[HN Gopher] Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open sour...
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Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
Author : jonymo
Score : 102 points
Date : 2025-09-30 07:54 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shujisado.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (shujisado.org)
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| > _DHH condemned detailed and strict CoC like the Contributor
| Covenant as a "trojan horse" that should be purged from projects.
| ESR went even further, asserting that CoC are nothing more than a
| "tool for troublemakers" and that the best course of action is to
| delete them entirely from projects._
|
| At this point, in 2025, does anybody seriously doubt that they're
| a "tool for troublemakers"? A lot of people who would otherwise
| contribute see a hyper-particular CoC, written by an HR type or
| an aspiring lawyer, and walk away. Others don't bother to read
| the CoC and may later be dragged through coals over something
| exceedingly minor, despite their contributions.
|
| In open-source, the best policy is to avoid CoCs and avoid those
| who write and promote them.
| warp wrote:
| If having a CoC keeps folks like DHH and ESR out of a
| particular project, then I think the CoC is serving a valuable
| purpose.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| So the guy who regularly writes about how brown people are
| invading his country, and the guy who thinks women in tech are
| all trying to entrap him with rape accusations... don't think
| CoCs are a good idea? Colour me surprised
| throwaway2046 wrote:
| You can address the contents of the article and the views
| expressed by the author directly without resorting to ad
| hominem.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I don't see how that is ad hominem - those are the
| expressed views of DHH and ESR, as they have repeatedly
| placed in writing, of their own free will.
|
| They are also explicitly the type of views that CoCs are
| designed to protect contributors from, hence why DHH and
| ESR would be opposed to CoCs in general.
| florkbork wrote:
| Let's restate your points a bit, but using the words "ethics"
| rather than CoC.
|
| Is publishing an ethical standpoint a "trouble making"?
| Depends, doesn't it? What if you examine the most common top
| ethical viewpoints you are aware of. For me, it's loud groups
| like say, PETA, Extinction Rebellion, etc who are fairly
| populist.
|
| Are they making trouble? Sure. But for whom? Would you
| personally do what these people are doing? Probably no. Would
| you personally do what the people they are "making trouble"
| _for_ are doing? (In my example, Animal harm, empowering
| climate change?) I am going to suggest that you would probably
| say "no, I don't want to harm things/people/etc; as I would
| probably feel bad for doing it and being personally
| responsible".
|
| If thought through like this - even if your examples of ethics
| are not what I chose - can you see the value in a strong, clear
| ethical position, even if it's to warn people? Can you see that
| it might challenge authority (trouble making), but _that is not
| a bad thing a lot of the time_?
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| > _Let 's restate your points a bit, but using the words
| "ethics" rather than CoC. Is publishing an ethical standpoint
| a "trouble making"?_
|
| Most software projects are ethically neutral and don't need a
| "standpoint." In tech, those "ethical standpoints" are often
| tacked-on by people who want to use them as a tool to
| exercise social control over other contributors, including
| project founders and visionaries. (There tends to be, in any
| given Western organization over _n_ people in size, a
| _clique_ that 's really into this.)
|
| I have no idea how CoCs are used in PETA, but obviously
| groups that have ethics as their core focus -- which includes
| religions and social welfare groups -- have long lists of
| proscriptions, policies, etc. I don't think that any of it
| _necessarily_ applies to open-source software, though. It 's
| apples to oranges.
|
| > _If thought through like this - even if your examples of
| ethics are not what I chose - can you see the value in a
| strong, clear ethical position, even if it 's to warn
| people?_
|
| Well, that's precisely my point: The CoC itself is the
| warning. It's usually bad news _in itself_ -- an exposed
| surface that 's weaponizable against contributors who give to
| the project in good faith.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I think you should understand quite how bad your examples
| are. I understand the examples you gave are given in the best
| of intentions, but this reads as pure blissful ignorance.
|
| PETA literally funded a terrorist convicted of arson.
|
| > A page from the 1995 annual tax return (form 990) of People
| for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), showing a
| $45,200 payment for the ``support committee'' of Rodney
| Coronado, a felon. Mr. Coronado was convicted of arson in
| federal court for the 1992 firebombing of a Michigan State
| University research lab.
|
| ---
|
| > Would you personally do what the people they are "making
| trouble" for are doing?
|
| Would I eat meat? Yes.
|
| Would I keep animals as pets? Yes.
|
| Do I think it's ethical for humans to use animals for
| service, _e.g._ , guide dogs for the blind? Yes.
|
| Do I think it's ethical to use animal models in medical
| research? Yes.
|
| All of these things, PETA are against.
|
| Further:
|
| - https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/animal-
| righ...
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Coronado
|
| - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg77615/html/
| C...
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Can you provide sources for these claims?
|
| > animals as pets
|
| This seems to say they are perfectly fine with pets:
| https://www.peta.org/about-peta/why-peta/pets/
|
| > guide dogs
|
| Seems to imply they are not against service animals in
| general: https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/monkeys-
| arent-pets-...
|
| Not trying to defend anyone, just looking for objective
| evidence.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > Not trying to defend anyone, just looking for objective
| evidence.
|
| Fair.
|
| ## guide dogs
|
| > [PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk] regards the use of Seeing
| Eye dogs as an abdication of human responsibility and,
| ... is wholly opposed to their use. She has had at least
| one dog taken from its owner.
|
| - https://archive.is/6IIo1
|
| ## medical testing
|
| > Medical research is immoral even it it's essential
|
| > Even If Animal Research Resulted In A Cure For AIDS,
| We'd Be Against It
|
| - https://consumerfreedom.com/press-releases/153-even-if-
| anima...
|
| ## animals as pets
|
| - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ingrid_Newkirk
|
| - https://www.naiaonline.org/articles/article/quotes-
| from-the-...
|
| ## Bonus fun story
|
| - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/17/peta-
| sorry-f...
|
| ---
|
| I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The utter
| insanity of PETA is actually very well documented, so if
| you have an evening, grab a bottle of wine and go down
| that ~rabbit~ hole.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| Personally, I assume one or more problematic activists behind
| any prominent project CoC. Some might be well-intentioned but
| unreasonable and hard to discuss with, some might be
| dangerously fanatic and a constant threat, some might be power-
| hungry manipulators giving themselves leverage, all are a
| liability for the project.
|
| Normal people shouldn't need anything more than normal morality
| and acceptable manners to be good project contributors.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| CoCs are like having faith in some prerequisite magical spell is
| first necessary to control and compel people to behave in a
| proscribed manner when, in reality, they are more like EULAs and
| Cider House Rules that (almost) no one reads. Paperwork cannot
| transform people. Perhaps their limited marginal value is
| existing to show that community is defended and there is a clear
| and thoughtful process to arbitrate and resolve conflict rather
| than falling into either extremes of absentee inaction or heavy-
| handed, summary, expedient, arbitrary expulsion.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| > Perhaps their limited marginal value is existing to show
| there is a clear and thoughtful process to arbitrate and
| resolve conflict
|
| and I have a slightly used bridge to sell.
| codeduck wrote:
| CoC are like club rules. Useless - except for when you want to
| make an example of someone.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > CoC are like club rules. Useless - except for when you want
| to make an example of someone.
|
| That, and also for selective enforcement.
| serial_dev wrote:
| The thing is that codes of conduct do not help honest actors
| "regulate" and deal with troublemakers.
|
| I used to organize meetups and I visited meetups organized by
| others who had code of conduct, and I just never understood what
| they were hoping to achieve with that.
|
| If someone behaves poorly, you can point at a document all you
| want, but it doesn't help you deal that the problematic
| individual. A document that you put in a markdown file is not
| enforceable.
|
| And we didn't even talk about how it is being misused. People
| would point to these documents to silence and shut out people
| they don't like and at the same time tolerate poor behavior that
| are clearly in violation of code of conduct by people they do
| like or whose politics or opinions they share.
|
| It is all just a charade to help you pretend that you are
| impartial.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| > And we didn't even talk about how it is being misused. People
| would point to these documents to silence and shut out people
| they don't like and at the same time tolerate poor behavior
| that are clearly in violation of code of conduct by people they
| do like or whose politics or opinions they share.
|
| Has it occurred to you that's actually exactly why they exist?
| :)
| blueflow wrote:
| I mean. Whenever a code of conduct was installed in a project
| i was passionate about, i could look up the contributor on
| twitter/fediverse and see that they are a zealot about their
| cause. Deflecting and uncompromising, very unagreeable. They
| would be the last persons to know how to make a community
| comfy.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Not surprised at the downvotes but this also matches my
| experience exactly.
|
| These people (who push for CoCs so heavily) in my
| experience tend to hypocritically attack and censor
| opinions they don't like, while not understanding why
| people won't "accept them for who they are".
|
| They are desperate to be the center of attention and love
| to play the victim.
|
| It's like the bullied becomes the bully sort of thing. They
| spend more time arguing over weaponized CoCs and
| ideological SJW politics instead of writing code. It
| doesn't help that many of them self-admittedly suffer from
| mental health problems.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| It just wasn't a very wholesome crowd. I don't have to like
| everyone, but I expect everyone to not try to ban people
| just because they have the unfavorable opinion du jours.
| Maybe write that in a COC, but it should be a premise to
| begin with.
|
| On a completely unrelated note, you very, very rarely find
| real fascists in open source software projects.
|
| And for even less favorable characters it seemed that it
| was just powerplay by some actors that wouldn't convince
| their own mother that they are the most untoxic of them
| all.
| mzhaase wrote:
| I have seen multiple CoC being installed with completely good
| intentions so no.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| Have you ever heard the saying about good intentions? And
| just because you perceive something that way doesn't mean
| that's the reality
| squigz wrote:
| Having something you can point to and say "This is why you're
| being removed" often removes some headaches. Some people will
| claim it's unjustified, moderator abuse, etc, if you don't. At
| least with some rules, there's less wiggle room. Of course,
| some people are going to respond poorly even with some rules,
| but it's also not just about the offenders - other community
| members being able to see there's some logic and reason to
| removals is good.
| serial_dev wrote:
| > often removes some headaches (...) with some rules, there's
| less wiggle room
|
| ... I understand that's the theory, but in practice, I've
| never seen it working that way.
|
| I don't see how having the CoC affects any of this. If
| someone is behaving poorly, first of all, a CoC will not
| deter them. If someone behaves so poorly that you decide you
| need to remove them, the community (the small portion of
| people who give a f) should see why you removed them, and
| again, a made-up "contract" will not be needed.
|
| It's ok to stand up for yourself and simply say (without
| pointing to a document you put in your repo when you were
| bored), that: "John Doe was behaving poorly, and I don't want
| to deal with him, I banned him, you don't need to like it,
| but it's my decision".
|
| Just my 2c... I don't want to add more procedures to my open
| source projects or voluntary organizing. I'm doing it because
| I like it, not because I want to pretend I'm at a townhall
| meeting.
| ang_cire wrote:
| > If someone is behaving poorly, first of all, a CoC will
| not deter them
|
| I think you mean, "if someone is behaving poorly, the coc
| did not deter them".
|
| The people who it did deter aren't behaving poorly.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I'm just having a hard time imagining someone who wants
| to be racist sexist xenophobe jerk to other people, but
| they saw you drafted a CoC last year in the root of your
| repository, so they won't... Or they were racist sexist
| xenophobe jerks, then you point out that "our community
| has a CoC", and they will stop.
|
| None of these things happen in real life.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Written rules aren't for the offenders, they're for the
| conflict-adverse community members who get uncomfortable
| when someone needs to be thrown out for community health
| reasons. They don't really have strong opinions
| supporting the person's behavior, but they're
| uncomfortable with the idea of people getting exiled from
| the community, so come slithering out to protest when an
| asshole is exiled for being an asshole. Since their
| primary reason for speaking up in the first place is
| discomfort with conflict, a quick "they broke the rules"
| tends defuse further argument.
| crashabr wrote:
| People have different level of tolerance to negative
| behavior. That includes both your team and your community.
| Having a clear rules allows you to
|
| 1) point both involved and uninvolved people to the code of
| conduct when you end up taking action.
|
| 2) avoid disparity of enforcement within your team
|
| 3) funnel disagreements (from both teammates or community
| members) by focusing them on the rule, rather than on a
| general debate on how should the community should be
| managed.
|
| If people commit a lot of energy to a community/project
| then for many "I didn't like this behavior, end of
| discussion" won't cut it.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > If people commit a lot of energy to a community/project
| then for many "I didn't like this behavior, end of
| discussion" won't cut it.
|
| Of course it does. If the community/project leaders are
| not aligned with your ideology, it's better to find one
| with alignment than to attempt to corner them with a
| written set of rules.
| danaris wrote:
| > If someone is behaving poorly, first of all, a CoC will
| not deter them.
|
| I'm sorry, but that's just not true.
|
| You're treating humanity as if it's divided into two
| distinct sections: Those Who Behave Well, and Those Who
| Behave Poorly.
|
| In reality, different humans have different ranges of ways
| they prefer to act, and _most_ are quite amenable to
| reasonable, clearly-stated codes of conduct for interaction
| in a particular space.
|
| There is a small subset of people who are either
| deliberately antisocial for the sake of it
| (trolls/griefers/etc), and another subset that are
| genuinely just assholes who will, if given the leeway to do
| so, cause endless problems in a community.
|
| But there are many, _many_ more who would cause friction
| with others in such a community _without_ a code of conduct
| not because they actively want to, but because their
| unstated assumptions about how people should interact clash
| with the unstated assumptions of other people there. Having
| the code of conduct lets everyone coming in in good faith
| align their expectations and avoid these unnecessary
| conflicts. They 're like a Session 0 in a TTRPG in that
| sense.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > But there are many, many more who would cause friction
| with others in such a community without a code of conduct
|
| Hard disagree... I've never seen one have this effect.
| IMO you don't need a CoC to suddenly understand what
| should already be common sense i.e. don't be a dick.
| Either they were already going to act that way, or they
| weren't.
| danaris wrote:
| > I've never seen one have this effect.
|
| How do you think you would see it?
|
| Under normal circumstances, what it would look like from
| the outside is just...someone not causing friction,
| because there is a code of conduct. Or someone causing
| friction, because there isn't one.
|
| The former looks identical to someone who would never
| have caused trouble in the first place, and the latter
| looks, if not identical, at least _very_ similar to
| someone who _would_ have caused trouble, no matter what.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| The way I see it, the people who would cause friction
| anyway won't be stopped by a CoC.
|
| And the people who wouldn't cause friction are already
| behaving so they don't need one.
|
| Another commenter (cannot find their name now but I saved
| the text) said exactly what my experience has been:
|
| > A written code of conduct can legitimize petty disputes
| based on interpretations of the text, even if the issue
| itself is something easily addressable like using the
| word "master" in a programming context. It can become a
| tool for manipulation (pushing someone out for "CoC
| violation" vs simply correcting the wording).
| danaris wrote:
| > The way I see it, the people who would cause friction
| anyway won't be stopped by a CoC.
|
| > And the people who wouldn't cause friction are already
| behaving so they don't need one.
|
| Both correct. By definition, in fact.
|
| CoCs are for _the people in the middle of those_. Who do,
| in fact, exist.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I think if someone needs to be told to be nice... it's
| time to grow up. Open source projects are not your mother
| and we shouldn't have to treat people like children, nor
| get chastised for having that (IMO very reasonable)
| stance.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Presumably the code of conduct was introduced to solve a
| problem. So I'd be interested in hearing about an example
| of a community that had problems with their social
| fabric, and then introduced a code of conduct, and then
| could demonstrate that those issues in their social
| fabric were addressed.
| squigz wrote:
| In my experience, it absolutely does help. But everyone has
| their own experiences.
|
| > should see why you removed them, and again, a made-up
| "contract" will not be needed.
|
| It's not a matter of the action being transparent, it's the
| motivations. Sometimes, it's not clear to community members
| why the action was taken, if there's no CoC or rules.
| "They're being an asshole" is a lot more subjective than
| "They were breaking the rules"
|
| > It's ok to stand up for yourself and simply say, without
| pointing to a document you just put in your repo, that:
| "John Doe was behaving poorly, and I don't want to deal
| with him, I banned him, you don't need to like it, but it's
| my decision". Just my 2c.
|
| Sure, this might work for a small community or group, but
| the fiasco with Nix seems to suggest this isn't the case at
| a certain size. Some people apparently want accountability
| and transparency from their moderators.
|
| > Just my 2c... I don't want to add more procedures to my
| open source projects or voluntary organizing. I'm doing it
| because I like it, not because I want to pretend I'm at a
| townhall meeting.
|
| Great! That's fine! Not every community needs such things.
| Some do.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| Assuming a majority of nice people, explicit rules can be
| exploited by a few assholes against their "enemies", while
| trusted human moderators only need to be kept in check with
| elections.
| hnfong wrote:
| It's never about the rules, it's always about the perceived
| authority of the moderator or the decision maker.
|
| This is very much so for small communities who don't have the
| infrastructure to litigate issues in a legalistic manner...
| but, even in areas like public law, the rules don't really
| matter, it's the perceived authority and impartiality of the
| courts that keep a legal system up and running. (think of any
| controversial Supreme Court decision -- do people really care
| what the law actually says and whether the legal reasoning is
| sound... or do they just speculate about the political
| leanings of the judges?)
|
| Since most people writing up CoCs aren't good lawyers or
| experts in drafting (and finding loopholes in) rules...
| having a smaller "attack surface" actually makes a lot of
| sense.
|
| That said, if the community is large or important enough that
| it already retains some legal advisors, then maybe yeah, make
| the rules more specific or something.
| HankStallone wrote:
| Right. I've seen a CoC used as a power-grab by people who had
| barely made any contributions to a project, when the people in
| charge were too easy-going or naive to shut down dishonest use
| of it, so they tended to side with the squeaky wheel. Once the
| bad actors got people they didn't like removed or driven away
| from the project, they just got worse, saying things like "go
| kill yourself" without consequence, because they were now in
| control and could interpret the code however they liked or just
| ignore it.
|
| You can't write a CoC that will prevent bad behavior from bad
| actors in charge, so it's worthless at best and a weapon for
| the unscrupulous at worst. What matters is who enforces
| standards of behavior, and if those people are decent and
| honest, no written code is necessary.
| throwaway9917 wrote:
| My experience with a CoC at a meetup was that one day a bunch
| of people piled on the mailing list for the meetup demanding
| that the meetup adopt a CoC. The majority of these people were
| people that either only infrequently showed up, or hadn't ever
| shown up to the meetup. The CoC they demanded had a bunch of
| social justice language. When questioned on the mailing list as
| to the events that had precipitated the demand, one person said
| they had attended a meeting and had "felt uncomfortable."
| However, the organizer of the meetup actually took attendance,
| and it turned out that the complainer had not attended that
| day. The whole thing seemed like a ploy to turn the meetup from
| people who all used the same programming language into some
| sort of social activism group. This was at the height of
| #MeToo, and it appeared that this was being weaponized to take
| over successful technical groups through sympathy for women.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I'd like to see some examples of "these code of conducts
| did good thing" before I buy into these things.
| atoav wrote:
| I play in a band. Since we're just 4 people a code of conduct
| would be ridiculous. What isn't ridiculous however is that a
| group of people who do some shit together need to be somewhat
| on the same page what is acceptable and what isn't. You don't
| need that with just friends, but any project beyond friends
| needs people to agree on what kind of social space this is
| meant to be. If you don't talk it out the shittiest person is
| going to define it for you.
|
| And beyond a certain size formalizing that makes sense. Not as
| a tool for punishment or to point to, but so everybody can be
| on the same page _and_ you know if someone acts out of line
| they do so despite better knowledge.
|
| If a code of conducts contains stuff you are within the bounds
| of anyways, why would you care it is there?
| curtisblaine wrote:
| CoCs are one of the reasons why I choose to not contribute. I
| don't enjoy the risk of someone with an axe to grind to drag me
| into some absurd GitHub comments drama and feel justified by some
| generic wording on the CoC.
| Mashimo wrote:
| But could they not do the same without a CoC?
| cybrox wrote:
| Yes, that's the point of why CoCs are essentially useless.
|
| Humans should be able to interact politely in any setting and
| if they don't, the issue needs to be settled with good old
| human interaction anyways.
| rpdillon wrote:
| This is how I feel. I treat the presence of a code of
| conduct as a sign that, particularly for small projects,
| the folks running the project don't have experience leading
| others. Always comes down to the relationship, the
| individuals involved, and the way things are communicated.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| They could, but then it's their word vs yours, not you vs
| sacred Code-of-Conduct.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > But could they not do the same without a CoC?
|
| Sure, but someone who went to the trouble to get their view
| enforced in writing is probably already a zealot I don't want
| to deal with.
|
| Depends a lot on the group size, too - a few hundred
| contributors probably needs some rules written down. A few
| dozen? Not so much.
| silisili wrote:
| Same, but for slightly different reasons. I was a big open
| source contributor of a few well known projects, but the CoC
| stuff just kinda soured me on it all.
|
| Not because I enjoy reading or writing hate speech or anything,
| but these were places that didn't tend to have any obvious
| problems with troublemakers, so it felt self congratulatory.
| And don't even get me started on the sheer amount of
| bikeshedding the discussions around it became, mostly from
| people who'd never even contributed to the project.
|
| It suddenly made me realize there were probably more productive
| and less frustrating ways to spend my time.
| trwcock wrote:
| Is programming lame enough yet that we can get away from
| everything being done by hr and get back to doing cool things
| with weird people?
| k33n wrote:
| Hopefully! And it takes every kind of weird to make it fun. You
| don't have to like or hang with everyone in a community. But
| sometimes the people you don't understand personally wind up
| being the ones you will respect the most from a skill/talent
| perspective. A strong foundation of mutual respect built up
| over time is how you create real tolerance and even change
| minds.
| thrance wrote:
| Define "weird people".
| swiftcoder wrote:
| It really depends whether "weird people" means people with
| unusual hobbies/sexualities/clothes/hair/etc, or "weird people"
| means the ones who want to keep all the first category of
| people out...
| pessimizer wrote:
| Not for people with boundaries. I've done work I was
| absolutely delighted with in both process and product with
| people whose views I detest. If you can't grow up enough to
| do that, you can't have a civilization.
|
| If I have to like you in order for us not to fight, I warn
| you that we're going to have to fight.
| squigz wrote:
| The irony of deriding CoCs while reminiscing about doing things
| with "weird people"
|
| "Weird people" being discriminated against and harassed is why
| CoCs exist.
| squigz wrote:
| It seems some people need to re-read the title and article and
| consider the words "heavy", "bureaucratic" and the like
|
| No, CoCs - or rules in general - are not inherently bad. HN has
| some, which the moderators and the community enforce well, and
| it's generally one of the best platforms on the Internet for
| intelligent discussion.
|
| Yes, heavy CoCs can be weaponized and abused, if there is little
| or no trust between the community and its leaders. But with or
| without a CoC, such a community will always be prone to such
| abuse. You think moderators need to establish a CoC to push their
| politics on people if they want? How does that even make sense?
| Why not just... do that, without a CoC?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > You think moderators need to establish a CoC to push their
| politics on people if they want? How does that even make sense?
| Why not just... do that, without a CoC?
|
| I don't think this is what generally happens, or what people
| are wary of. I think group participants [sometimes] coerce
| moderators into establishing a CoC in order to have a tool to
| reach for in service of silencing voices they regard as
| "problematic".
| squigz wrote:
| > silencing voices they regard as "problematic".
|
| I'm going to push past this extraordinarily bad faith
| framing. I'm going to assume you're referring to people who
| are made to feel uncomfortable or are harassed by other
| members of the community.
|
| So if that community doesn't have a CoC, and those members
| talk to the moderators, and the moderators take action... is
| that coercion too? Is that the moderators or those members
| pushing their political views on the community? Should the
| moderators just not do anything?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > I'm going to assume you're referring to people who are
| made to feel uncomfortable or are harassed by other members
| of the community.
|
| It has been my experience that there are both members of
| groups typically regarded as marginalised who have been
| harrassed, and also members of groups typically regarded as
| marginalised who harass others. There are surely more
| variations of this too.
|
| My most recent experience of this was a member of a group
| typically regarded as marginalised harassing one of my
| colleagues -- who is also a member of a group typically
| regarded as marginalised, but perhaps less so if you
| subscribe to the legitimacy of _intersectionality_ -- at a
| software development conference with an established CoC.
|
| The incident was reported, and the repercussions for the
| harasser amounted to exactly nil.
|
| > So if that community doesn't have a CoC, and those
| members talk to the moderators, and the moderators take
| action... is that coercion too?
|
| No.
|
| > Is that the moderators or those members pushing their
| political views on the community?
|
| That really depends on the circumstance.
|
| > Should the moderators just not do anything?
|
| Moderators should take action on CoC violations as
| proportionately, fairly, and impartially as they can.
|
| > I'm going to push past this extraordinarily bad faith
| framing.
|
| It is extraordinarily tiring and depressing that anything
| proffered that contradicts the orthodoxy of the culture
| that most readily endorses the establishment of CoCs is
| immediately dismissed as an argument in "bad faith".
| squigz wrote:
| It's likewise tiring and depressing that you framed
| everybody who wants CoCs the way you did.
|
| > No.
|
| Then I'm not sure why it would be coercion for them to
| talk to the moderators about writing down the rules.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| It's strange -- I wrote "sometimes", and you wrote
| "everybody".
|
| If I had meant "everybody", I would not have written
| "sometimes".
| HankStallone wrote:
| Often the moderator is the project lead (or one of them), who
| may not be suited to adjudicating personal disputes and
| probably has better things to do. That can result in siding
| with the louder faction in the hopes that giving them what
| they want will satisfy them and let everyone get back to
| work. Or worse, turning the job of moderation over to them
| because they seem to want it, and then the petty tyranny is
| off to the races.
|
| I think that happens less now that people are aware of the
| danger; but a decade or so ago it was a real problem because
| no one saw it coming.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| A written code of conduct can legitimize petty disputes based
| on interpretations of the text, even if the issue itself is
| something easily addressable like using the word "master" in a
| programming context. It can become a tool for manipulation
| (pushing someone out for "CoC violation" vs simply correcting
| the wording).
| squigz wrote:
| I don't see how that is an issue with CoCs. Those people
| would still try this with or without a CoC - whether the
| moderators/maintainer acquiesce is the real issue, and,
| again, is separate from having a CoC.
| majorchord wrote:
| > Those people would still try this with or without a CoC
|
| Perhaps, but I think it may make the moderator more likely
| to side with the abuser if they are able to point to a
| specific part of the CoC that is allegedly being violated,
| even if that requires colorful interpretation.
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Maybe a bit of an unpopular opinion here, but I still think the
| benevolent dictator is the way to go for open-source projects. If
| you are unhappy with how things are handled, fork it and do
| better.
|
| However, there's probably a cutoff point for core infrastructure
| where we should move away from having a single person in charge.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Maybe a bit of an unpopular opinion here, but I still think
| the benevolent dictator is the way to go for open-source
| projects. If you are unhappy with how things are handled, fork
| it and do better.
|
| If I start a project that attracts contributors[1], I don't see
| anything wrong with rejecting someone's CoC "contribution" with
| " _I_ am the code of conduct. We don 't need another one."
|
| ==================
|
| [1] I try not to do that, btw.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > If you are unhappy with how things are handled, fork it and
| do better.
|
| Yes, but often the projects where this happens are just big
| enough to where one person cannot realistically maintain their
| own fork to the same level that users will expect if they are
| looking to jump ship.
|
| What I've seen happen more often than not, is even if the
| person does attempt a fork, they either get constantly attacked
| by existing users, or stop working on it within a year, or
| both.
| astanm wrote:
| This, from the Ruby CoC, is key:
|
| > _Participants are expected to be tolerant of opposing views._
|
| If you can't tolerate that others will have different
| perspectives to you then it means you're likely to be a very
| difficult and inflexible person to work with.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is one of those things that falls apart on the actual
| content. If you have a trans contributor and someone who comes
| in with trans-eliminationist rhetoric, you can't then turn
| round and say the trans person is being "inflexible" for
| refusing to work with them.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| The correct answer is reacting harshly to "trans-
| eliminationist rhetoric" from a weird extremist, with an
| ultimatum or immediate expulsion, before the trans
| contributor complains.
| astanm wrote:
| If someone is posting along the lines of "send them all to
| the death camps" etc. on the mailing lists or discussion
| boards, for any group, that would be covered under the
| other items in the Ruby CoC, where participants are
| expected not to harass or disparage.
|
| Also it would be very off-topic for a programming language
| forum.
| astanm wrote:
| That would be covered under the next part of the Ruby CoC:
|
| > _Participants must ensure that their language and actions
| are free from personal attacks and disparaging remarks._
|
| And anyway, rhetoric which advocates for killing groups of
| people would be very off-topic for a programming language
| discussion forum. Unlikely it would come up in conversation
| except for deliberate trolling.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Holy moly, what kind of open source projects are y'all
| working on? I don't even understand how these topics could
| come up in a Pull Request. Are people writing and reviewing
| code in these projects?
| squigz wrote:
| Someone will say that that person shouldn't be bringing any
| sort of politics into it, so they should be removed, no CoCs
| needed for that.
|
| Then someone will point out that they might have this stuff
| on their Github profile, or website. They're free to do so,
| of course. But it would be wrong to remove them for that,
| right? But then any trans contributor that sees this crap is
| what, forced to work with them anyway?
| skissane wrote:
| Likely more than 50% of the world's population agrees with
| viewpoints that some would label "trans-eliminationist
| rhetoric". So if you are saying anyone who ever expresses
| such viewpoints-even in forums completely unrelated to the
| project-is barred from contributing to it, you are
| potentially excluding more than half of contemporary
| humanity.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| A community doesn't exist for "the majority of the world".
| It exists for its community. If a community doesn't want
| bigots (as they shouldn't), they absolutely should exclude
| them.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Something, something, paradox of tolerance.
|
| Diverse views on software development? Great. Diverse views on
| whether various groups deserve human rights? Not great.
| astanm wrote:
| The latter would be off-topic for a programming language
| discussion forum, certainly. But working with others that
| happen to hold differing views on that topic? Not a problem.
|
| It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to have the same
| perspective on political issues.
| notarget137 wrote:
| It baffles me how much political every aspect of life has
| become. We can't just talk about things and hold genuine
| discussion. It always boils down to "us vs. them"
| standpoint.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I think we are likely to disagree on whether "group X is
| not entitled to human rights" is a legitimate political
| view
| astanm wrote:
| As long as these views aren't thrashed out in the
| collaborative spaces to which the CoC applies, it doesn't
| really matter.
|
| (As a personal preference, I'd rather not know the
| political views, legitimate or otherwise, of people I
| work with. It's not relevant.)
| swiftcoder wrote:
| If said people kept their opinions to themselves, the
| issue would never arise in the first place. Pretty much
| the whole problem in semi-public spaces like this is that
| folks with strong reactionary beliefs don't tend to leave
| them at the door
| Khaine wrote:
| Except people have enforced CoC's against people for
| expressing views on other platforms because those views
| make other people feel unsafe in those collaborative
| spaces.
|
| I have only ever seen CoC's abused to push out people
| with anti-social just views.
| notarget137 wrote:
| It's almost like theese two should not collide in any context
| from either side...
| swiftcoder wrote:
| It's not been my experience that
| racists/sexists/homophobes/antisemites/etc can keep it
| strictly professional with members of the group they hate
| satisfice wrote:
| I want a code of conduct that explicitly allows debate,
| disagreement, and normalizes hurting other people's feelings with
| your words.
|
| What matters is that people are operating in good faith.
|
| I would also say that IF you have been accepted as a member of a
| community then you and your feelings must matter to that
| community unless and until you are ejected from the community.
| There needs to be a system for accepting and expelling people,
| and that system should rest on the judgment of people that the
| community has selected as trustworthy (until and unless those
| people are expelled).
| vkou wrote:
| > What matters is that people are operating in good faith.
|
| Any asshole can claim to be acting in good faith, _regardless_
| of what they 've done.
| majorchord wrote:
| You're getting downvoted but I think this is absolutely
| right... people are simply going to disagree with each
| others' definition of "good faith."
| HankStallone wrote:
| Right. Adam tells Ben to go die in a fire, and Ben says,
| "Come on, moderators, that's _obviously_ a violation of the
| CoC. " Then Adam says, "No, because I was only responding
| to Ben's offensive and unwelcoming language when he
| referred to a 'master' repository. I've compiled a list of
| Ben's violations, and I demand a review according to
| section 3, subsection D of the code...."
|
| A good moderator will shut that nonsense down immediately,
| but a good moderator wouldn't need a CoC to do it. All the
| CoC does is give the troublemaker a tool to start playing
| rules lawyer, in the hope that the moderator will get tired
| of it and give in.
|
| Some people think the answer is to have a CoC that's too
| simple for rules lawyering, like a one line "Be excellent
| to each other." But even that can be twisted, so it would
| be better as a project motto than as an official CoC.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Jerks will be jerks without a CoC, and jerks will try to
| turn the CoC into a weapon when there is one. Yeah, that
| figures.
|
| Sooner or later it boils down to someone reasonable
| enforcing some boundaries, with or without a CoC.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > normalizes hurting other people's feelings with your word
|
| This is the Trammel problem: if you want a PvP-enabled project,
| you discover that people are mostly interested in the part
| where they hurt others feelings and then go bananas when their
| own feelings are hurt.
|
| > needs to be a system for accepting and expelling people
|
| The private member's club is an old institution. But people
| tend to notice and object when it ends up being white guys
| only.
| majorchord wrote:
| I would like this too, and it sounds like a good idea in
| theory...
|
| But what I worry about is that it may presume that the staff
| themselves already operate in (your interpretation of) good
| faith, and I don't think that is always the case.
|
| What is a user's recourse when they disagree with the mods? And
| what says they will comply with any decision reached from said
| recourse?
|
| You could say "we must allow disagreements", but at some point
| this becomes a paradox of tolerance and then you risk it
| devolving into pointless arguments on either side.
|
| I think the whole "good faith" part could only be enforced by a
| universally trusted party, like maybe a robot. But even then,
| people will disagree about how it operates... so maybe this
| problem is impossible to solve.
| 3form wrote:
| I'm not very involved in the topic, so my POV might be very wrong
| - but most effective enforcement, from my overall life
| experience, is having someone act as a "bad guy" and sharply deal
| consequences to the people that behave like assholes.
|
| I feel that having a detailed COC, while a very good sentiment in
| theory, in practice must bring about people who will try their
| best to skirt around the edge of COC and make trouble for the
| maintainers - who I expect want to stay "nice", but they're
| forced to act harshly in the end anyway.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| CoC always appeared to me as a US issue which could pretty much
| be safely ignored by anyone living in the rest of the world. I
| generally dislike how they tend to be written as objective rules
| while actually being imperialist but most of them can safely be
| boiled down to act like a normal professional person.
|
| The implied subtext of "avoid topic the US finds morally
| objectionable and when in doubt act like an American would" is
| what I dislike from a theorical point of view but the truth is,
| it doesn't really matter on a day to day basis.
|
| So yes, CoC seems mostly harmless but also mostly useless. I tend
| to agree with the article point that if this is the case, keeping
| them short seems optimal.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| The problem I have seen with them is that they get weaponized.
| Someone can point to a specific rule in the CoC that has very
| subjective language in it, and claim that you are violating the
| rules, when really they're just doing that to silence opinions
| they don't like.
|
| This is further proven when any attempts to discuss said
| rule/policy are immediately shut down with even more staunch
| black-and-white opinions and zero empathy... even if you wait
| until later to discuss it in a different setting.
| squigz wrote:
| > could pretty much be safely ignored by anyone living in the
| rest of the world.
|
| While it would be nice if all the ignorant assholes in the
| world lived in America... this is not the case :)
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| The only code of conduct that was ever required was the
| license.md file.
| buyucu wrote:
| Codes of Conduct are pushed by corporate types you want open
| source projects to act and behave more corporate fashion. I've
| never seen them make things better.
| squigz wrote:
| A relevant blog post posted recently among the Nix drama
|
| https://eev.ee/blog/2016/07/22/on-a-technicality/
| lowsong wrote:
| A big part of a CoC that this article, as most discussions on the
| topic, miss is that they provide a signal to new contributors
| from marginalized groups, who may have faced abuse or violence in
| other spaces, that this community will be safe for them to
| contribute to and - as many anti-CoC folk like to say - get on
| with the tech.
|
| Not having a CoC doesn't mean a project is going to be unsafe to
| work in. But it means when another community member refuses to
| work with you, or belittles your work constantly, there is
| nothing to be done. For many, why take the risk. This means that
| projects are starving themselves of contributors because they
| don't create an environment that is safe.
|
| Ruby's "CoC" is actually a fantastic example of why you need to
| spell it out too. "Participants are expected to be tolerant of
| opposing views." is often weaponized by abusers who like to paint
| basic requests like "please use my chosen name" as "not being
| tolerant".
| Ragnarork wrote:
| Well a big reason this is missed is people discussing it are
| not part of these groups and mainly saw this as an annoyance.
|
| I can agree that heavy & strict CoCs can be daunting and
| probably overkill for small open source projects. And they're
| far from flawless, as shown by the Rust mods resignation
| incidents. But to say they're useless and anti-meritocratic is
| to forget (and/or silence) these people that wanted to
| contribute in an environment where they wouldn't feel
| threatened (incidentally, sometimes despite being skillful
| contributors, so much so for the supposed meritocracy of the
| CoC-less projects).
|
| I'm not sure strict CoCs are the answers to these real
| problems, but this feels like dismissing these problems
| altogether.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _to new contributors from marginalized groups,_
|
| For software projects that are overwhelmingly conducted online
| the very concept of "marginalized group" is close to irrelevant
| and meaningless [1].
|
| I think what happens is that some people want to be very, very
| vocal about whatever "group" they belong to and want to feel
| offended and oppressed. In recent years, arguments and
| campaigns against specific technical terms ('master',
| 'blacklist', even 'legacy code' spring to mind) are examples of
| this, IMHO.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
| thrance wrote:
| Do you believe that online harassment is completely made up
| and never happened to anyone ever? Because it sounds like you
| do.
| lowsong wrote:
| > For software projects that are overwhelmingly conducted
| online the very concept of "marginalized group" is close to
| irrelevant
|
| I wish this were true, but it simply isn't. If a group is
| full of white cis heterosexual guys and someone turns up with
| a random screen name and says nothing about themselves,
| everyone assumes they are also a white cis hetero guy even if
| they're not. The implication is "you have to conform, and if
| you don't then you don't belong".
|
| The reality is that for many people, their mere public
| existence is seen as a political statement. Often times
| asking for the most simple of accommodations or changes is
| seen as "being vocal" or starting an argument.
|
| I'll give you a hypothetical. Let's say a group of developers
| is all-male, and a leader starts off every meeting with "hey
| guys". Then, a developer who is a woman joins the project.
| They ask that leader "When you say it like that it implicitly
| excludes me, It would mean a lot to me if you said 'everyone'
| instead." I think that's a pretty reasonable request, it asks
| very little of the leader (to change one word), has no impact
| for everyone else, and means a lot to some. But to many, many
| people that would be viewed as "suppressing speech" or
| "weaponizing oppression".
| majorchord wrote:
| > everyone assumes they are also a white cis hetero guy
| even if they're not
|
| Hard disagree. And how is this even relevant?
|
| > The implication is "you have to conform, and if you don't
| then you don't belong".
|
| Conform to what, being nice? That was already the case. A
| group is very unlikely to change their ways regardless,
| especially just because you barge in and say you are
| marginalized and start getting offended at things.
|
| For one, "hey guys" is often said by people of every
| possible group known to humankind, but also if you really
| wanted to, you can ask them to use a different term without
| saying you are part of some marginalized (or any) group at
| all.
|
| The fact that they belong to some group is still (IMO)
| meaningless in this context, the reality is that they want
| to play politics and try to get people to change how things
| operate... you don't need to be part of any group to do
| that. IMO that's just being difficult.
|
| Maybe you believe it is necessary to identify yourself
| online as belonging to some group, perhaps in order to
| force a change, but again I think this is just trying to
| play politics where it's often not welcome.
|
| If online discourse can exist without people even knowing
| this much about a person, then I think it's far less likely
| that they will be targeted for belonging to a group that
| people are not even aware they belong to.
|
| I'm not saying people need to hide, but I think it's just
| easier if people can assume "on the internet, nobody knows
| you're a dog"... if nothing else simply because some people
| suck, and it's easier to get along in a purely technical
| project if we don't know that much about you personally.
| lowsong wrote:
| I think that you've made my point really quite well. I
| gave perhaps the most basic possible example of
| accommodation, adjusting a single word with no impact on
| other project members and you were still able to argue
| about it.
|
| > Maybe you believe it is necessary to identify yourself
| online as belonging to some group, perhaps in order to
| force a change, but again I think this is just trying to
| play politics where it's often not welcome.
|
| People just want to be themselves. If the very act of
| appearing to be from a different group is "playing
| politics" then what you actually mean is "you cannot be
| different".
|
| This behavior is _exactly_ why a CoC is needed.
| majorchord wrote:
| I think "playing politics" means trying to get people to
| change something, or how a group of people is managed.
| Not all projects want other people telling them what to
| do or what they should or shouldn't do, and I think
| that's perfectly ok.
|
| If "people being themselves" means making SJW politics
| their entire identity and spraying it across the
| internet, then I'd say it's likely they're not going to
| be welcome in many places, CoC or not.
|
| I think you could argue having _any_ rule that someone
| happens to disagree with is telling them "you cannot be
| different"... people have to draw the line somewhere, or
| there wouldn't be rules. Who are we to say what's right
| or wrong in someone else's project?
|
| And I think your argument still dismisses the
| weaponization that many people are seeing... maybe you
| call it their identity being someone who wants to change
| things... but that doesn't mean they should always get
| what they want.
| kelnos wrote:
| [delayed]
| throwaway2046 wrote:
| > marginalized groups, who may have faced abuse or violence in
| other spaces
|
| Can you cite examples of users facing abuse or violence while
| contributing to a tech project? And how exactly does a CoC
| guarantee the safety you mentioned?
|
| > when another community member refuses to work with you
|
| Members are free to choose who to work with regardless of
| whether a CoC exists or not.
|
| > belittles your work constantly
|
| Your work may not be up to the project's standards and anyone
| pointing that out may hurt your feelings, and that's fine. You
| can't expect project maintainers to coddle each contributor
| when there's work to be done. Most CoCs are at odds with that
| because they value contributors' feelings over clear
| communication that helps a project advance.
|
| > there is nothing to be done
|
| You could communicate your grievances to the project
| maintainers directly, but you're not guaranteed a reply even
| with a CoC. In fact I'd argue that with a CoC it's easier for
| maintainers to dismiss criticism by labeling it as "non
| welcoming" or "non inclusive" or any other loose emotionally-
| driven term.
| k33n wrote:
| Just say your name and people will call you by that name.
| Politely request pronoun use if you must, but don't expect
| everyone to remember or even care -- especially if you're using
| anything but she/her or he/him.
|
| If we accept either side's definition of who the "real abusers"
| are, then politics will continue to hobble projects. If you are
| starved of people to discuss your political views with, it's
| the wrong thing to do to vomit those out in a programming
| thread. Go make some real friends if you're looking to do that.
| Not everyone will see the world the way you do.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _But it means when another community member refuses to work
| with you, or belittles your work constantly, there is nothing
| to be done._
|
| No it doesn't. It just means that there isn't a formal process.
| The aggrieved party can always contact the project
| leaders/maintainers, and lodge a complaint.
|
| Sure, the leaders may not do anything with your complaint, but
| a CoC doesn't guarantee that they will either (even if it does
| give you a warm fuzzy feeling up-front that they might).
|
| I find it incredibly infantilizing this idea that people can't
| be good to each other, or people can't feel safe, without some
| sort of document that lays out behavior expectations. It's so
| so simple: don't be a dick to people. If someone is being a
| dick to you, find someone with authority and send them the
| evidence. If they handle it to your satisfaction, great. If
| not, stay away from that project, because it's run by people
| who at worst don't care about you, or at best are inept at
| handling this sort of thing (and in either case, a CoC is not
| going to make it better).
|
| For leaders/maintainers, grow a spine. If someone is behaving
| badly (regardless of whether or not someone complains), talk to
| them and give them a chance to improve. If their behavior gets
| better, great. If not, eject them from the community. If they
| or others aren't happy with your reaction, that's their
| problem, not yours.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Good article. This sentence from the conclusion nails it:
|
| > What is needed now is not the unthinking adoption of a one-
| size-fits-all template, but a "right-sized" approach tailored to
| the scale, culture, and goals of each individual project.
|
| I feel a lot of the heavy CoCs are a product of low-trust
| cultures, particularly the US, which attempt to replace
| interpersonal relationships with legalese. This is honestly not
| necessary in most projects, which are generally high-trust
| environments.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| I feel like this is similar to civil and criminal laws: When
| codes of conduct are very detailed, lawyers will argue fine
| points on the wording. When they are simple and general, people
| can't be 'rules lawyers', but you need to have authority to
| enforce decisions, and respect for that authority.
| florkbork wrote:
| Yeah, nah.
|
| Watch how an open discussion here:
| https://github.com/nixos/rfcs/pull/98
|
| ... devolves into a massive outcry because a bunch of folks not
| behaving in good faith didn't like "we don't support fascism or
| bigotry".
|
| It reached the level of
|
| * Vile sock puppet attacks on a trans individual, who merely kept
| saying "Fascism, no thanks in this community" * "Denounce the
| Marxists!" As a rallying cry becomes a talking point
|
| If you reflect on the behaviours seen there and ask _why is this
| so heated for proposing consequences for bad behaviour_ ; you may
| come to the realisation that the advocates of bad behaviour...
| don't want to be accountable.
|
| This post is translated, perhaps some of the nuance is lost. But
| it hand waves away dhh's behaviour as "controversial figures in
| the community"
|
| If that's genuinely what is believed, I'd like a replacement on
| this Overton window, thanks! It has been fractured.
|
| The article does not consider the consequences or implications of
| malicious acts, and the harm on others adequately.
|
| A clear CoC or similar outlines expected norms, and _does not
| have to be copypasta_ /is infact better if it is derived from a
| consensus. It's a statement of what the people with power will
| hold themselves to, and if that turns out to be a lie - a
| performative document that is not actually used - newcomers can
| view the behaviour they observe against that standard; and leave
| or demand justice if they are wronged.
|
| By not publishing an ethical or moral standard you abide by, even
| if it's a text file with "get bent" in it; you invite people to
| interact with you with expectations. If you are part of the 1-4%
| of the population who are sociopaths, you are advocating to hurt
| people without consequence. If they are part of the 1-4% you are
| permitting behaviour without recourse.
|
| Could you imagine a post advocating for "don't fix security holes
| because 92-98% of people don't know about exploiting them?" Would
| that be acceptable?
|
| Why would you not state a policy?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > If you reflect on the behaviours seen there and ask why is
| this so heated for proposing consequences for bad behaviour;
| you may come to the realisation that the advocates of bad
| behaviour... don't want to be accountable.
|
| It seems the problem is that what amounts to "bad behaviour" is
| poorly defined, and that the detractors of "bad behaviour" can
| also be guilty of bad behaviour.
| TylerLives wrote:
| Posts like this always remind me of Vaclav Havel's "The Power of
| the Powerless". You are completely misunderstanding the original
| purpose behind the CoC. Here's the relevant part:
|
| "The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window,
| among the onions and carrots, the slogan: "Workers of the world,
| unite!" Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to
| the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity
| among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that
| he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his
| ideals? Has he really given more than a moment's thought to how
| such a unification might occur and what it would mean?
|
| I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority
| of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their
| windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions.
| That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise
| headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all
| into the window simply because it has been done that way for
| years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it
| has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could
| be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window;
| someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because
| these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is
| one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively
| tranquil life "in harmony with society," as they say.
|
| Obviously the greengrocer is indifferent to the semantic content
| of the slogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his
| window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the
| ideal it expresses. This, of course, does not mean that his
| action has no motive or significance at all, or that the slogan
| communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really a sign, and
| as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message.
| Verbally, it might be expressed this way: "I, the greengrocer XY,
| live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner
| expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I
| am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace."
| This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above,
| to the greengrocer's superior, and at the same time it is a
| shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers.
| The slogan's real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the
| greengrocer's existence. It reflects his vital interests. But
| what are those vital interests?
|
| Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to
| display the slogan "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly
| obedient;' he would not be nearly as indifferent to its
| semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The
| greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an
| unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window,
| and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a
| sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his
| expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at
| least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested
| conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, "What's wrong
| with the workers of the world uniting?" Thus the sign helps the
| greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his
| obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of
| power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And
| that something is ideology."
| relaxing wrote:
| Havel was writing about life under Soviet occupation. The open
| source project CoC does not come from a party official who
| demands you post it in your shop window (public repo.)
|
| It comes from people who believe shitty behavior hurts projects
| and needs to stop.
| thrance wrote:
| > DHH condemned detailed and strict CoC like the Contributor
| Covenant as a "trojan horse" that should be purged from projects.
|
| Of course he would, he has made several transphobic remarks in
| the past. 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". Ostracizing people from
| projects because you are prejudiced against them, now _that_
| hinders open-source. How many potential contributors were scared
| away by such remarks?
| u_sama wrote:
| I think the issue with CoC is that they have been used in the
| past by politically motivated (notably on the left) activists
| to take control of a project and ensure a political line. You
| may agree with such a political line like anti-fascism,
| inclusion and what not. But the issue is that you have opened
| the door to politics inside what ought to be a technical area,
| and historically, politics change, the ideas you agree on today
| will be pushed to more extremes (some you might disagree with)
| you will not be comfortable with and eventually you will be
| alienated from them completely. But when that happens, you will
| have no recourse and will eventually be purged (like those
| before you, being called the trendy workd of the moment,
| fascist or woke) too because you accepted the opening of the
| door to such behaviours, your only solution will be silence.
|
| As for examples of that happening, NixOS comes to mind, the
| Rust debacle too.
|
| Also another issue you might not see, you are ironically also
| enforcing a dominant idea (your american culture) onto the rest
| of the world thus creating a hierarchy where your ideas are
| right and the other cultural operating systems are wrong.
| majorchord wrote:
| > the issue is that you have opened the door to politics
| inside what ought to be a technical area
|
| Unless you're willing and able to enforce a BDFL stance, I
| don't think there is actually any alternative.
|
| As soon as people start disagreeing with any choices you
| make, and it's not well-understood that "what I say goes",
| you're going to have people who want to try to change how you
| run things, and that is the definition of politics.
|
| Either you force your own politics on people, or you open
| yourself up to accepting changes from other people... which
| is still politics.
| thrance wrote:
| I am not American, and I don't think that "trans people have
| a right to participate in society" is a political take. The
| real issue is with people thinking that "trans people
| shouldn't exist" is a valid opinion to hold, and I don't feel
| particularly bad for them being "silenced".
|
| If this view falls in the American left's umbrella, then I'm
| sorry to say: they're objectively right and fuck the guys who
| hold anti-human views.
| wastle wrote:
| The actual divisive issue is whether people who say they
| are the opposite sex to what they really are should be
| granted access to spaces that are designated for the sole
| use of the opposite sex.
|
| This gets relabelled by activists for the trans ideological
| cause with phrases like "the right to participate in
| society" and even "the right to exist", but these are so
| far from what is actually being demanded that it's
| essentially just misinformation and false appeal to
| emotion.
| thrance wrote:
| Spaces such as online open-source communities? This is
| nonsensical, listen to yourself. Your anti-human bias
| shows and it's actually disturbing. What spaces are you
| even talking about and why do you think people that look,
| act, talk and think exactly like their members should be
| barred from them?
|
| > trans ideological cause
|
| Got it, demanding human rights apply to trans people is
| now an "ideological stance". The American Overton window
| is so far right, it's crazy people can hold such views
| and think they're being reasonable.
| wastle wrote:
| No, typically this issue is focused around spaces like
| female-only refuges and safe spaces, locker rooms and
| changing rooms, prisons, sports competitions, and so on.
| The divisive point being whether males who say they are
| female should be refused or granted access.
|
| That you have chosen to characterise this with wording
| like "anti-human bias" and "demanding human rights apply"
| further illustrates my point.
| daft_pink wrote:
| Just fire people who suck. It's really not that difficult.
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder what folks think when they're flagging stories like
| this.
| rurban wrote:
| They are even harmful. Very harmful
| tharne wrote:
| I really like heavy codes of conduct. They're the Open Source
| project equivalent of those brightly colored frogs in the
| tropics. They're kind enough to signal their own toxicity so
| others know to keep their distance.
| bn-l wrote:
| My theory is that this is designed to kill open source.
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