Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Violated a Code of Conduct

fast.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 971 posts

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#221

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#222

Post by ben0x539 »

marcinzm wrote: post #185
ben0x539 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't communicate what you consider to be dickhead behavior, so it invites fear, uncertainty and doubt both in whether my behavior is okay, and in what behavior of other participants I can expect to be "protected" from.

Codifying all expected social norms among an arbitrarily diverse group of people in a concise but fully understandable form is impossible. Attempts to do so just leave loopholes, edge cases and personal interpretations the size of jumbo jets which will be abused. This doesn't try to do so and leaves it up to you to observe the social norms of the group. Like has been done by humans since the dawn of our species. edit…

You don't need to codify all expected social norms because the CoC is applied by and for people, who can extrapolate to fill the gaps. You do need to give them a starting point, and since there is no obvious universal definition of "don't be a dickhead", you probably want to list some concrete examples.

If people are idiots about enforcing the CoC, I'm willing to bet they'd have been idiots about enforcing the "don't be a dickhead" rule too.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#223

Post by meowface »

ben0x539 wrote: post #174
strken wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't communicate what you consider to be dickhead behavior, so it invites fear, uncertainty and doubt both in whether my behavior is okay, and in what behavior of other participants I can expect to be "protected" from.

I'd prefer to make the implicitness explicit, in that case: "if the project owners consider your behavior overly assholish, you may be blocked from contributing, and the owners will add a notice to a page documenting the sanction and rationale". This makes it clear upfront that it's inherently and deliberately subjective.

Then people understand what the CoC is: the project owners just moderating the project as they see fit. This is basically what all open source projects have done since forever. If others read the public list of moderation actions and disagree with the project owners' enforcement behavior (it being too lax or too strict or otherwise unfair or wrong), they can choose not to participate.

Trying to codify every possible violation into a set of explicit rules, or, worse, trying to codify good behavior, just leads to this sort of "you technically violated this part here" bludgeoning.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#224

Post by moron4hire »

barumi wrote: post #177
friendlybus wrote: post #28

Using CoC's to backstab people is not going to end well. Using CoC's to institute a heirarchy of 'who can criticize who' is going to be rebelled against. Some people are power hungry and use words to get power. They are exposing themselves in the silliest ways. Pure vanity.

> Using CoC's to backstab people is not going to end well. But that's their only usecase, isn't it? CoCs are just a convenient document aimed at helping out Cardinal Richelieus finding ways to hang you under the guise of breaking acceptable conduct. I mean, CoCs aren't aimed at changing people and make everyone nice. CoCs are aimed at providing a basis to persecute those who arguably don't comply with a given notion…

They don't have to be that way. I admit that many of them are just that sort of thing. But they can be tools to communicate to good-faith actors that they will be welcome and safe.

I think part of the problem is that most CoCs are copy-paste jobs. They're put in place as a matter of fashion. What they really need to be is a statement on the commitments of the leadership. And they are meaningless if the leadership is not trained on those commitments.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#225

Post by junon »

xwdv wrote: post #204
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…

Anecdotally, my karma here on HN used to be at least double of what it is now. But at some point there was a change in people’s moods, and now it has been slowly eroding over time. I suspect someday it will be zero, or worse. My writing style and sharp criticisms of damn near everything hasn’t changed much, except perhaps knowing I’m going to be downvoted makes my wording more bitter. I suspect it is the HN crowd whi…

I'm in the very same boat.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#226

Post by briandear »

coffeefirst wrote: post #109

Yep, this is the logical conclusion of trying to solve all minor social conflicts with a complex and legalistic set of rules and processes. Nothing got fixed. Everyone walks away angry. It would have been a lot simpler to ask the author to tone it down a bit next time.

> It would have been a lot simpler to ask the author to tone it down a bit next time.

Or not. Unless you're personally attacking someone, a spirited debate/talk/opinion should be welcomed. We shouldn't tone it down unless it's venturing into ad hominem territory.

"I attack ideas, I don't attack people - and some very good people have some very bad ideas." -- Antonin Scalia

We should be thicker skinned and not so g-damned fragile that a tech talk leads to an apparent need to "recover." I would never tolerate someone making fun of a person or attacking their humanity/personality -- however, ideas should be fair game, assuming the "attack" is supported by a robust argument. If someone disagrees with an idea, there shouldn't be a ballroom of eggshells one must navigate in order to disagree.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#227

Post by m0zg »

This kind of idiocy is why we should reject overly elaborate CoCs. I'm sure Joel himself would agree with Jeremy in a face-to-face conversation, because Jupyter is indeed great, just not for everything. Adults know nothing is 100% "right" or "wrong" and their positions on things are nuanced and contextualized.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#228

Post by [deleted] »

RangerScience wrote: post #160
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 find I'm a lot happier when I try to extend everyone compassion. (Mostly) doesn't matter who, or what, or why, or even if my story for how to be compassionate towards them is feasible ("well maybe if their life was like X then..."). I, myself, feel better and happier when I don't lean into the hostility and desire to "end other people", and instead lean into compassion. Give it a go!

[deleted]

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#229

Post by Chris2048 »

coffeefirst wrote: post #109

Yep, this is the logical conclusion of trying to solve all minor social conflicts with a complex and legalistic set of rules and processes. Nothing got fixed. Everyone walks away angry. It would have been a lot simpler to ask the author to tone it down a bit next time.

If it doesn't touch on something like harassment or racism, I can't see how people can't complain to the speaker directly. Anonymous complaints are meant to protect people, especially if subject to harassment; but does that apply in a case like this?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#230

Post by ben0x539 »

meowface wrote: post #223
ben0x539 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't communicate what you consider to be dickhead behavior, so it invites fear, uncertainty and doubt both in whether my behavior is okay, and in what behavior of other participants I can expect to be "protected" from.

I'd prefer to make the implicitness explicit, in that case: "if the project owners consider your behavior overly assholish, you may be blocked from contributing, and the owners will add a notice to a page documenting the sanction and rationale". This makes it clear upfront that it's inherently and deliberately subjective. Then people understand what the CoC is: the project owners just moderating the project as they s…

> and the owners will add a notice to a page documenting the sanction and rationale

I mean, that's basically a CoC-by-example. I don't really disagree with that modulo some surmountable reservations about giving too much attention to either bad actors or victims. Where I think this falls short is that, when spinning up a new project, you'd start with a blank page, so people _don't_ have the opportunity to determine whether they disagree with your moderation style until enough bad things have actually happened. Why not carry over your learnings from previous projects?

Post reply on HN