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Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

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Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#91

Almost more surprising is that this was removed: > When interpreting the words and actions of others, participants should always assume good intentions. In favor of this: > Participants should speak and act with good intentions, but understand that intent and impact are not equivalent. Also changed yesterday: > Behaviour which can be reasonably considered harassment will not be tolerated. became: > Behaviour which ca…

> Behaviour which can be considered harassment against protected classes will not be tolerated.

That's... interesting?

Some of the most vitriolic flamewars I've seen on the internet were between western straight white males. I don't see the point of special casing this clause.

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#92
post #39
post #8

This github links to a twitter thread about rationale for the change which mentions a sexist joke that was in the ruby mailing lists but doesn't link to it. I feel like I've read entire news articles about kinds of events like these where no one will actually show what was said. We're just supposed to agree it was really bad sight unseen. Here's my guess at the joke at the core of this for anyone wondering: http://bl…

It's mentioned (quoted) in the github thread. It was a "joke" about women and age. Date.today Date.today +1 # no error, but wrong result! # Maybe this has been written for women, having calculated their age ;)

The example is so anodyne and the pattern of CoC changes so regular that I can't help but expect that this was opportunistic - waiting for any such example to jump on and institute these changes.

The goal is to grant all offend/ed/ parties total, unimpeachable power against purported offend/ers/, and no amount of 'protected classes' cover removes the fact that this enables the same bad faith that harassing parties abuse, just for a different group.

Hold everyone to the same high standard. Period. Done. None of this thumb-on-the-scales nonsense.

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#93

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How about not telling offensive jokes, not making offensive assumptions, or just not being offensive. Its a programming language mailing list, what exactly is it about a sexist joke that you think belongs there?

The problem is that almost anything, no matter how benign can be considered "offensive". A phrase as innocuous as "pregnant women" has become offensive under this ideology. The goal posts are constantly moving and if you're caught on the wrong side you get persecuted.

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#94
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to actually look for the sexist joke, couldn't find it anywhere.

It's a bit buried in the GH discussion, but someone else posted it here: "Maybe this has been written for women, having calculated their age ;)" If I were in charge of a community or mailing list, I would kick the person who wrote that off. But I simply don't see how (a) the existing rules didn't do enough to cover this, or (b) the changes will resolve those issues without causing other problems.

As I understand it, some people who want to make sexist jokes on the mailing list with impunity pointed to the language about tolerating opposing views to claim that their desire to belittle women on the mailing list must be tolerated.

Maybe they should point to Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

edit: evidently someone thinks this comment is worthy of a downvote. I didn't say whether I approved of this action or not. I looked through the threads to find out why the decision was made. I don't think a sincere effort to provide more information should be punished because of disagreement.

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#96
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't educate myself if you don't give me a pointer. That said, "please help me understand" is sometimes a bad faith tactic to claim ignorance of basic empathy.

the "bad faith actor/tactic" argument is a dismissive mechanism to justify overreaction.

Whenever I’m arguing about a position I’m expected to thoroughly define terms and provide citations. Yet, when I ask what a nebulous term entails the onus is on me to “educate” myself … as if what they’re saying is self-evident. It’s so underhanded.

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#97
post #10

[flagged]

What I think is odd is that "protected classes" language is a highly us-legal-system-centric concept.

The exact phrase "protected class" is particular to the US but the concept isn't particularly so. The UK has "protected characteristics," Canada has "protected grounds," as does the European Union in Article 14 of the Convention on Human Rights. Australia has "protected attributes."

Frankly it's pretty US-centric to imagine that a general human rights concept such as protected classes of people is US-centric.

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#98
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just seems to be establishing proper boundaries? I don't know what specifically motivated this PR, but I assume something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning .

> I don't know what specifically motivated this PR It's mentioned in passing a couple of comments in. To highlight it (because it's easy to miss): "I watched a group of people use these specific phrases to justify making sexist remarks over a communication channel that falls under these guidelines."

Apparently this mailing list comment triggered this reaction:

http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/...

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#99
post #57

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Last time I participated in a discussion about adding a CoC to a project it boiled down to people just not liking that it's called a Code of Conduct. They agreed that we needed a basic set of rules etc for moderation purposes but opposed having a CoC, but they were fine as long long as it wasn't called a CoC. I neglected to point that out to them.

I think that's a reasonable perspective. As demonstrated by the incident here, the specific term "Code of Conduct" tends to attract people who don't like to be tolerant of opposing views and don't think it's appropriate to assume good faith. If you want to maintain those standards, which have traditionally been seen as necessary in online communities, it's probably best to use alternative terms which don't have that baggage.

Re: Ruby removed “Participants will be tolerant of opposing views” from its CoC

#100
post #41

The new version > "Participants should speak and act with good intentions, but understand that intent and impact are not equivalent." Huh. That's interesting phrasing. I don't think i like it. Literally nobody thinks impact & intent are equivalent, the sticky point in human interaction and morality is to what extent do we take results instead of intentions into account when evaluating the morality of an action. The s…

It's just laying out exactly what you seem to agree with, and that good intentions aren't a shield for bad results. Someone might say "you look really sexy today" and intend it as a compliment, but even if it is a compliment it almost certainly isn't going to be received as one.
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