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GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

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Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#51

Post by anatoly »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #3

Looking through some of the issues on that repo, the amount of bad faith people have in the very idea of a code of conduct is astonishing. Not to mention the sheer ignorance of issues affecting minorities within the tech community (seriously, Jon Stewart could have had a weeks worth of material). Sure, the wording of the code of conduct wasn't perfect, but it'd be much nicer if people wanted to see it improved in goo…

I think many people who criticize the idea feel that it's been heavily pre-politicized to push for a particular version of "social justice" meme-complex. And if you discount that driving force and that motivation, it isn't clear that a CoC is either needed or useful.

If you try to think about it in a clean-slate way, sort of; forget "oppression", "microagressions against minorities" and all the other politicized jargon that the current version is peppered with, and ask yourself (answers are my opinions, obviously)...

Q. Is there a problem with some open source communities being too hostile, unwelcoming, potentially harassing to many people? A. Yes. Some communities are clearly much more "nice" than others. Some are clearly much more welcoming of newbies, etc.

Q. How does this "bad behavior" manifest itself, in actual open source communities? A. Mostly by how much rudeness and brusqueness some regulars of the community feel they can treat others with. If you hang around on forums, issues, IRC channels etc. enough you can get a clear feel of the "niceness meter". Sometimes there's also explicit misogyny, but that's relatively rare. Other explicit forms of hostility (e.g. racism, transmisogynism) are even rarer to nonexistent. It's simply that if the overall level of niceness is low, then people behave like assholes. Asshole-like behavior is easy to interpret as racism etc.

Q. Is this a huge problem? Should we invest effort in trying to make communities more nice? A. I don't know, seems like a personal call. I personally like the nice and welcoming communities much more, and don't really see the point of being rude and hostile (I think it's counterproductive and not only wrong).

Q. Is a code of conduct a way to achieve that? A. Doubt it. Seems like the norm set by the leaders of the community, together with a few clear examples of "we will not tolerate this kind of behavior", is how it's successfully done. Is there a project which went "not nice -> adopted CoC -> became clearly nicer"? I haven't seen any.

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#52

Post by tomp »

zxcvcxz wrote: post #43
dmart wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the sake of discussion, this is the part that people seem to be taking the most issue with: Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: - ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’ - Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing…

How can people still deny that this isn't clear discrimination against straight white males? The PC police talk about all the "coded racism" that they see all day but they can't tell that this is coded racism? They should just say what they mean: If you're a straight white man it's okay to treat you like shit.

People who say that are usually people who define "racism" and "sexism" as "discrimination from a position of power" or "systemic/institutional discrimination". For them, just because men or whites are statistically more likely to be powerful, men and whites are powerful and "privileged" in general. Who cares about poor whites and homeless men!

I think that's pure bullshit, but a lot of people apparently feel the opposite.

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#53

Post by chippy »

nadams wrote: post #19

I feel like an open code of conduct is unnecessary. Really - the only thing you need to remember is - be nice to each other and be patient with those supplying advice and those who are asking for advice. (I have screenshots of discussions that violate this simple fundamental rule). I have flagged 40+ comments (that were accepted and acted upon) on stackoverflow alone of people just being stupid jerks. The SVN people…

Is it just me, or does my reading this CoC say that not being nice is okay (and accepted and required) when dealing with people deemed not nice?

This is what troubles me - I was brought up to be nice and behave well to others. We are more alike than different. To say "we should behave different to others who are different" and "we can behave as bad to others because they are different" is wrong and only leads to conflict and harm.

Of course I could have read it wrong and am reading too much into it!

BE KIND

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#54

Post by teamhappy »

zxcvcxz wrote: post #21

>Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “ hug ” or “ backrub ”) without consent or after a request to stop. [violates the code of conduct] I can't tell if this is a joke or not.

Can't wait to hear a legal professional's opinion vis-à-vis simulated back rubbing.

But seriously, I'm hearing about this for the first time. Can anybody explain to me why this particular CoC is more controversial than any other random CoC?

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#55

Post by d9h549f34w6 »

sagichmal wrote: post #30
anon3_ wrote: post #12

I group "Code of Conduct" with Political Correctness. For anyone interested in a good read on the subject, check out End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun) by Mary Ham and Guy Benson. It's an excellent read, and shouldn't be too much of a sting to the social outrage panderers out there.

> I set up my web browser to automatically change > "political correctness" to "treating people with > respect" https://twitter.com/byronclarknz/status/628702214391902208 If you use the phrase "social outrage" or "social justice" as a pejorative, you're part of the problem :)

What Person A sees as a good sort of social justice may not like up with Person B's interpretation. It is possible for movements to sully the name of a stated positive goal.

Beware of reading books by their covers. That's the sort of thinking that got the US stuck with the Patriot Act or other sorts of legislation. Especially after a terrorist attack, people don't want to be opponents of "patriotism" (which gets defined by one side to mean a very specific thing).

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#56

Post by anon3_ »

josteink wrote: post #20

That's the smartest thing they've done all week. Now it's time to bury it dead. This is a solution looking for a problem (tm). The only thing this code of conduct does beside state the obvious (behave like adults) is the implied distrust expressed by introducing it in the first place: that without being nannied into proper behaviour, we would all act like vile animals. Generally I find such nannying deeply offensive.

I'm just getting miserable by all the hypersensitive crybabies out there.

What about my feelings? No one's going to care because I'm white and conservative.

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#57

Post by tomp »

sagichmal wrote: post #30
anon3_ wrote: post #12

I group "Code of Conduct" with Political Correctness. For anyone interested in a good read on the subject, check out End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun) by Mary Ham and Guy Benson. It's an excellent read, and shouldn't be too much of a sting to the social outrage panderers out there.

> I set up my web browser to automatically change > "political correctness" to "treating people with > respect" https://twitter.com/byronclarknz/status/628702214391902208 If you use the phrase "social outrage" or "social justice" as a pejorative, you're part of the problem :)

Huh?

"Outrage" is practically uniformly worse than other, "non-outrageous" ways of solving problems.

Whenever the word "justice" is modified by another word, that's usually a very good sign that the expression doesn't mean justice.

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#58

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

voltagex_ wrote: post #27
zxcvcxz wrote: post #21

>Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “ hug ” or “ backrub ”) without consent or after a request to stop. [violates the code of conduct] I can't tell if this is a joke or not.

Stuff like that doesn't belong on an issue tracker, whether it's invited or not. Bring back the mailing lists.

> Bring back the mailing lists.

Huh? So you both support the CoC but also want to "bring back" a form of communication which is entirely unmoderated? That's super contradictory.

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#59

Post by josteink »

Svenstaro wrote: post #50
EliRivers wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's offensive, to a woman, to talk to her without permission from her male guardian. It's offensive, to a woman, to ask for some man's permission to talk to her. Both of these are true. Both of these are false. In order to know what's offensive for any given group, a written summary is extremely helpful. Posit a group of people brought together from around the world from many varied cultures. They have no way to kno…

Bottom line is: People will find ways to feel offended.

Add to that: creating a mile long contract for what is and isn't proper conduct is guaranteed to create more problems and disagreement than it aims to resolve.

Re: GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause

#60

Post by tfb »

sagichmal wrote: post #30
anon3_ wrote: post #12

I group "Code of Conduct" with Political Correctness. For anyone interested in a good read on the subject, check out End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun) by Mary Ham and Guy Benson. It's an excellent read, and shouldn't be too much of a sting to the social outrage panderers out there.

> I set up my web browser to automatically change > "political correctness" to "treating people with > respect" https://twitter.com/byronclarknz/status/628702214391902208 If you use the phrase "social outrage" or "social justice" as a pejorative, you're part of the problem :)

The phrases "political correctness" and "treating people with respect" describe entirely different things. They are not interchangeable without altering the meaning of the sentence, as they refer to two completely different concepts. Whether or not you agree with the intended meaning is irrelevant. The meaning is still there.

Just to be clear, I'm all for treating people with respect, as any decent human being should be. And political correctness is perfectly fine and necessary in most cases, but in most contexts it refers to conforming to certain narratives to avoid scrutiny and being ostracized, which typically only exists to serve some underlying agenda. It's been taken to the extremes lately and conflating "political correctness" with "treating people with respect" is a mistake, because more often than not, political correctness does more harm than good. Imagine there's a serious security flaw in some software but no one will speak up about it because it might result in ostracizing whoever does speak up about it because it offends people. The more freely people are allowed to express themselves, the better off we will all be, regardless of the message. But yes, when speaking freely, one should also be respectful. You can be politically incorrect and treat people with respect at the same time. That is why those phrases are not interchangeable.

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