I Violated a Code of Conduct • Hacker News Board

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#141

Post by pvg » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:42 AM UTC

nvahalik wrote: post #124

jml7c5 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware that your comment unfortunately contributes to the current division. It's subtle, and you may not be aware of it, but the tone you use, the words "rotten" and "madness", the emphasis on " end other people" - they have the pathos and call to action of an "us vs them" atmosphere. What is destroying society is anger, emotion, and tribalism. Our best hope of saving it is deliberation, consideration, and the drea…

The problem isn't strong views. It's weak people. There is a time and a place to coddle people. There is _also_ a time and a place for people's whose ideas are garbage to be declared as such and thrown into the bin. There was a time when people could discuss ideas without having those ideas be internalized within an individual. It is entire possible to attack an idea or way of thinking to break it down and see how it…

There is a time and a place to coddle people

Individual people and groups of people get to decide for themselves what these times and places are, even if you think their decisions are wrong. It seems odd to demand this be done to your liking in the interests of 'adulthood'.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#142

Post by chmod775 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC

austhrow743 wrote: post #136

chmod775 wrote: post #95

It was clearly a mistake for him to even play along, especially if he was emotionally exhausted already. The best you can do when people are being stupid like this is ignore them. They hold no power over you unless you let them. This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal. The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied ou…

Conference talks are marketing that you do to make money. The tribunals wielding CoCs have the power to hit speakers in the wallet. Outside of violence that's pretty much as much power as you can have over a person.

I'm sure that applies to a lot of speakers, but I don't think it applies to him specifically:

> I’ve tried to make myself available for public speaking events when I can, in order to support the community. However, the potential cost is too great, and there is no real upside for me personally, so I don’t expect to be accepting invitations in the future, at least not for quite a while.

Doesn't seem like he's in any way depended on giving these talks.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#143

Post by civilized » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:45 AM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #127

bawolff wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree in principle. The "victim" doesn't have to be offended for the behaviour to potentially be inappropriate. Behaviour has second order effects beyond the direct "victim" (e.g. people watch and think its ok, so more people do it, and it becomes "normal"). Its also entirely possible for the victim to be hurt, without him admitting it for a variety of reasons (E.g. social pressure, not wanting to be seen as wea…

This is a very good point. I worked with a group (when we were a very small team at a startup) where we would say terrible things about each others code/ideas more or less for fun, as we had a long-running relationship and understood that everyone respected everyone else. Once we were in a bigger company, we had to stop talking like that (at least in venues where others could hear us) as the perception that we were "…

Yes yes, these are all fine points, but to apply them in a one-size-fits-all universal way is inhuman. Curse words might be considered inappropriate at work regardless of the people involved, but things like hugs or negative feedback aren't that simple. However well-intentioned, aggressively universalized conduct rules become a boot stamping on the face of perfectly normal human relationships and communication styles.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#144

Post by dx87 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:45 AM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #19

echelon wrote: post #6

We're literally tearing ourselves apart, and I don't want to hold opinions about human beings anymore. Anyone can be an enemy or dislike you. Social media has rotted us from within and from all sides. Left, right, it doesn't matter. Everyone is so hostile and eager to end other people. This is madness. Yes, I did read the article. We're cancelling people over criticism . Somebody needs to hide Linus. I don't like cri…

I encourage anyone who believes social media has divided our society like never before to read a small amount of history of the Vietnam war era. Here's a taste: in 1970, the national guard murdered four unarmed students at Kent State. A poll showed 58% of Americans blamed the students, who were widely smeared. Maybe the real rot of social media is how it erases in peoples' minds the idea that anything could have happ…

You're right, I was listening to a long podcast that covered parts of the 60s and 70s, and the same things were going on back then, they just didn't have "social media" so people don't remember. Rioting in cities over civil rights issues, "woke" college students creating oppression hierarchies that decided who was right when someone was offended, and the DNC rigging the presidential primaries which resulted in Nixon getting elected. It was really eye opening to see how history repeats itself, it's just more visible now because of technology.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#145

Post by csours » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:47 AM UTC

762236 wrote: post #49

I stopped reading when he said he's fine with cancel culture: since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences” . No, cancel culture is bullying. Edit: I feel that the author was bullied, or mistreated, so I was primed to be upset when seeing his own dismissal of cancel culture.

As far as I can tell "cancel culture" means yelling at someone who did something bad. It can be real dumb sometimes though.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#146

Post by Icyphox » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

I find it ironic that the author supports "cancel culture", and also proceeds to write this:

> One the call, I was surprised to find myself facing four people. The previous call had been with just one, and suddenly being so greatly outnumbered made me feel very intimidated.

Isn't this basically what cancel culture is too? To some extent, anyway.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#147

Post by seanwilson » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #103

seanwilson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is so hostile and eager to end other people. Aren't you just buying into the clickbait/hype here and adding to it? How many people is it really? How many people take this as seriously as media stories make it sound? I think you're assuming a very loud vocal minority represents the opinions of everyone. The problem to me is a single digit number of people can have an opinion that they find something is offe…

A vocal minority is enough to dox you, to bother your workplace, your school/college, to get you fired/expelled, and alltogether, to make you "too hot" to hire, especially by large tech companies, who have whole departments of "vocal minority" people dealing with tiny stuff like that. Cancel culture has to stop.

What do you concretely think should be done though?

Aren't there already laws about harassing people?

I think the news should be more responsible by not reporting that someone was offended by something unless it has serious objective merit because it just gets everyone riled up on non-issues for no good reason.

Aside from that, "cancel culture" feels quite a vague topic that would be hard to police in any way because you aren't talking about specific people or specific ideas.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#148

Post by pgwhalen » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

jml7c5 wrote: post #125

ausjke wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch "the social dilemma" Political correctness is killing this country, inside out. The media and big-tech are now the big brothers. The network did not bring people together, it drove us apart. Even this post will be downvoted, because it does not sound "kind and nice", because it complained about big-media-tech's censorship, thus it must be censored at HN

There is a lot of division over political correctness, but I would not suggest that it is the cause , any more than a cough is the cause of a cold. There is something that is driving us apart on many, many issues, and political correctness just happens to be one of the more prominent ones. And HN is pretty friendly to discussion of big-media-tech censorship in general. It's when a post veers too far into conspiracy o…

> There is something that is driving us apart

I must say I am too curious not to ask, this quite cryptic. What would you say is driving us apart?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#149

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

nvahalik wrote: post #124

jml7c5 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware that your comment unfortunately contributes to the current division. It's subtle, and you may not be aware of it, but the tone you use, the words "rotten" and "madness", the emphasis on " end other people" - they have the pathos and call to action of an "us vs them" atmosphere. What is destroying society is anger, emotion, and tribalism. Our best hope of saving it is deliberation, consideration, and the drea…

The problem isn't strong views. It's weak people. There is a time and a place to coddle people. There is _also_ a time and a place for people's whose ideas are garbage to be declared as such and thrown into the bin. There was a time when people could discuss ideas without having those ideas be internalized within an individual. It is entire possible to attack an idea or way of thinking to break it down and see how it…

I, respectfully, very much disagree. A lot has been said about people not being able to handle criticism, about being "weak", or snowflakes, etc. I believe that is a misdiagnosis. Because when many people shriek the loudest about wanting to "cancel" others, or taking an unintended slight as a symbol of "vicious oppression", these people are usually speaking from a position of power, not a position of weakness.

Being able to whip a Twitter frenzy of many thousands of people into a scarlet-letter stamping mob doesn't sound very "weak" to me. At the end of the day, what this really is is a power struggle, and understanding why many feel the need to engage so passionately in this power struggle will get you closer to the heart of the issue IMO.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#150

Post by strken » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:51 AM UTC

rouxz wrote: post #54

Man, I'm so happy that things like https://github.com/mniip/wtfcoc/blob/master/CoC.md exist. People are so fragile nowadays on the internets. how come?

I think in new projects from now on I'll start running

    echo "Don't be a dickhead, or I'll block you from the repo until you stop." > CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Not needlessly aggressive, gets the point across, short, covers everything someone could do wrong, provides consequences and a pathway to reconciliation.