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I'm amazed that an online group whose focus is to talk about a programming language thinks about adopting a code of conduct... I would have thought trying to ke

by bsaul 11y ago

I'm amazed that an online group whose focus is to talk about a programming language thinks about adopting a code of conduct... I would have thought trying to keep the discussions about the programming language itself would be enough. Is it some kind of american / californian extreme sensitivity to heated debates or has there been a recent invasion of trolls i'm unaware of ?

enneff 11y ago
You'd hope so, but people are pretty bad at being civil on the Internet, in general.
scrollaway 11y ago
Both. American culture has created an image of "harrassment and discrimination" very specific to the US, so a lot of people tend to see it where there is none, and be blind to actual instances of it (The hilarious/sad debate on "discrimination" in the most recent Witcher game comes to mind. Feel free to google it, I will not fuel that fire). That said, online communities tend to very easily turn elitism into hostility, and hostility into hatefulness. Incredibly toxic. I'm not sure how a code of conduct helps - if you have to spell out to people that they shouldn't be hateful, there's a bigger problem at stake, and the code of conduct is just here to protect the community from wrongdoing, not hostile behaviour. But hey, it can't actually hurt to have one, so why not. I hope it helps, the cynic in me just doubts it will. Edit: I see any post discussing the nature of the CoC and not blindly saying "this is awesome! woohoo!" is getting downvoted quite heavily. That's pretty sad, and a great way to encourage people never to speak against the majority (in this case, there is a majority of americans on HN online at this hour). Think about that, for a moment.
coldtea 11y ago
>Is it some kind of american / californian extreme sensitivity to heated debates Yes, this pretty much nails it.
sanxiyn 11y ago
> I would have thought trying to keep the discussions about the programming language itself would be enough. This is actually quite tricky. Policing off-topic in IRC channel is harder than policing abuses. For a concrete example, Go discussion is often tolerated in #rust IRC channel and I think it should be, but "boobs or gtfo" should not be tolerated. I was actually in the channel when "boobs or gtfo" incident happened, and it was one of reasons for Rust to adopt a code of conduct.

by bsaul 11y ago

enneff 11y ago

You'd hope so, but people are pretty bad at being civil on the Internet, in general.

scrollaway 11y ago

Both. American culture has created an image of "harrassment and discrimination" very specific to the US, so a lot of people tend to see it where there is none, and be blind to actual instances of it (The hilarious/sad debate on "discrimination" in the most recent Witcher game comes to mind. Feel free to google it, I will not fuel that fire). That said, online communities tend to very easily turn elitism into hostility, and hostility into hatefulness. Incredibly toxic. I'm not sure how a code of conduct helps - if you have to spell out to people that they shouldn't be hateful, there's a bigger problem at stake, and the code of conduct is just here to protect the community from wrongdoing, not hostile behaviour. But hey, it can't actually hurt to have one, so why not. I hope it helps, the cynic in me just doubts it will. Edit: I see any post discussing the nature of the CoC and not blindly saying "this is awesome! woohoo!" is getting downvoted quite heavily. That's pretty sad, and a great way to encourage people never to speak against the majority (in this case, there is a majority of americans on HN online at this hour). Think about that, for a moment.

coldtea 11y ago

>Is it some kind of american / californian extreme sensitivity to heated debates Yes, this pretty much nails it.

sanxiyn 11y ago

> I would have thought trying to keep the discussions about the programming language itself would be enough. This is actually quite tricky. Policing off-topic in IRC channel is harder than policing abuses. For a concrete example, Go discussion is often tolerated in #rust IRC channel and I think it should be, but "boobs or gtfo" should not be tolerated. I was actually in the channel when "boobs or gtfo" incident happened, and it was one of reasons for Rust to adopt a code of conduct.