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I Violated a Code of Conduct

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Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#551

Post by blackboxlogic »

elric wrote: post #444
brigandish wrote: post #347

I've never seen a CoC used to help protect a community, only to protect certain already powerful members within a community and give them a tool with which to beat others. Lately I've been actively avoiding giving my time to open source projects that have CoC's like the Contributor Covenant[1], mainly because - if my experience is anything to go by - they are a strong signal that the kind of people I wish to avoid wi…

I've been wondering about this. Obviously there's a demand for CoCs coming from somewhere, or there wouldn't be a supply of them. What is driving this demand? Is this demand driven by good intentions? By a genuine desire to improve diversity? To attract those who might otherwise feel less safe? Is this demand driven by a "fear of being left out" because big names in tech are setting an example? Is this demand entirel…

My hypothesis: a minority of adults with poor judgement cause legitimate problems. Organizers react appropriately and remove the person. Being expelled is scary! This person, or others fearing the same, ask "what rule did they break, is this rule applied fairly?". And the easiest way to make it less scary is to publish "rules".

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#552

Post by fierarul »

bitwize wrote: post #535
chunkyfunky wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"After they told me of the reports and their finding that I had violated the code of conduct, they asked if I had anything to say." There really is only ever one thing to say in a situation like this, and it is "Yes, I refuse to participate any further in this farce; good day!" and then hang up. Personally I would not have been so polite :) CoC committees are breeding grounds for idiots who think you can legislate fo…

Unfortunately, a CoC and a committee to enforce it are now table stakes for an open source project. Part of the reason, I believe, is because companies refuse to commit resources to open source without some assurance that the project will employ best practices to prevent discrimination, harassment, and a hostile work environment, lest the company find itself liable for such. (There's also the "good corporate citizen"…

> And corporate resources dominate open source -- without them we go back to dorm-room side projects of questionable maintenance.

How was that saying "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"?

Maybe FSF should have rebranded as Liberty not "Libre" software.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#553

Post by finnthehuman »

tptacek wrote: post #381
defen wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think we should generalize more, beyond codes of conduct: If you are building an adjudication process for resolving non-criminal personal conflicts (whether that be a Code of Conduct, an HR department, a Title IX proceeding, a professional organization, or something else), you should take a look at Anglo-derived common law and the safeguards against abuse that have been evolved over the centuries. That…

Your premise is that, rather than free association, every group of people owes a kind of due process to everyone else, presumptive of their right to associate. Sorry, I disagree: people can decide they don't want to associate with you or me for reasons we don't find justifiable. I can throw a party and not invite you simply for writing this comment; I can start a project and not allow you to contribute. You can relat…

You inadvertently gave away the game.

We can all agree that everyone has the right to be arbitrary and capricious. Codes of conduct are a formalization of expectations and rules for behavior. The are often tied (explicitly or implicitly) to an adjudication and enforcement process much more complicated than the person in charge just saying "get the fuck out".

However when someone brings up the idea of improving that bureaucratic process by comparing and contrasting Codes of Conduct language and enforcement to our society's hard-fought experience in creating fair justice systems, you retreated right back to the right to be arbitrary and capricious.

This is why people can't help but wonder: what the fuck are we trying to accomplish here? All I know is I need to publish a specific flavor of bureaucratic boilerplate so I don't get my reputation attacked for not publicly promising to kick out people I would have kicked out anyway. And that I can use that document to dole out punishments with a larger air of legitimacy and seriousness than just telling someone not to come around my place anymore.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#554

Post by hkon »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #357
ALittleLight wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rebuilt? Why? Do you read the code of conduct when you attend a conference? Personally, I haven't even read the code of conduct for my job, and certainly wouldn't read one if I was speaking at or attending a conference. The CoCs are completely unnecessary and, as shown in this example, arbitrarily enforced. In the blog post I read that their CoC prohibits threats and assaults. Consider how silly that is. If someone's…

He may not support them, but in the current culture you have to pretend to otherwise people might think you're a sexist or a racist. I don't support them, but I pretend to.

Somewhere along the lines disagreeing with kafkaesque processes like OP experienced, became similar to professional suicide, so I understand you completely.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#555

Post by Huggernaut »

btilly wrote: post #213
ben0x539 wrote: post #58

It really seems this is overwhelmingly about communication, not about CoCs or the norms specified in a given CoC. It's not even "I violated the Code of Conduct, so I got banned from the conference", we didn't even get that far because just communicating the "I violated the Code of Conduct" part was already a debacle. The post isn't about being cancelled, it's about an awful experience that caused the OP to burn out o…

Not even in the worst straw-person SJW interpretation of CoCs would this be the intended outcome. Why do you say that? I absolutely think this is intended by some of the people involved. Any political movement that is trying to gain power by creating taboos needs high profile examples to scare people into following their agenda. Incidents like these therefore become something to brag about. It is a basic power play.…

What exactly about this incident would scare someone into following the "SJW Agenda", when you can't even guarantee that following the "SJW Agenda" in the CoC would actually protect you?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#556

Post by ricardobeat »

pron wrote: post #506
barumi wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You realise conference organisers can do the very same thing without a code of conduct, right? That a code of conduct can be used as an "oppression tool" doesn't mean that its absence doesn't lead to even more "oppression". If you want to compare the relative merit of two things, like having a code or not, you need to consider both sides rather than just point out the perceived downsides of one.

I'm curious how you think they would achieve the same without a Code of Conduct, the acquired public support and the pseudo-court-system that comes with it.

Would you accept (or would one even send) an ad-hoc post-conference invite to 'talk about something you did wrong and how you should be punished' from a committee member?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#557

Post by gwd »

wruza wrote: post #515

CoCs were doomed to this from the beginning. Any set of strict/influential laws should be supported by a proper set of institutions like courts, lawyers, arbitration, judging practice. When you have rules and just a mob, you get nothing but a mob rule of power-hungry people. Why don't contributors openly reject this stupid system (not the rules themselves, which sound fine) and unseat these self-proclaimed procurator…

> Why don't contributors openly reject this stupid system (not the rules themselves, which sound fine) and unseat these self-proclaimed procurators is beyond me.

Because some people actually do act like jerks, and we want to be able to tell those people to either stop acting like jerks or go away.

> CoCs were doomed to this from the beginning.

Rather, Codes of Conduct are more difficult than you think. The article itself points to several ways in which the committee in question didn't follow their own guidelines. It also points to "Code of Conduct Best Practices" which aren't followed by the Code of Conduct in question.

> Any set of strict/influential laws should be supported by a proper set of institutions like courts, lawyers, arbitration, judging practice.

This is I think a big problem right now. Our community adopted a Code of Conduct proactively; we haven't yet had to deal with any issues. But I'm painfully aware that doing this sort of policing well takes time, skill, and training, which I don't think it's reasonable for normal community members to take.

On the one hand, I'd love to be able to (for instance) outsource all CoC engagement and enforcement to a specialized body, that could manage a whole investigation / accuser / defense / jury system for a number of different organizations.

On the other hand, there are an awful lot of decisions made that I very much disagree with. For example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484347

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#558

Post by Cthulhu_ »

fierarul wrote: post #552
bitwize wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, a CoC and a committee to enforce it are now table stakes for an open source project. Part of the reason, I believe, is because companies refuse to commit resources to open source without some assurance that the project will employ best practices to prevent discrimination, harassment, and a hostile work environment, lest the company find itself liable for such. (There's also the "good corporate citizen"…

> And corporate resources dominate open source -- without them we go back to dorm-room side projects of questionable maintenance. How was that saying "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"? Maybe FSF should have rebranded as Liberty not "Libre" software.

That was Benjamin Franklin, and the quote, while good on its own, has been pulled out of context: "The letter wasn’t about liberty but about taxes and the ability to “raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him.”"

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#559

Post by Cthulhu_ »

freeone3000 wrote: post #262
giardini wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what lawsuits are for. A few good lawsuit victories would put an end to this.

On what grounds?

Libel maybe; people can and have gotten fired over CoC violation allegations (warranted or not) and the consequent internet witch hunt; a famous case is "Donglegate".

There's a dangerous trend where an accusation alone is enough to have people lose their jobs.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#560

Post by chunkyfunky »

bitwize wrote: post #535
chunkyfunky wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"After they told me of the reports and their finding that I had violated the code of conduct, they asked if I had anything to say." There really is only ever one thing to say in a situation like this, and it is "Yes, I refuse to participate any further in this farce; good day!" and then hang up. Personally I would not have been so polite :) CoC committees are breeding grounds for idiots who think you can legislate fo…

Unfortunately, a CoC and a committee to enforce it are now table stakes for an open source project. Part of the reason, I believe, is because companies refuse to commit resources to open source without some assurance that the project will employ best practices to prevent discrimination, harassment, and a hostile work environment, lest the company find itself liable for such. (There's also the "good corporate citizen"…

Agree that these are table stakes, and I speak as someone whose day job is managing a team that works on a fairly large open source project which is bound by the Linux Foundation CoC. And yes you are right, it is all about the money at the end of the day.

But here's the thing; if one of my devs made a gaffe at a conference, they'd have the full weight of myself and the company defending them, they definitely would not find themselves alone facing some kangaroo court that answers only to itself :)

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