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Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects

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

#101

Post by HankStallone »

majorchord wrote: post #92
vkou wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What matters is that people are operating in good faith. Any asshole can claim to be acting in good faith, regardless of what they've done.

You're getting downvoted but I think this is absolutely right... people are simply going to disagree with each others' definition of "good faith."

Right. Adam tells Ben to go die in a fire, and Ben says, "Come on, moderators, that's obviously a violation of the CoC." Then Adam says, "No, because I was only responding to Ben's offensive and unwelcoming language when he referred to a 'master' repository. I've compiled a list of Ben's violations, and I demand a review according to section 3, subsection D of the code...."

A good moderator will shut that nonsense down immediately, but a good moderator wouldn't need a CoC to do it. All the CoC does is give the troublemaker a tool to start playing rules lawyer, in the hope that the moderator will get tired of it and give in.

Some people think the answer is to have a CoC that's too simple for rules lawyering, like a one line "Be excellent to each other." But even that can be twisted, so it would be better as a project motto than as an official CoC.

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

#102

Post by squigz »

pjc50 wrote: post #51
astanm wrote: post #16

This, from the Ruby CoC, is key: > Participants are expected to be tolerant of opposing views. If you can't tolerate that others will have different perspectives to you then it means you're likely to be a very difficult and inflexible person to work with.

This is one of those things that falls apart on the actual content. If you have a trans contributor and someone who comes in with trans-eliminationist rhetoric, you can't then turn round and say the trans person is being "inflexible" for refusing to work with them.

Someone will say that that person shouldn't be bringing any sort of politics into it, so they should be removed, no CoCs needed for that.

Then someone will point out that they might have this stuff on their Github profile, or website. They're free to do so, of course. But it would be wrong to remove them for that, right? But then any trans contributor that sees this crap is what, forced to work with them anyway?

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

#103

Post by squigz »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #34
squigz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's likewise tiring and depressing that you framed everybody who wants CoCs the way you did.

> No.

Then I'm not sure why it would be coercion for them to talk to the moderators about writing down the rules.

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

#104

Post by squigz »

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)…

In my experience, it absolutely does help. But everyone has their own experiences.

> should see why you removed them, and again, a made-up "contract" will not be needed.

It's not a matter of the action being transparent, it's the motivations. Sometimes, it's not clear to community members why the action was taken, if there's no CoC or rules. "They're being an asshole" is a lot more subjective than "They were breaking the rules"

> It's ok to stand up for yourself and simply say, without pointing to a document you just put in your repo, 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.

Sure, this might work for a small community or group, but the fiasco with Nix seems to suggest this isn't the case at a certain size. Some people apparently want accountability and transparency from their moderators.

> 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.

Great! That's fine! Not every community needs such things. Some do.

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

#105

Post by squigz »

trwcock wrote: post #7

Is programming lame enough yet that we can get away from everything being done by hr and get back to doing cool things with weird people?

The irony of deriding CoCs while reminiscing about doing things with "weird people"

"Weird people" being discriminated against and harassed is why CoCs exist.

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

#106

Post by squigz »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #23

CoC always appeared to me as a US issue which could pretty much be safely ignored by anyone living in the rest of the world. I generally dislike how they tend to be written as objective rules while actually being imperialist but most of them can safely be boiled down to act like a normal professional person. The implied subtext of "avoid topic the US finds morally objectionable and when in doubt act like an American…

> could pretty much be safely ignored by anyone living in the rest of the world.

While it would be nice if all the ignorant assholes in the world lived in America... this is not the case :)

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

#107

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

squigz wrote: post #103
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's likewise tiring and depressing that you framed everybody who wants CoCs the way you did. > No. Then I'm not sure why it would be coercion for them to talk to the moderators about writing down the rules.

It's strange — I wrote "sometimes", and you wrote "everybody".

If I had meant "everybody", I would not have written "sometimes".

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

#108

Post by AnimalMuppet »

HankStallone wrote: post #101
majorchord wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted but I think this is absolutely right... people are simply going to disagree with each others' definition of "good faith."

Right. Adam tells Ben to go die in a fire, and Ben says, "Come on, moderators, that's obviously a violation of the CoC." Then Adam says, "No, because I was only responding to Ben's offensive and unwelcoming language when he referred to a 'master' repository. I've compiled a list of Ben's violations, and I demand a review according to section 3, subsection D of the code...." A good moderator will shut that nonsense do…

Jerks will be jerks without a CoC, and jerks will try to turn the CoC into a weapon when there is one. Yeah, that figures.

Sooner or later it boils down to someone reasonable enforcing some boundaries, with or without a CoC.

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

#109

Post by swiftcoder »

notarget137 wrote: post #87
swiftcoder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something, something, paradox of tolerance. Diverse views on software development? Great. Diverse views on whether various groups deserve human rights? Not great.

It's almost like theese two should not collide in any context from either side...

It's not been my experience that racists/sexists/homophobes/antisemites/etc can keep it strictly professional with members of the group they hate

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

#110

Post by ryandrake »

astanm wrote: post #78
pjc50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that falls apart on the actual content. If you have a trans contributor and someone who comes in with trans-eliminationist rhetoric, you can't then turn round and say the trans person is being "inflexible" for refusing to work with them.

That would be covered under the next part of the Ruby CoC: > Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free from personal attacks and disparaging remarks. And anyway, rhetoric which advocates for killing groups of people would be very off-topic for a programming language discussion forum. Unlikely it would come up in conversation except for deliberate trolling.

Holy moly, what kind of open source projects are y'all working on? I don't even understand how these topics could come up in a Pull Request. Are people writing and reviewing code in these projects?
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