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> 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 b

> 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.
  - GauntletWizard 3y ago
    The committee proposing this CoC doesn't operate in the dark, they operate in bright light in circus tents but most people are too revulsed to look.
  - adamrezich 3y ago
    there was a time, not too long ago, when it was very obvious to everyone that the Internet and the real world were not the same thing, and it was plain as day that the inherent disparities that exist between cyberspace and meatspace (e.g., on the Internet, nobody can tell what sex/race/sexual orientation/religion/etc. you are, unless you go out of your way to tell them) should necessitate different social norms.
    - numbsafari 3y ago
      Frankly, that was always a fallacy. Who you are in "real life" very much affects who you are, and what you are capable of, and how you are impacted by what you experience on-line. Anonymity works in very limited circumstances. It quickly becomes pathological over the long-term. Sure, social norms need to adapt to the circumstances and the context, but the fundamentals of kindness, respect, integrity, and the need for communities to police themselves on some level, don't really go away. These are long-term work projects where folks are either employed or are volunteering and donating considerable amounts of time and energy. If you want that to be successful, in the long term and for increasingly many people, you need a mechanism to deal with people behaving badly, or people not understanding one another. It's ridiculous to think this is all necessary when all you want to do is write some code, but it's also ridiculous to think you should have to worry about harassment, bullying, or worse when all you want to do is write some code.
      - adamrezich 3y ago
        when I was in middle school (2004-ish?), I collaborated on a video game development project with four other dudes I met online, two of whom I became close friends with. we all knew the project leader was Australian because he told us as much, because he insisted we spell "armour" with a "u", and because of the times of day he was online. it was easy to infer that the rest of us were North American, but it wasn't until months and months of IMing back and forth that I came to learn that one of the other guys, the one whom I was closest with, was black. it just never came up in conversation, until he was explaining some personal anecdote to me in private and it was contextually appropriate. why would it? we were five dorky middle/high schoolers who enjoyed video games and learning to create them together, and we only knew each other by our handles, and, later, our given names. why would we talk about what color of skin we had? nothing could be less relevant to a bunch of kids who were eagerly doing collaborative creative work together, across the globe, through the magic of the Internet. this is not to say that one shouldn't be open with who they are in real life, when projecting themselves on the Internet, but, rather, to show that, just a couple short decades ago, it was far less popular to do this than it is now. Internet users were usernames, avatars, and forum sigs, and perhaps a personal webpage (which was highly unlikely to reveal much about one's real-life identity, either). that's all you had to go on at the base level, and then, from there, it was one's actions that influenced others' opinions of them, as opposed to anything having to do with one's real-life physical or demographic characteristics. it was so cool, man, let me tell you. it felt like being on the brink of a glorious cyber-libertarian future, where all manner of real-life bigotry could be nonexistent, because it was useless, because nobody knew anything about anyone else, because we were interacting with cyber-avatars of each other first and foremost, only getting to know the real meatspace people behind the cyber-avatar after becoming friends with them, through shared purpose and/or interest. especially after learning that this dude I was interacting with, teaching, learning from, making stuff with, for months, online, was black, it was just so exciting, because one got the feeling that perhaps this Internet thing could truly be a force of good in the world—if everyone became used to interacting with these raceless sexless ideology-less cyber-avatars on this Internet thing, then perhaps, gradually, real-world bigotry would be phased out, as it would largely be useless in this new realm of cyberspace. but then Facebook, Twitter, etc. came to be, the iPhone was released, and normies became connected to the Internet 24/7. then, as if that wasn't bad enough, the modern idea of identity politics cropped up mysteriously right around the time the #Occupy was gaining steam. then in 2013—a decade ago now—Donglegate happened, and it became clear to me that the cyber-libertarian dream of an utterly meritocratic, bigotry-free Internet, full of all kinds of weird and cool people coming together to share interests and make weird and cool stuff together and share said weird and cool stuff with the rest of the world, was most certainly long since dead.

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.
- GauntletWizard 3y ago
  The committee proposing this CoC doesn't operate in the dark, they operate in bright light in circus tents but most people are too revulsed to look.
- adamrezich 3y ago
  there was a time, not too long ago, when it was very obvious to everyone that the Internet and the real world were not the same thing, and it was plain as day that the inherent disparities that exist between cyberspace and meatspace (e.g., on the Internet, nobody can tell what sex/race/sexual orientation/religion/etc. you are, unless you go out of your way to tell them) should necessitate different social norms.
  - numbsafari 3y ago
    Frankly, that was always a fallacy. Who you are in "real life" very much affects who you are, and what you are capable of, and how you are impacted by what you experience on-line. Anonymity works in very limited circumstances. It quickly becomes pathological over the long-term. Sure, social norms need to adapt to the circumstances and the context, but the fundamentals of kindness, respect, integrity, and the need for communities to police themselves on some level, don't really go away. These are long-term work projects where folks are either employed or are volunteering and donating considerable amounts of time and energy. If you want that to be successful, in the long term and for increasingly many people, you need a mechanism to deal with people behaving badly, or people not understanding one another. It's ridiculous to think this is all necessary when all you want to do is write some code, but it's also ridiculous to think you should have to worry about harassment, bullying, or worse when all you want to do is write some code.
    - adamrezich 3y ago
      when I was in middle school (2004-ish?), I collaborated on a video game development project with four other dudes I met online, two of whom I became close friends with. we all knew the project leader was Australian because he told us as much, because he insisted we spell "armour" with a "u", and because of the times of day he was online. it was easy to infer that the rest of us were North American, but it wasn't until months and months of IMing back and forth that I came to learn that one of the other guys, the one whom I was closest with, was black. it just never came up in conversation, until he was explaining some personal anecdote to me in private and it was contextually appropriate. why would it? we were five dorky middle/high schoolers who enjoyed video games and learning to create them together, and we only knew each other by our handles, and, later, our given names. why would we talk about what color of skin we had? nothing could be less relevant to a bunch of kids who were eagerly doing collaborative creative work together, across the globe, through the magic of the Internet. this is not to say that one shouldn't be open with who they are in real life, when projecting themselves on the Internet, but, rather, to show that, just a couple short decades ago, it was far less popular to do this than it is now. Internet users were usernames, avatars, and forum sigs, and perhaps a personal webpage (which was highly unlikely to reveal much about one's real-life identity, either). that's all you had to go on at the base level, and then, from there, it was one's actions that influenced others' opinions of them, as opposed to anything having to do with one's real-life physical or demographic characteristics. it was so cool, man, let me tell you. it felt like being on the brink of a glorious cyber-libertarian future, where all manner of real-life bigotry could be nonexistent, because it was useless, because nobody knew anything about anyone else, because we were interacting with cyber-avatars of each other first and foremost, only getting to know the real meatspace people behind the cyber-avatar after becoming friends with them, through shared purpose and/or interest. especially after learning that this dude I was interacting with, teaching, learning from, making stuff with, for months, online, was black, it was just so exciting, because one got the feeling that perhaps this Internet thing could truly be a force of good in the world—if everyone became used to interacting with these raceless sexless ideology-less cyber-avatars on this Internet thing, then perhaps, gradually, real-world bigotry would be phased out, as it would largely be useless in this new realm of cyberspace. but then Facebook, Twitter, etc. came to be, the iPhone was released, and normies became connected to the Internet 24/7. then, as if that wasn't bad enough, the modern idea of identity politics cropped up mysteriously right around the time the #Occupy was gaining steam. then in 2013—a decade ago now—Donglegate happened, and it became clear to me that the cyber-libertarian dream of an utterly meritocratic, bigotry-free Internet, full of all kinds of weird and cool people coming together to share interests and make weird and cool stuff together and share said weird and cool stuff with the rest of the world, was most certainly long since dead.