I Violated a Code of Conduct • Hacker News Board

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#231

Post by tptacek » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

barumi wrote: post #220

tptacek wrote: post #7

This is one of those posts where the title is going to trigger a lot of unproductive subthreads, but the piece itself seems pretty balanced and thoughtful (and links to Valerie Aurora's excellent code-of-conduct training deck). The thing HN likes to do best with any story is to generalize it and find sweeping conclusions. Here, I think the story is pretty much just: people screw up, and if your project has a code of…

> but the piece itself seems pretty balanced and thoughtful The piece is not balanced of thoughtful. The piece is crafted to present the case in a way that's immune or resilient to typical and expectable attacks. It underlined the core failings of the concept behind a CoC, and it provides a concrete example of how people use CoCs as an oppression tool that's leveraged to manipulate and condition groups to follow the…

Well, that is a take. It feels like it must be exhausting to have that take, and I certainly don't share it, but I acknowledge that it is one.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#232

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:41 AM UTC

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…

No, CoCs are meant to clearly state that bigotry is unacceptable.

If you don't understand why it's necessary at times to clearly state what bigotry is, and why it's unacceptable, than you need to learn a bit more about diversity topics.

They (CoC)s shouldn't be used to play power games. It's totally appropriate to call out situations where a CoC is used incorrectly.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#233

Post by briandear » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:41 AM UTC

ben0x539 wrote: post #209

seibelj wrote: post #135

At my company I try to foster intellectual debate free of emotion. If you can’t separate ego from ideas, how can you ever improve? So many “brave” people are glass at this point.

If you can't understand human beings as emotional creatures, how can you manage them rationally?

Well, professionals should be expected to act professionally and not emotionally.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#234

Post by barumi » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #224

barumi wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> They don't have to be that way.

They really have, because that's the sole reason they exist.

It's like arguing that a oppressive totalitarian regime doesn't have to oppress their citizens.

> (...) they can be tools to communicate to good-faith actors that they will be welcome and safe.

CoCs aren't welcoming letters. CoCs are designed with the express purpose of letting you know that you will be punished if you do or say anything that the leader's deem unacceptable, and to be used as the basis for persecuting and punishing you if you still fail to fall in line and comply with the leadership's will.

Hell, you don't need to communicate to anyone that they can and will be safe. Either that's already implied, or means nothing if you don't plan to act on it. In fact, it's patently wrong that the goal is safety. It is not. The goal is compliance and submissiveness.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#235

Post by mcintyre1994 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

silly-silly wrote: post #55

leblancfg wrote: post #35

So sad to hear about your health issues Jeremy. Wishing you the best during this time. I _do_ hope you reconsider on barring your speaking engagements however. Bad gigs will happen. But you are stronger than that. =)

Or Jeremy could just not present at conferences that have a CoC. I've stopped contributing to projects that enforce a CoC, these days I just write exploits for them.

Out of interest what do you do with exploits for projects you don’t want to contribute to? I assume you’re not reporting them or fixing them because that’s contributing. Do you sell them or something?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#236

Post by sgustard » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:45 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.

Can someone give me specifics on who's affected by "cancel culture"? It's a meaningless label to me.

I mean, I think Bill Cosby has been cancelled. Colin Kaepernick was for kneeling. And the lady who called the police on the black man in central park. Some of those may be unjustified. Is this really the biggest problem in society?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#237

Post by newbie789 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

Does anybody here have any direct knowledge of this particular conference or talk?

I'm not particularly interested in litigating the whole idea of CoCs based on a single example at this time. It appeared (to me) that the author meant to highlight what he felt was a failure of one group, at one convention, in one instance. While the idea of CoCs is an absolutely worthwhile thing to discuss along with adjacent topics and social context, broad arguments about this area haven't done much to enlighten me as to "What actually happened here amongst these individuals in this instance?"

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#238

Post by the_only_law » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

silly-silly wrote: post #55

leblancfg wrote: post #35

So sad to hear about your health issues Jeremy. Wishing you the best during this time. I _do_ hope you reconsider on barring your speaking engagements however. Bad gigs will happen. But you are stronger than that. =)

Or Jeremy could just not present at conferences that have a CoC. I've stopped contributing to projects that enforce a CoC, these days I just write exploits for them.

[deleted]

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#239

Post by esfandia » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #75

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…

> 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…

According to the linked article, it took only 2 reports to lead to an investigation and to the decision that the CoC was violated. So a vocal minority, when not ignored, can sometimes have a big impact.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#240

Post by free_rms » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

dralley wrote: post #215

bamboozled wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point all of it calmed down, the war ended and people moved on. With social media, there are no signs of stopping, it’s an endless stream of addictive outrage and one sided opinion. That in my view is what’s new and worse about it and it’s only likely to get more integrated with us. Imagine when you have a brain implant like Elon and Co are working on ? You won’t even have the luxury to put your phone in your…

> the war ended and people moved on The Vietnam-era "culture war" did not, however. It continued for quite some time. Just like the Civil Rights era and McCarthyism beore it, both of which came with their share of lynch mobs, and sometimes literal rather than metaphorical ones. >That in my view is what’s new and worse about it and it’s only likely to get more integrated with us. Absolutely we should work to reduce th…

The underlying witch-hunt mentality has obviously existed since before the term witch-hunt.

The new part is that social media arguably accelerates it. One wacko trying to burn the witches in a village full of level heads couldn't accomplish anything. Now they can band together nationally.