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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

#371

Post by ho_schi »

Please tell me that this Code of Conducts are all jokes? I've developed a fragile and basic rule which I try to follow:

Don't be an asshole.

I fail sometimes following that rule and I don't deny it. I struggle to become better but keep going. Of course you could extend this by "Help others, when appropriate", "Be nice to each other", "Use common sense", "Pardon others", "Don't be a d***", "Don't be a b*****" but that follows logical and would be itself a CoC. Anyway, Captain Picard said everything:

Mister Worf, villains who twirl their moustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged.

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

#372

Post by utexaspunk »

simiones wrote: post #361
bitwize wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to mention the implication that harrasment is somehow ok against people who are not members of the protected class? The GNOME CoC gleefully states they will ignore complaints of racism against whites and sexism against cis men because "we prioritize the safety of marginalized groups over the comfort of privileged groups".

That's not what that line means at all . That line means that an argument like `let's stop using gender-neutral language in our documentation, it's easier to just say "he" instead of "the user"` won't fly: this type of argument prioritizes the comfort of a privileged group (males) over the safety/well-being of a marginalized group (women and non-binary people).

I'm all for being gender-neutral for the sake of neutrality, but the idea that the use of "he" somehow hurts people's safety or well-being sounds a bit absurd to me.

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

#373

Post by evocatus »

This CoC just makes me feel that the Ruby community is no longer a safe space to contribute to. As a minority whose membership in one of these "protected classes" is unclear, and who can no longer be granted the benefit of the doubt / assumption of good intentions, I now find that it is safer simply to shut up and not contribute, rather than draw the ire of the community or accusations of abuse.

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

#374

Post by ghostoftiber »

simonsarris wrote: post #4

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…

You beat me to it - I saw the updated CoC this morning and wrote https://github.com/ruby/www.ruby-lang.org/issues/2694

My thoughts follow yours entirely - the author is tweaked about the failure of the moderators and twitter is not a place for commentary on a pull request.

(There's a certain irony here to the author of the PR complaining about the difference between the intent and impact of a statement and then... completely missing the point of why their PR is meaningless).

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

#375

Post by a-dub »

"As a reminder: Reinforcing stereotypes can discourage new and existing contributors. As the project runs on volunteer contributions, please think before you post about if your words may discourage anyone from participating. A good way to do this is to ask yourself "am I singling out any particular group in my statements?" If you are, and you didn't notice at first, you're probably over the line. Feel free to reach out to the moderators if you have any questions. (Ideally before posting!)"

fixed it.

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

#376

Post by api »

mlang23 wrote: post #357

I realize CoCs were introduced to make certain supposedly marginalized groups more at home at conferences. But my personal experience/feeling is the complete reverse. I am a member of a minority as a person with a disability. In all the years I was interacting with the community, I haven't had a single issue with someone I couldn't handle myself. I never felt uneasy interacting with others. But the day I saw the firs…

If people see a lot of cops in a neighborhood, they start to suspect there is a lot of crime.

Seems like a variation of this. "If this community really needs a CoC, maybe it's actually full of bigots and assholes."

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

#377

Post by api »

ho_schi wrote: post #371

Please tell me that this Code of Conducts are all jokes? I've developed a fragile and basic rule which I try to follow: Don't be an asshole. I fail sometimes following that rule and I don't deny it. I struggle to become better but keep going. Of course you could extend this by "Help others, when appropriate", "Be nice to each other", "Use common sense", "Pardon others", "Don't be a d***", "Don't be a b*****" but that…

> Don't be an asshole.

A whole lot of the reasonable parts of "woke" boil down to a few things:

(1) Don't be an asshole.

(2) Don't meddle in the affairs of others if those affairs do not concern you.

(3) Evaluate other people from first principles and starting with a positive assumption, and check yourself for subconscious biases against groups of people that you might have picked up without really thinking about them. This is really a subset of checking oneself for irrational cognitive biases, which is a good practice in all areas.

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

#378

Post by flandish »

simonsarris wrote: post #4

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…

> A sexist joke

...against a protected class. All others are allowed, apparently?

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

#379

Post by kkoncevicius »

Zababa wrote: post #314

From the discussion of the PR: > A protected class is a group of people that has been historically discriminated or a group of people we (as humanity) want to privilege to offset the years of discrimination - but that's not all. For example the People of Color are a protected class, because of slavery. Members of board of directors of the big corporations are a protected class because they financially contribute to t…

That person is likely just making a fun of it. "California Core Corporate Policies" - take every first letter - CCCP, which is a Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union.

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

#380

Post by atq2119 »

gbanfalvi wrote: post #280
zkldi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - no longer assuming good intentions is a weird thing to change. I guess it makes it easier to claim bad intentions?

It covers the case when someone makes an inappropriate joke then defends themselves saying it was just a joke. The person being inappropriate will always hide behind their intent because they can only argue about their own role in the exchange (e.g. they can't argue that the target person/group isn't really hurt). When a conversation is derailed away from the damage caused to the intent, the harasser wins. What are y…

This is largely true, but there remains the issue that there are some people who, for whatever reason, almost seem to go out of their way to assume bad intent and interpret what was said or written in the worst possible way.

There is probably some sad history behind many of those individuals, but reasonable people can disagree about how to deal with the situation.

The current fashion implies that as soon as one such person enters the community, everybody has to start metaphorically walking on tip toes.

Maybe a better outcome overall would be for the person to get therapy.

Everybody has a line somewhere for what they consider "too easily offended". This is true even for the staunchest defenders of the current fashion, because even they understand implicitly that offense can be faked.

So yeah, you need good defaults, but that's really a discussion about where exactly that line should be drawn. I doubt either extreme is the right answer.

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