminating

hiisukun 5y ago

In Australian law, and I'd imagine generally in many other countries, intent is a big part of judging a wrong. But of course, it's possible to cause harm without intending to, so there are other things to consider. Common phrases are 'reckless disregard', 'willfully ignorant', 'negligent' or sometimes 'lack of consideration' (which is different to intent). Obviously it isn't a binary situation with either intent or impact being the sole arbiter - so the baseline used in almost all situations is the 'ordinary' or 'objective' standards. These can vary depending on the environment and context, and are simply defined because they are hard to define across all scenarios. I guess I find it surprising that a code of conduct like this should sway between intent and impact in quite so binary a fashion -- human behaviour isn't software.

MadeThisToReply 5y ago
> intent is a big part of judging a wrong As well as being a bedrock principle of the law, it's also basic common sense. If I accidentally step on your toe, that's obviously different to me deliberately stamping on your toe in an intentional attempt to injure you. If you set out to deliberately injure your colleagues then this is OBVIOUSLY different from doing the same thing accidentally and should be treated differently - and anyone with a working brain can see this. The idea that "intent doesn't matter" is preposterous. Accepting it as a premise leads to insane and preposterous conclusions that no-one believes. People who say that "intent doesn't matter" don't actually believe it.
- brabel 5y ago
  People do believe it, because thinking that intent matters makes it impossible to defend their other position: that the most important thing is how the "offense" is received. If intent matters (as you say, anyone with half a brain knows it does), then if you receive my comment as being offensive, I am still right because I didn't mean to offend you. What they want is to make sure they can tell me I'm wrong anyway because the person was offended... hence, my intention didn't matter.
  - ungamed 5y ago

tmmx 5y ago

Also, now mods don't have to tolerate opposing views. :)

mantas 5y ago
Now the big question is if mods are a part of the protected class or not :)

david38 5y ago

So if a woman accused a while man of having “small hands” for having some opinion, that’s not sexual harassment because white men are not a protected class?

occamrazor 5y ago
White men, identified by race and sex, are legally a protected class. People with small hands are not, unless the smallness of their hands is considered a disability.
- gwagon 5y ago
  We've got a lot of lawsuits on our hands then.
- OJFord 5y ago
  This is correct, assuming US 'protected class' works broadly the same as UK 'protected characteristic'. I don't know why this comment is being objected to? It's about discrimination on the basis of the value of someone's <characteristic>, not that particular values ('white', or 'female', etc.) are held in some special regard. The obvious example is hiring: you can (should) hire white people, black people, men, women, and so on. You can't (legally) hire someone because of one of those traits, or allow it influence your judgement. (It's why I find quotas/diversity reporting a bit troubling - it sort of assumes an equal outcome, or something close to it, is a natural state, since you can't say 'hire more women' if you find that's what's lacking; you can only try to remove existing (illegal! conscious or not) bias in the other direction. But what if the lacking group didn't have equal opportunity, so on merit they really weren't the best hires? - I know, that old argument - point is, if that's the case, hiring for an equal outcome, so-called 'affirmative/positive action' is actually illegal.) (IANAL but I have to assume there are exceptions where an otherwise protected characteristic is actually required due to the nature of the work. The police need a certain number of women, (and men, but that's the problem side) diversity aside. Primary schools presumably have the opposite problem.)
- projektfu 5y ago
  It's true. Protected classes are people of a certain race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc. For example, an airline in the US that wanted to hire only female flight attendants would likely face a lawsuit from male candidates.

mpfundstein 5y ago

i am so done with OSS communities.

BoHerfVJrEsq 5y ago
Understandable reaction, but too broad. Like a lot of other areas of the culture war, there's a big faction you'd agree with. I'll never have a CoC on any project I work on. I consider protecting my projects from wokeism the same as protecting them from cancer, and I'm not the only one who thinks like that.

undecisive 5y ago

One of my many misgivings about CoCs is their over-reliance on the unenforcable. This is an excellent example - because the original said exactly what needed to be said, but it wasn't being interpreted correctly. Instead of improving the wording, and saying something like "participants should always assume good intentions. However, intention does not make a person's actions immune from criticism, and while assuming good intentions we will kindly encourage each other toward a higher standard of behaviour." ... they instead have chosen to weaken the specificity and balance of the CoC. Throughout the discussion, and on the twitter thread, the overriding message is: Triggering the hurt of a protected party is always punishable. And it's a sad viewpoint, because it becomes not "Matz is nice and so we are nice", it becomes "We are nice to avoid the ire of a protected party"

MadeThisToReply 5y ago
> to weaken the specificity and balance of the CoC. This is a feature, not a bug. When the rules are clear and specific, they can be enforced fairly. When they're vague and unclear, then the only consistent principle is that the people who "enforce" the "rules" can do whatever they want and you have no recourse or due process.
- basilgohar 5y ago
  I don't know why you've been downvoted, but anyone that has seen how laws have been selectively enforced since whenever should be able to easily see how this is the case as well. It's the "everyone is guilty of breaking some law" principle, but applied to what is currently considered fashionable good behavior. It's a different kind of slippery slope and we'll know it when the wrong kind of people get into positions where they can enforce these to suit their needs rather than protecting marginalized communities. But speaking out against that will be seen as the same thing as an attack on marginalized, so most folks will either be quiet or move on, and these power-hungry folks will get to keep their fiefdoms.
  - undecisive 5y ago
    I absolutely agree about both the impetus and the danger of this currently prevailing viewpoint. I will speak to the motivation however, because I'm a reconcillatory kind of person most of the time, and unlike this CoC I do believe intent is important. I believe that the intent behind those adopting these documents is protection and general social good, and I believe their adoption is very very bad because those adopting them are blindsided. Because the people writing them are not lawyers, and are not expecting them to be used as laws to be enforced, but as "good feeling reinforcers". Effectively, corporate virtue signalling (and, in some cases probably also personal virtue signalling - with all the negative connotations that brings). The fact is, when you introduce a set of rules, you have to expect those rules to be interpreted by people with some extreme biases, and ensure that the wording produces a fair outcome regardless. It doesn't matter whether you call these rules "guidelines", or a "code", or even a "statement of intent". They will be used as rules, and if they aren't, then what is the point of writing them?

inglor_cz 5y ago

The very core of the problem is that impact of anything on human minds is, in fact, not objectively measurable. Even formalized attempts to do this - e.g. psychology - suffer from a major replication crisis. In that scenario, the situation degenerates into "he said - she said". Traditional response was "in dubio pro reo" = "in doubt, let the accused go free". But modern woke movements generally hollow out this principle and replace it by "believe the marginalized / weaker / oppressed side" and "be strict and hostile against the privileged side", as defined by the contemporary academic ladder of oppression. This leads to a very paranoid society and I think it will take at most 10-20 years to reverse again, as bad cases start to heap. One of the universal qualities of humanity is that we can all be manipulative dicks, regardless of gender, color and creed, and once you shift the balance of power to the accuser, you will empower manipulative people across the board. And they are perfectly able to poison the common well for everyone. Edit: 2 downvotes within 20 seconds and zero attempt at rebuttal.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Really developing backwards on all accounts. This is a purity spiral. If you allow it to infect your community, you can be sure it will at some point consist of toxic people that feel slighted on every opportunity they can get. This is exactly why many people were not really open to COCs because this is an eternal battleground with creeping behavior expectations because of some unsolved personal problems.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tlogan 5y ago

Exactly. The moderators need to be better. A reasonable moderator should flag a joke as this as not appropriate in professional conversation without any CoC changes: # Maybe this has been written for women, having calculated their age ;) When they say “there will be no jokes”: a joke told by professionals in professional setting might have different meaning than originally intended.

ghostoftiber 5y ago

You beat me to it - I saw the updated CoC this morning and wrote https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/issues/2694 https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/issues/2694 My thoughts follow yours entirely - the author is tweaked about the failure of the moderators and twitter is not a place for commentary on a pull request. (There's a certain irony here to the author of the PR complaining about the difference between the intent and impact of a statement and then... completely missing the point of why their PR is meaningless).

flandish 5y ago

> A sexist joke ...against a protected class. All others are allowed, apparently?

Xevi 5y ago

What is a protected class? I don't understand why harassment would be fine against some, but not others. That sound like the very thing that a CoC is meant to prevent.