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I see a lot of people here forgetting a real case of CoC abuse. There was this famous Drupal dev that wrote a transcript of a fetish wedding on his fetish soci

I see a lot of people here forgetting a real case of CoC abuse. There was this famous Drupal dev that wrote a transcript of a fetish wedding on his fetish social media profile. An enemy of his on Drupal quoted that transcript and used it as examples the Dev should be punished. Drupal, like GCC proposed rules, allow punishment of someone for something they did outside the community, and not only the guy was punished, an ex girlfriend of his was harassed by "helpful" people.

classified 3y ago
Humans are resourceful and able to abuse or weaponize anything and everything. That alone doesn't make it a bad idea.
mc32 3y ago
The problem is these CoCs ceasing being guidance and become all-consuming forces unto themselves who become the reason for existence rather than the organization being the reason for existence. The whole things throws things upside down but it's due to how easy it is to manipulate politically as opposed to being productive and contributing to the organization --why do the hard work to get an apartment when you can rat out your neighbor for listening to the VoA?
practice9 3y ago
> Drupal, like GCC proposed rules, allow punishment of someone for something they did outside the community, and not only the guy was punished, an ex girlfriend of his was harassed by "helpful" people Oh wow. I was undecided about the helpfulness of CoC as sometimes people in the project can become hostile, unstable or passive-aggressive. But this case is very bad. Seems like CoC opens up ways for character assassination, effectively becoming "rules for the harassment of the outgroup".
- commandlinefan 3y ago
  > CoC opens up ways for character assassination Has it ever been used in any other way?
  - LexiMax 3y ago
    Are you asking if a set of rules used to outline acceptable conduct in project participation has ever been enforced in good faith? Because they have, and I guarantee you that you've been aware of such enforcement actions in the past.
    - Aerroon 3y ago
      But do you need a code of conduct to do that though?
    - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
      I think it's a good case of visibility; nobody hears about the justified enforcement of a code of conduct, but the odd cases (like the Drupal dev, or Donglegate, or what have you) get tons of media attention and are used as references as to why codes of conduct are a bad thing.
      - LexiMax 3y ago
        Exactly. I don't keep a mental checklist in my head of every time someone has ever gotten kicked out of a project's social spaces for being a jerk, it's just a thing that happens and everybody moves on with their life. And it's not like I don't understand the baseline fear of bad-faith actors - I've been on the receiving end of a few myself, as have most of us. However, those fears never really led anywhere productive. What _was_ productive was going off on my own and building new things with people I actually enjoyed being around.
    - klipt 3y ago
      Maybe some are written better. GCC's says "no racism" which can be interpreted as allowing hatred of white people because under some academic definitions it's impossible to be racist against white people. Compare federal law which says "no racial discrimination" which clearly applies equally to all races. The federal law is written better.
- jeffBM 3y ago
  It is not something that automatically comes with a COC, they explicitly state it in theirs: "In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them."
  - godshatter 3y ago
    That's a big nope from me. The scope of the CoC should not extend beyond interactions in the confines of their project otherwise you get people digging up something people said when they were 12 or making value judgements based on their public lifestyle and trying to get them removed because of it. Pretty much the opposite of "inclusive".
    - ratmice 3y ago
      As a counterpoint, restricting the scope of the CoC to the confines of the project allows people to harass others directly, via DM's, email, etc with impunity. I am at least relieved by may in "violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them." Which leaves open the interpretation of outside violations by whomever is adjudicating it so as not necessarily to apply to all instances of unwelcoming doormats which may be present on contributors homes. As such I feel like the wording on external interactions is pretty reasonable if interpreted in good faith.
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      Then you get the ongoing debate in the C++ community about whether it's appropriate for someone with a criminal record of sexual abuse to have a trusted role at in person events.
      - mikecoles 3y ago
        It's never appropriate to trust someone confirmed to have sexually abused another. There's no debate.
        iudqnolq 3y ago
- redeeman 3y ago
  i would also recommend you research who came up with and popularized the CoC that everyone uses, and what comments this person had about what would happen when popular projects adopt it. I wont tell you, as I dont want to be accused of putting words in anyones mouth, this will probably be downvoted, but go look it up yourself if you care. In general i'd say, it doesnt matter who brings information, only what the information is, given how extremely objectively poor the standard CoC is, I think it bears consideration here.
  - logicprog 3y ago
    After a brief Google search, I think you're referring to Coraline Ada Ehmke, but I can't find anything problematic about her, what she's said, or her goals — unless you're referring to the fact that she's transgender and cares about social justice. Is that why you're being deliberately vague? Would you mind elaborating instead of vagueposting? What are your specific concerns? What is "extremely objectively poor" about the standard CoC?
    - redeeman 3y ago
      i couldnt possibly care that anyone is transgender or not, but i find the contributor covenant to be a ridiculous document, that feels the need to point out a whole slew of shit that you cant discriminate against. How about just say "cant discriminate" ? or perhaps "cant discriminate against anything non-technical" ? why do I need to read a long list of peoples ailments and problems in life? why does it have to be so complicated?
      - dgfitz 3y ago
        It doesn’t. At some point this pendulum has to swing back.
    - throw_m239339 3y ago
      > but I can't find anything problematic about her, They were literally _FIRED_ from Github because of a "problem" with a female coworker, allegedly. Github was like the "wokest" startup at that time, with diversity officers and what not before everybody else, after the sex harassment scandal... One can be oppressed because of their characteristic while still being oppressive toward others. edit: changed the wording.
- rendaw 3y ago
  If a project has toxic people in it, will a CoC make them into pleasant people? Will they drop all those people from the project after they adopt the CoC? What if it's the leadership that's toxic? If the leadership on the project wasn't toxic, why didn't they drop the toxic people earlier? What about a CoC helps them do it now?
unconed 3y ago
And not only that: when the committee for enforcing the CoC decided the CoC wasn't actually violated, the entire witch hunt continued with more and more made up reasons why this person was bad and deserved to be punished. This included the project lead writing blog posts and then silently editing them afterwards. It was never about the rules, only about creating a body of people with the aurhority to act like total cunts in the name of civility. That's what they get off on. If CoC sound like a nice idea to you... remember, we had waaaay less drama in open source before the people who want CoCs showed up. Instead of just 1 angry mail on a mailing list you can ignore, now there is weeks of drama as reputations are destroyed, communities are split, and the press gets involved to feed off the carcass. Once you understand this dynamic, you see it for what it is: the petty feuds of small minded people, who claim to love open source but cannot stand the fact that anyone really is welcome.
- bsimpson 3y ago
  "We welcome everyone, except the people we don't welcome."
  - brookst 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - hajile 3y ago
      This is decidedly NOT the paradox of tolerance because they refuse to tolerate anyone they disagree with -- even those who would tolerate them.
- Verdex 3y ago
  “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C. S. Lewis
hospitalJail 3y ago
Back when I had my public account, I posted a link to my work. Someone found my personal twitter, went back a few years, and saw I made a joke about obesity. The entire thread flipped on me. Since I've been hyperconscious to separate the work people accomplish from the organic thing that did the work. If not for that event, I'd still be using that account and I'd be critical of people who do 'bad' stuff on their off-time.
that_guy_iain 3y ago
I remember that. It was a massive shitshow from all sides in my opinion. So Larry was into BDSM, that basically made women slaves. He was into the whole community thing and went to a wedding that was in the community. He gave a speech. he shared his speech. Larry's enemy used that as a weapon. But Larry's girlfriend was/is mentally challenged - I dunno what exactly but there were some issues on the mental side of things that she needed help with. (Not meant to be nasty, I dunno how else to put it in a better way) Larry said he talked to the therapist/doctor/whatever who looked after his girlfriend and explained their kink to make sure they were ok with it and she wasn't being taken advantage of. This was a big deal to the people who didn't like Larry and they kept banging on about how he was taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. Larry took her to a drupal conference thing. She wrote some code that went to Drupal's code base and those commits were attributed to Larry. There was an implication that she was forced and enslaved to write code for Drupal. Larry's enemy as far as I know actually broke the code of conduct and I believe was banned. Larry as far as I know while didn't do anything against the code of conduct was stopped from being allowed to contribute to conferences and various other things and basically stripped of his position within the Drupal Community and he was reasonably well respected within the PHP and Drupal community however he wasn't banned like the other person and remained in the community. He is still active there with his last post being 2 days ago.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  BDSM doesn't "make women slaves". Either women or men can choose to take submissive roles, and that is their free choice among practitioners. Likewise, either women or men can choose dominance (in fact it is popular for a dominatrix to be paid for her services.) The BDSM community (not merely people who have a fetish) is very careful about safety and respect for others. There are safewords and failsafes and safety checks at every stage of the scene. I think it is dismissive and close-minded to say that such a community "makes women slaves"; it shows that you are an outsider and that you know nothing of their customs, morals, or attitudes.
  - that_guy_iain 3y ago
    > BDSM doesn't "make women slaves". This specific BDSM-fetish did. That was part of the kink and the ideology behind it.
phpisthebest 3y ago
In most instances it is not the rules that are the problem, it is the people enforcing the rules that is the problem Power Corrupts, and any time you give a group of humans power over another group of humans they will abuse that power. EVERY TIME. No human can resist, and it an immutable law of psychology. Power Corrupts and will be abused. CoC's formalize this power, and result of which is inevitable
- numbsafari 3y ago
  > In most instances it is not the rules that are the problem, it is the people enforcing the rules that is the problem This is the key to any group organized by the Rule of Law. Having the rules written down, in theory, means that everyone knows what the boundaries of their liberty happens to be, and they are free to behave without constantly asking for permission. That's the theory. The reality is that sometimes that "laws" are poorly written for that purpose, and sometimes the way the group enforces those "laws" fails rise to the aspirations. I think a CoC for a larger project is helpful for not only advertising the norms of the group, but creating an an opportunity to avoid arbitrary enforcement. Unfortunately, a lot of those CoC are simply copy and pasted from other groups without the adopting group really understanding what they are adopting, and there's an absence of a "jury of your peers" and instead you are always "tried" by (often) self-selected judges who are mostly there for the thrill of being an enforcer. So, it's like half-assed Rule of Law and you get half-assed results. But it's a step in the right direction.
  - j16sdiz 3y ago
    Most CoC, unlike law, only list some general idea / ideology... In this specific CoC GCC use, "Be friendly" / "Be respectful" can be _very_ subjective.. This is super flexible and open to abuse.
    - numbsafari 3y ago
      The problem is that there's a committee that largely operates in the dark. Instead, the committee should be limited to gathering the information and, if any action is to be taken, it should ultimately be decided by a "jury of one's peers"--eg a group of non-committee members of the project selected at random. You'd probably have the project leadership operate in some capacity as a "judge". I mean... there's a reason this stuff exists in the "real world". It's amazing that folks just throw all that out and try and start over from scratch, rather than actually, I dunno, trying to learn from what's already been tried. But then, we're software engineers, so... I guess that says it all.
kstrauser 3y ago
> Drupal, like GCC proposed rules, allow punishment of someone for something they did outside the community I mean, of course it should. I’m not talking about the Drupal case because I don’t know the particulars, and it sounds complicated to say the least. But imagine a very plausible case where someone fills their social media with slurs against how a particular race is dumb and lazy, then works on a software project with people of that race. It’s reasonable to expect that maybe they’re going to be a jerk to those members, ignore their suggestions, slow roll their merge requests, etc. It’s also reasonable to expect that those other members are going to seethe every time they see the jerk’s name cross their screen. “Oh, he’s only a racist on social media” doesn’t pass muster.
arp242 3y ago
I got hit with a "code of conduct violation" once for, in a social chat space with many people, saying that I thought "homeopathy is a load of bullshit", or something to that effect. It was worded rather sharply and I apologized; probably shouldn't have put it like that. I'm not the "internet atheist" type of person who enjoys challenging other people's beliefs in an attempt to come off as "smarter" or "more rational", but ... it is a load of bullshit innit? I'm not vehemently against code of conducts; I rarely even notice if there's a CoC and I feel the overall goals are fine. But it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. No, we shouldn't go around trumping on other people's beliefs and be respectful of them, even when you personally think it's a load of bollocks, but at the same time making any challenge outright forbidden also doesn't quite sit well with me. It's also my belief that pseudoscientific quack medicine is harmful, so, you know...
- Anthony-G 3y ago
  Calling homeopathy bullshit is a kind way to put it, given the potential harm it could cause if people choose it over evidence-based medicine. I like the Mitchell and Web take on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLoMGb5CaXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLoMGb5CaXE
  - arp242 3y ago
    Clearly we're in agreeance about this, but you don't need to say everything you think. "Homeopathy is bullshit" might be true, but it's not going to convince anyone so in that sense it's a pointless statement. I was wrong to put it like that in a public space with about a 100 people. I do think it's a topic that should be discussable, in reasonably polite and respectful ways, and my main gripe was that any criticism had essentially been declared forbidden.
teh64 3y ago
How would this have been impossible without a CoC?

classified 3y ago

Humans are resourceful and able to abuse or weaponize anything and everything. That alone doesn't make it a bad idea.

mc32 3y ago

The problem is these CoCs ceasing being guidance and become all-consuming forces unto themselves who become the reason for existence rather than the organization being the reason for existence. The whole things throws things upside down but it's due to how easy it is to manipulate politically as opposed to being productive and contributing to the organization --why do the hard work to get an apartment when you can rat out your neighbor for listening to the VoA?

practice9 3y ago

> Drupal, like GCC proposed rules, allow punishment of someone for something they did outside the community, and not only the guy was punished, an ex girlfriend of his was harassed by "helpful" people Oh wow. I was undecided about the helpfulness of CoC as sometimes people in the project can become hostile, unstable or passive-aggressive. But this case is very bad. Seems like CoC opens up ways for character assassination, effectively becoming "rules for the harassment of the outgroup".

commandlinefan 3y ago
> CoC opens up ways for character assassination Has it ever been used in any other way?
- LexiMax 3y ago
  Are you asking if a set of rules used to outline acceptable conduct in project participation has ever been enforced in good faith? Because they have, and I guarantee you that you've been aware of such enforcement actions in the past.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    But do you need a code of conduct to do that though?
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    I think it's a good case of visibility; nobody hears about the justified enforcement of a code of conduct, but the odd cases (like the Drupal dev, or Donglegate, or what have you) get tons of media attention and are used as references as to why codes of conduct are a bad thing.
    - LexiMax 3y ago
      Exactly. I don't keep a mental checklist in my head of every time someone has ever gotten kicked out of a project's social spaces for being a jerk, it's just a thing that happens and everybody moves on with their life. And it's not like I don't understand the baseline fear of bad-faith actors - I've been on the receiving end of a few myself, as have most of us. However, those fears never really led anywhere productive. What _was_ productive was going off on my own and building new things with people I actually enjoyed being around.
  - klipt 3y ago
    Maybe some are written better. GCC's says "no racism" which can be interpreted as allowing hatred of white people because under some academic definitions it's impossible to be racist against white people. Compare federal law which says "no racial discrimination" which clearly applies equally to all races. The federal law is written better.
jeffBM 3y ago
It is not something that automatically comes with a COC, they explicitly state it in theirs: "In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them."
- godshatter 3y ago
  That's a big nope from me. The scope of the CoC should not extend beyond interactions in the confines of their project otherwise you get people digging up something people said when they were 12 or making value judgements based on their public lifestyle and trying to get them removed because of it. Pretty much the opposite of "inclusive".
  - ratmice 3y ago
    As a counterpoint, restricting the scope of the CoC to the confines of the project allows people to harass others directly, via DM's, email, etc with impunity. I am at least relieved by may in "violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them." Which leaves open the interpretation of outside violations by whomever is adjudicating it so as not necessarily to apply to all instances of unwelcoming doormats which may be present on contributors homes. As such I feel like the wording on external interactions is pretty reasonable if interpreted in good faith.
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    Then you get the ongoing debate in the C++ community about whether it's appropriate for someone with a criminal record of sexual abuse to have a trusted role at in person events.
    - mikecoles 3y ago
      It's never appropriate to trust someone confirmed to have sexually abused another. There's no debate.
      - iudqnolq 3y ago
redeeman 3y ago
i would also recommend you research who came up with and popularized the CoC that everyone uses, and what comments this person had about what would happen when popular projects adopt it. I wont tell you, as I dont want to be accused of putting words in anyones mouth, this will probably be downvoted, but go look it up yourself if you care. In general i'd say, it doesnt matter who brings information, only what the information is, given how extremely objectively poor the standard CoC is, I think it bears consideration here.
- logicprog 3y ago
  After a brief Google search, I think you're referring to Coraline Ada Ehmke, but I can't find anything problematic about her, what she's said, or her goals — unless you're referring to the fact that she's transgender and cares about social justice. Is that why you're being deliberately vague? Would you mind elaborating instead of vagueposting? What are your specific concerns? What is "extremely objectively poor" about the standard CoC?
  - redeeman 3y ago
    i couldnt possibly care that anyone is transgender or not, but i find the contributor covenant to be a ridiculous document, that feels the need to point out a whole slew of shit that you cant discriminate against. How about just say "cant discriminate" ? or perhaps "cant discriminate against anything non-technical" ? why do I need to read a long list of peoples ailments and problems in life? why does it have to be so complicated?
    - dgfitz 3y ago
      It doesn’t. At some point this pendulum has to swing back.
  - throw_m239339 3y ago
    > but I can't find anything problematic about her, They were literally _FIRED_ from Github because of a "problem" with a female coworker, allegedly. Github was like the "wokest" startup at that time, with diversity officers and what not before everybody else, after the sex harassment scandal... One can be oppressed because of their characteristic while still being oppressive toward others. edit: changed the wording.
rendaw 3y ago
If a project has toxic people in it, will a CoC make them into pleasant people? Will they drop all those people from the project after they adopt the CoC? What if it's the leadership that's toxic? If the leadership on the project wasn't toxic, why didn't they drop the toxic people earlier? What about a CoC helps them do it now?

unconed 3y ago

And not only that: when the committee for enforcing the CoC decided the CoC wasn't actually violated, the entire witch hunt continued with more and more made up reasons why this person was bad and deserved to be punished. This included the project lead writing blog posts and then silently editing them afterwards. It was never about the rules, only about creating a body of people with the aurhority to act like total cunts in the name of civility. That's what they get off on. If CoC sound like a nice idea to you... remember, we had waaaay less drama in open source before the people who want CoCs showed up. Instead of just 1 angry mail on a mailing list you can ignore, now there is weeks of drama as reputations are destroyed, communities are split, and the press gets involved to feed off the carcass. Once you understand this dynamic, you see it for what it is: the petty feuds of small minded people, who claim to love open source but cannot stand the fact that anyone really is welcome.

bsimpson 3y ago
"We welcome everyone, except the people we don't welcome."
- brookst 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - hajile 3y ago
    This is decidedly NOT the paradox of tolerance because they refuse to tolerate anyone they disagree with -- even those who would tolerate them.
Verdex 3y ago
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C. S. Lewis

hospitalJail 3y ago

Back when I had my public account, I posted a link to my work. Someone found my personal twitter, went back a few years, and saw I made a joke about obesity. The entire thread flipped on me. Since I've been hyperconscious to separate the work people accomplish from the organic thing that did the work. If not for that event, I'd still be using that account and I'd be critical of people who do 'bad' stuff on their off-time.

that_guy_iain 3y ago

I remember that. It was a massive shitshow from all sides in my opinion. So Larry was into BDSM, that basically made women slaves. He was into the whole community thing and went to a wedding that was in the community. He gave a speech. he shared his speech. Larry's enemy used that as a weapon. But Larry's girlfriend was/is mentally challenged - I dunno what exactly but there were some issues on the mental side of things that she needed help with. (Not meant to be nasty, I dunno how else to put it in a better way) Larry said he talked to the therapist/doctor/whatever who looked after his girlfriend and explained their kink to make sure they were ok with it and she wasn't being taken advantage of. This was a big deal to the people who didn't like Larry and they kept banging on about how he was taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. Larry took her to a drupal conference thing. She wrote some code that went to Drupal's code base and those commits were attributed to Larry. There was an implication that she was forced and enslaved to write code for Drupal. Larry's enemy as far as I know actually broke the code of conduct and I believe was banned. Larry as far as I know while didn't do anything against the code of conduct was stopped from being allowed to contribute to conferences and various other things and basically stripped of his position within the Drupal Community and he was reasonably well respected within the PHP and Drupal community however he wasn't banned like the other person and remained in the community. He is still active there with his last post being 2 days ago.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
BDSM doesn't "make women slaves". Either women or men can choose to take submissive roles, and that is their free choice among practitioners. Likewise, either women or men can choose dominance (in fact it is popular for a dominatrix to be paid for her services.) The BDSM community (not merely people who have a fetish) is very careful about safety and respect for others. There are safewords and failsafes and safety checks at every stage of the scene. I think it is dismissive and close-minded to say that such a community "makes women slaves"; it shows that you are an outsider and that you know nothing of their customs, morals, or attitudes.
- that_guy_iain 3y ago
  > BDSM doesn't "make women slaves". This specific BDSM-fetish did. That was part of the kink and the ideology behind it.

phpisthebest 3y ago

In most instances it is not the rules that are the problem, it is the people enforcing the rules that is the problem Power Corrupts, and any time you give a group of humans power over another group of humans they will abuse that power. EVERY TIME. No human can resist, and it an immutable law of psychology. Power Corrupts and will be abused. CoC's formalize this power, and result of which is inevitable

numbsafari 3y ago
> In most instances it is not the rules that are the problem, it is the people enforcing the rules that is the problem This is the key to any group organized by the Rule of Law. Having the rules written down, in theory, means that everyone knows what the boundaries of their liberty happens to be, and they are free to behave without constantly asking for permission. That's the theory. The reality is that sometimes that "laws" are poorly written for that purpose, and sometimes the way the group enforces those "laws" fails rise to the aspirations. I think a CoC for a larger project is helpful for not only advertising the norms of the group, but creating an an opportunity to avoid arbitrary enforcement. Unfortunately, a lot of those CoC are simply copy and pasted from other groups without the adopting group really understanding what they are adopting, and there's an absence of a "jury of your peers" and instead you are always "tried" by (often) self-selected judges who are mostly there for the thrill of being an enforcer. So, it's like half-assed Rule of Law and you get half-assed results. But it's a step in the right direction.
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  Most CoC, unlike law, only list some general idea / ideology... In this specific CoC GCC use, "Be friendly" / "Be respectful" can be _very_ subjective.. This is super flexible and open to abuse.
  - numbsafari 3y ago
    The problem is that there's a committee that largely operates in the dark. Instead, the committee should be limited to gathering the information and, if any action is to be taken, it should ultimately be decided by a "jury of one's peers"--eg a group of non-committee members of the project selected at random. You'd probably have the project leadership operate in some capacity as a "judge". I mean... there's a reason this stuff exists in the "real world". It's amazing that folks just throw all that out and try and start over from scratch, rather than actually, I dunno, trying to learn from what's already been tried. But then, we're software engineers, so... I guess that says it all.

kstrauser 3y ago

> Drupal, like GCC proposed rules, allow punishment of someone for something they did outside the community I mean, of course it should. I’m not talking about the Drupal case because I don’t know the particulars, and it sounds complicated to say the least. But imagine a very plausible case where someone fills their social media with slurs against how a particular race is dumb and lazy, then works on a software project with people of that race. It’s reasonable to expect that maybe they’re going to be a jerk to those members, ignore their suggestions, slow roll their merge requests, etc. It’s also reasonable to expect that those other members are going to seethe every time they see the jerk’s name cross their screen. “Oh, he’s only a racist on social media” doesn’t pass muster.

arp242 3y ago

I got hit with a "code of conduct violation" once for, in a social chat space with many people, saying that I thought "homeopathy is a load of bullshit", or something to that effect. It was worded rather sharply and I apologized; probably shouldn't have put it like that. I'm not the "internet atheist" type of person who enjoys challenging other people's beliefs in an attempt to come off as "smarter" or "more rational", but ... it is a load of bullshit innit? I'm not vehemently against code of conducts; I rarely even notice if there's a CoC and I feel the overall goals are fine. But it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. No, we shouldn't go around trumping on other people's beliefs and be respectful of them, even when you personally think it's a load of bollocks, but at the same time making any challenge outright forbidden also doesn't quite sit well with me. It's also my belief that pseudoscientific quack medicine is harmful, so, you know...

Anthony-G 3y ago
Calling homeopathy bullshit is a kind way to put it, given the potential harm it could cause if people choose it over evidence-based medicine. I like the Mitchell and Web take on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLoMGb5CaXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLoMGb5CaXE
- arp242 3y ago
  Clearly we're in agreeance about this, but you don't need to say everything you think. "Homeopathy is bullshit" might be true, but it's not going to convince anyone so in that sense it's a pointless statement. I was wrong to put it like that in a public space with about a 100 people. I do think it's a topic that should be discussable, in reasonably polite and respectful ways, and my main gripe was that any criticism had essentially been declared forbidden.

teh64 3y ago

How would this have been impossible without a CoC?