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

Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

shujisado.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 270 posts

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#31

Post by arpinum »

chrislo wrote: post #21
curtisblaine wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What evidence do you have for that? I was involved in adopting a code of conduct for a local tech meetup and we did that because a couple of incidents that weren't handled very well left other people feeling unsafe and unwelcome. Having some guidelines in place reassured folks that we took those concerns seriously and gave us a framework to deal with unwanted behaviour.

Anti-meritocracy was in in some CoCs, arguing in its favour was a reason for exclusion from an event / project. Even if the argument happened somewhere else on the internet and not in the project.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#32

Post by warp »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #2

> DHH condemned detailed and strict CoC like the Contributor Covenant as a “trojan horse” that should be purged from projects. ESR went even further, asserting that CoC are nothing more than a “tool for troublemakers” and that the best course of action is to delete them entirely from projects. At this point, in 2025, does anybody seriously doubt that they're a "tool for troublemakers"? A lot of people who would other…

If having a CoC keeps folks like DHH and ESR out of a particular project, then I think the CoC is serving a valuable purpose.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#33

Post by squigz »

ricardobeat wrote: post #30
squigz wrote: post #14

It seems some people need to re-read the title and article and consider the words "heavy", "bureaucratic" and the like No, CoCs - or rules in general - are not inherently bad. HN has some, which the moderators and the community enforce well, and it's generally one of the best platforms on the Internet for intelligent discussion. Yes, heavy CoCs can be weaponized and abused, if there is little or no trust between the…

A written code of conduct can legitimize petty disputes based on interpretations of the text, even if the issue itself is something easily addressable like using the word “master” in a programming context. It can become a tool for manipulation (pushing someone out for “CoC violation” vs simply correcting the wording).

I don't see how that is an issue with CoCs. Those people would still try this with or without a CoC - whether the moderators/maintainer acquiesce is the real issue, and, again, is separate from having a CoC.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#34

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

squigz wrote: post #29
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think moderators need to establish a CoC to push their politics on people if they want? How does that even make sense? Why not just... do that, without a CoC? I don't think this is what generally happens, or what people are wary of. I think group participants [sometimes] coerce moderators into establishing a CoC in order to have a tool to reach for in service of silencing voices they regard as "problematic".

> silencing voices they regard as "problematic". I'm going to push past this extraordinarily bad faith framing. I'm going to assume you're referring to people who are made to feel uncomfortable or are harassed by other members of the community. So if that community doesn't have a CoC, and those members talk to the moderators, and the moderators take action... is that coercion too? Is that the moderators or those memb…

> I'm going to assume you're referring to people who are made to feel uncomfortable or are harassed by other members of the community.

It has been my experience that there are both members of groups typically regarded as marginalised who have been harrassed, and also members of groups typically regarded as marginalised who harass others. There are surely more variations of this too.

My most recent experience of this was a member of a group typically regarded as marginalised harassing one of my colleagues — who is also a member of a group typically regarded as marginalised, but perhaps less so if you subscribe to the legitimacy of intersectionality — at a software development conference with an established CoC.

The incident was reported, and the repercussions for the harasser amounted to exactly nil.

> So if that community doesn't have a CoC, and those members talk to the moderators, and the moderators take action... is that coercion too?

No.

> Is that the moderators or those members pushing their political views on the community?

That really depends on the circumstance.

> Should the moderators just not do anything?

Moderators should take action on CoC violations as proportionately, fairly, and impartially as they can.

> I'm going to push past this extraordinarily bad faith framing.

It is extraordinarily tiring and depressing that anything proffered that contradicts the orthodoxy of the culture that most readily endorses the establishment of CoCs is immediately dismissed as an argument in "bad faith".

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#35

Post by Ragnarork »

lowsong wrote: post #28

A big part of a CoC that this article, as most discussions on the topic, miss is that they provide a signal to new contributors from marginalized groups, who may have faced abuse or violence in other spaces, that this community will be safe for them to contribute to and - as many anti-CoC folk like to say - get on with the tech. Not having a CoC doesn't mean a project is going to be unsafe to work in. But it means wh…

Well a big reason this is missed is people discussing it are not part of these groups and mainly saw this as an annoyance.

I can agree that heavy & strict CoCs can be daunting and probably overkill for small open source projects. And they're far from flawless, as shown by the Rust mods resignation incidents. But to say they're useless and anti-meritocratic is to forget (and/or silence) these people that wanted to contribute in an environment where they wouldn't feel threatened (incidentally, sometimes despite being skillful contributors, so much so for the supposed meritocracy of the CoC-less projects).

I'm not sure strict CoCs are the answers to these real problems, but this feels like dismissing these problems altogether.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#36

Post by serial_dev »

squigz wrote: post #17
serial_dev wrote: post #5

The thing is that codes of conduct do not help honest actors “regulate” and deal with troublemakers. I used to organize meetups and I visited meetups organized by others who had code of conduct, and I just never understood what they were hoping to achieve with that. If someone behaves poorly, you can point at a document all you want, but it doesn’t help you deal that the problematic individual. A document that you pu…

Having something you can point to and say "This is why you're being removed" often removes some headaches. Some people will claim it's unjustified, moderator abuse, etc, if you don't. At least with some rules, there's less wiggle room. Of course, some people are going to respond poorly even with some rules, but it's also not just about the offenders - other community members being able to see there's some logic and r…

> often removes some headaches (...) with some rules, there's less wiggle room

... I understand that's the theory, but in practice, I've never seen it working that way.

I don't see how having the CoC affects any of this. If someone is behaving poorly, first of all, a CoC will not deter them. If someone behaves so poorly that you decide you need to remove them, the community (the small portion of people who give a f) should see why you removed them, and again, a made-up "contract" will not be needed.

It's ok to stand up for yourself and simply say (without pointing to a document you put in your repo when you were bored), that: "John Doe was behaving poorly, and I don't want to deal with him, I banned him, you don't need to like it, but it's my decision".

Just my 2c... I don't want to add more procedures to my open source projects or voluntary organizing. I'm doing it because I like it, not because I want to pretend I'm at a townhall meeting.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#37

Post by noelwelsh »

Good article. This sentence from the conclusion nails it:

> What is needed now is not the unthinking adoption of a one-size-fits-all template, but a “right-sized” approach tailored to the scale, culture, and goals of each individual project.

I feel a lot of the heavy CoCs are a product of low-trust cultures, particularly the US, which attempt to replace interpersonal relationships with legalese. This is honestly not necessary in most projects, which are generally high-trust environments.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#38

Post by ang_cire »

serial_dev wrote: post #36
squigz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having something you can point to and say "This is why you're being removed" often removes some headaches. Some people will claim it's unjustified, moderator abuse, etc, if you don't. At least with some rules, there's less wiggle room. Of course, some people are going to respond poorly even with some rules, but it's also not just about the offenders - other community members being able to see there's some logic and r…

> often removes some headaches (...) with some rules, there's less wiggle room ... I understand that's the theory, but in practice, I've never seen it working that way. I don't see how having the CoC affects any of this. If someone is behaving poorly, first of all, a CoC will not deter them. If someone behaves so poorly that you decide you need to remove them, the community (the small portion of people who give a f)…

> If someone is behaving poorly, first of all, a CoC will not deter them

I think you mean, "if someone is behaving poorly, the coc did not deter them".

The people who it did deter aren't behaving poorly.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#39

Post by vkou »

arpinum wrote: post #31
chrislo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do you have for that? I was involved in adopting a code of conduct for a local tech meetup and we did that because a couple of incidents that weren't handled very well left other people feeling unsafe and unwelcome. Having some guidelines in place reassured folks that we took those concerns seriously and gave us a framework to deal with unwanted behaviour.

Anti-meritocracy was in in some CoCs, arguing in its favour was a reason for exclusion from an event / project. Even if the argument happened somewhere else on the internet and not in the project.

Whenever I see someone dying on the hill of fighting for 'meritocracy', in the words of another poster in this subthread, I have found them to be:

> ...a zealot about their cause. Deflecting and uncompromising, very unagreeable. They would be the last persons to know how to make a community comfy.

... And typically with a giant chip on their shoulder. The real world's a little bit more complicated than the spherical cows that the near-religious faith in it requires.

Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

#40

Post by PlunderBunny »

I feel like this is similar to civil and criminal laws: When codes of conduct are very detailed, lawyers will argue fine points on the wording. When they are simple and general, people can't be 'rules lawyers', but you need to have authority to enforce decisions, and respect for that authority.
Post reply on HN