Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines • Hacker News Board

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#41

Post by mcguire » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

Millennium wrote: post #14

This is interesting, but I have to say I'm skeptical that it'll do any better than the Linux kernel community's attempt to apply Wheaton's Law back in 2015. The geek community was largely formed by people who had been unfairly targeted by those who enforce social norms: picking inappropriate targets, taking things to inappropriate extremes, and the like. Our response was to create a community that didn't enforce soci…

I agree almost completely with your comment, with the exception of the second paragraph.

We created a community with a different set of social norms, norms that are enforced as aggressively and often as inappropriately as any others.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#42

Post by ubernostrum » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

brobdingnagians wrote: post #17

> The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. This is excellent; using love and persuasion to help someone improve is so much better than by force, compulsion, and fear. How many children rebel against restrictive and domineering parents? but a child who is loved and taught, but allowed to make choices and pursue independence u…

So, here's the thing. Statements like this?

Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D.

This is not a new statement. This is what people pushing diversity have been saying for years and years. The only ways for this to be a new and refreshing thing to you are:

1. You were not paying attention, or

2. You were getting all your information from people who were doing their best to misinform you.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#43

Post by nabla9 » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

brobdingnagians wrote: post #17

> The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. This is excellent; using love and persuasion to help someone improve is so much better than by force, compulsion, and fear. How many children rebel against restrictive and domineering parents? but a child who is loved and taught, but allowed to make choices and pursue independence u…

Agree.

I'm fan of Nonviolent Communication a.k.a Collaborative Communication.

NVC acknowledges that moralistic judgments and demands make communication harder, not easier. Still it's important that people should be able to communicate the feelings, needs and make requests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#44

Post by ajross » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

marijn wrote: post #13

While it sounds very reasonable, friendly, and non-authoritarian, a big problem with an approach like this, without real teeth or rigidity, is that it is very easy to harass people out of a community while staying within its constraints, and provides very little recourse for those being harassed (who often are not in a position of power) to put on pressure for getting something done about it. The approach taken large…

The current push for codes of conduct in software projects isn't about harassment per se. Realistically anyone can be harassed out of a community regardless of rules. The point of the rules is to change the norms such that behavior that would otherwise have been exclusionary or just off-putting is specifically called out and recognized as "wrong".

"This code is fucking garbage and you should be ashamed" may or may not be "harassement" according to the intent of the writer or interpretation of the reader. But it's still wrong and we don't want that.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#45

Post by gweinberg » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

noch wrote: post #12

ekianjo wrote: post #2

> Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you disagree with what they say. When people present code or text as their own work, please accept it as their work. Please do not criticize people for wrongs that you only speculate they may have done; stick to what they actually say and actually do. That's a breath of fresh air. There's always someone who tries to read between the lines and straw…

> There's always someone who tries to read between the lines and strawman people for what they did not say/express. The claim that there is always someone creating strawmen is itself the creation of a strawman. If you assume good faith of participants then it might be useful to assume good faith of those who criticise even if they misunderstand or misread or assume unwarranted implications.

Well, in the case of volunteer software projects, I think people who make significant contributions should be cut a great deal of slack, whereas those who criticize contributors without contributing themselves aren't entitled to any slack at all.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#46

Post by ubernostrum » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

phoe-krk wrote: post #5

A code of conduct states rules, with punishments for anyone that violates them. It is the heavy-handed way of teaching people to behave differently, and since it only comes into action when people do something against the rules, it doesn't try to teach people to do better than what the rules require. To be sure, the appointed maintainer(s) of a GNU package can, if necessary, tell a contributor to go away; but we do n…

teaching each other to be awesome to each other

My experience is this lasts about five minutes before someone starts using quibbles about the precise definition of "be awesome to each other" to suggest they should be allowed to be non-awesome to people and suffer no consequences for it. Sooner or later you have to actually set down some more specific guidelines and a mechanism for enforcing them.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#47

Post by folknor » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

dangerlibrary wrote: post #10

_pmf_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” ― Robert Conquest

The relevance of the quote you've posted might be less obvious than you think it is.

It's relevant because this wave of CoC attacks on open source projects was started by someone who has literally said "I can’t wait for the mass exodus from Linux now that it’s been infiltrated by SJWs."[1], in reference to the kernel adopting their CoC.

This person obviously does not care about the people who contribute to the kernel.

They wrote the "Contributor Covenant"[2], which is what the kernel (among tons of other projects) adopted.

1: https://twitter.com/coralineada/status/1041441155874009093 2: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#48

Post by nabla9 » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #42

brobdingnagians wrote: post #17

> The way we do this, rather than ordering people to be kind or else, is try to help people learn to make their communication more kind. This is excellent; using love and persuasion to help someone improve is so much better than by force, compulsion, and fear. How many children rebel against restrictive and domineering parents? but a child who is loved and taught, but allowed to make choices and pursue independence u…

So, here's the thing. Statements like this? Rather, the problem is that if we make demographic D feel unwelcome, we lose out on possible contributors. And very likely also others that are not in demographic D. This is not a new statement. This is what people pushing diversity have been saying for years and years. The only ways for this to be a new and refreshing thing to you are: 1. You were not paying attention, or…

>2. You were getting all your information from people who were doing their best to misinform you.

When there is moral panic, sensible people who advocated the issues long time are pushed aside and polarization happens.

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#49

Post by ubernostrum » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

fossdev wrote: post #39

Diversity as a goal is fundamentally flawed. It is what leads to policies like "affirmative action" which are in themselves simply a form of reverse discrimination.

Affirmative action is about noticing that a system was biased against a particular group of people, and attempting to counteract the bias. For example: if Group X is historically discriminated against, and you can quantify the resulting bias (which may not be conscious) such that on a 100-point school admission scale it works out to on average a 5-point disadvantage, adding some points based on membership in that group is not "reverse discrimination" -- it is a correction for the known inaccuracy of the admission system (since in an unbiased system, candidates from that group would, on average, have scored higher).

And if you believe discrimination should be banished, when will you be showing up to protest schools which give preferential admission to "legacies" (descendants or other kin of alumni), to protest companies which preferentially recruit from only very specific schools, or other forms of admission/recruiting/hiring which give weight to factors other than pure individual merit?

Re: Announcing the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines

#50

Post by Nelson69 » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

LiterallyDoge wrote: post #29

Is it really this complicated to treat other people with respect?

Why is it such a dog whistle?

What's mindblowing is the rage that seems to pour out of, mostly, non-contributors when this stuff comes up. There is a more fundamental insecurity or just a fundamental disrespect that some of these folks seem to have for others. I've heard claims that there have even been planted "social justice warriors" that have intentionally engaged in conflict to change projects. When you have guys like Eric Raymond saying that sort of thing, what do you expect?