I agree with you in general with your automatic skepticism with something DHH might say on this topic, but: > Normal people shouldn't take issue with the mere

I agree with you in general with your automatic skepticism with something DHH might say on this topic, but: > Normal people shouldn't take issue with the mere existence of a markdown document that basically says "don't be a dick to people because of who they are". But that's not what it says. Maybe you can in some squinty way reduce it to that, but that's not all these sorts of documents say, and that's the problem. Most CoCs are fairly specific and strict in what they say people should and shouldn't do, and some of them (like the Contributor Covenant) even includes a process for submitting complaints, and addressing those complaints. A CoC that just says -- explicitly, without a huge amount of other language -- "don't be a dick" is more or less what ESR and DHH are advocating for. The article goes into detail as to why the author believes that a long, detailed CoC is harmful, and why even if it does essentially just say "don't be a dick", that can cause lots of problems for projects.