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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

#111

Post by astanm »

swiftcoder wrote: post #91
astanm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter would be off-topic for a programming language discussion forum, certainly. But working with others that happen to hold differing views on that topic? Not a problem. It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to have the same perspective on political issues.

I think we are likely to disagree on whether "group X is not entitled to human rights" is a legitimate political view

As long as these views aren't thrashed out in the collaborative spaces to which the CoC applies, it doesn't really matter.

(As a personal preference, I'd rather not know the political views, legitimate or otherwise, of people I work with. It's not relevant.)

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

#112

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

florkbork wrote: post #66
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…

Let's restate your points a bit, but using the words "ethics" rather than CoC. Is publishing an ethical standpoint a "trouble making"? Depends, doesn't it? What if you examine the most common top ethical viewpoints you are aware of. For me, it's loud groups like say, PETA, Extinction Rebellion, etc who are fairly populist. Are they making trouble? Sure. But for whom? Would you personally do what these people are doin…

I think you should understand quite how bad your examples are. I understand the examples you gave are given in the best of intentions, but this reads as pure blissful ignorance.

PETA literally funded a terrorist convicted of arson.

> A page from the 1995 annual tax return (form 990) of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), showing a $45,200 payment for the ``support committee'' of Rodney Coronado, a felon. Mr. Coronado was convicted of arson in federal court for the 1992 firebombing of a Michigan State University research lab.

---

> Would you personally do what the people they are "making trouble" for are doing?

Would I eat meat? Yes.

Would I keep animals as pets? Yes.

Do I think it's ethical for humans to use animals for service, e.g., guide dogs for the blind? Yes.

Do I think it's ethical to use animal models in medical research? Yes.

All of these things, PETA are against.

Further:

- https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/animal-righ...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Coronado

- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-107hhrg77615/html/C...

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

#113

Post by lelanthran »

crashabr wrote: post #44
serial_dev wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)…

People have different level of tolerance to negative behavior. That includes both your team and your community. Having a clear rules allows you to 1) point both involved and uninvolved people to the code of conduct when you end up taking action. 2) avoid disparity of enforcement within your team 3) funnel disagreements (from both teammates or community members) by focusing them on the rule, rather than on a general d…

> If people commit a lot of energy to a community/project then for many "I didn't like this behavior, end of discussion" won't cut it.

Of course it does. If the community/project leaders are not aligned with your ideology, it's better to find one with alignment than to attempt to corner them with a written set of rules.

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

#115

Post by hnfong »

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…

It's never about the rules, it's always about the perceived authority of the moderator or the decision maker.

This is very much so for small communities who don't have the infrastructure to litigate issues in a legalistic manner... but, even in areas like public law, the rules don't really matter, it's the perceived authority and impartiality of the courts that keep a legal system up and running. (think of any controversial Supreme Court decision -- do people really care what the law actually says and whether the legal reasoning is sound... or do they just speculate about the political leanings of the judges?)

Since most people writing up CoCs aren't good lawyers or experts in drafting (and finding loopholes in) rules... having a smaller "attack surface" actually makes a lot of sense.

That said, if the community is large or important enough that it already retains some legal advisors, then maybe yeah, make the rules more specific or something.

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

#116

Post by throwaway9917 »

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…

My experience with a CoC at a meetup was that one day a bunch of people piled on the mailing list for the meetup demanding that the meetup adopt a CoC. The majority of these people were people that either only infrequently showed up, or hadn't ever shown up to the meetup. The CoC they demanded had a bunch of social justice language. When questioned on the mailing list as to the events that had precipitated the demand, one person said they had attended a meeting and had "felt uncomfortable." However, the organizer of the meetup actually took attendance, and it turned out that the complainer had not attended that day. The whole thing seemed like a ploy to turn the meetup from people who all used the same programming language into some sort of social activism group. This was at the height of #MeToo, and it appeared that this was being weaponized to take over successful technical groups through sympathy for women.

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

#117

Post by duxup »

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…

Yeah I'd like to see some examples of "these code of conducts did good thing" before I buy into these things.

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

#118

Post by roryirvine »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #99
vkou wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It highly depends on what you understand that word to mean. At first it was just meant to to pronounce fairness. Nothing more to it. It was used in a context to explicitly disregard who people are and focus on what they do. And of course it wasn't meant as an instruction manual for how to run a society. It was quite explicitly a message that you are not judged by who you are. That is it, there is no ideology, there i…

Er, at first it was a purely pejorative term - most famously used to describe a dystopia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

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

#119

Post by ranger_danger »

danaris wrote: post #95
ranger_danger wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there are many, many more who would cause friction with others in such a community without a code of conduct Hard disagree... I've never seen one have this effect. IMO you don't need a CoC to suddenly understand what should already be common sense i.e. don't be a dick. Either they were already going to act that way, or they weren't.

> I've never seen one have this effect. How do you think you would see it? Under normal circumstances, what it would look like from the outside is just...someone not causing friction, because there is a code of conduct. Or someone causing friction, because there isn't one. The former looks identical to someone who would never have caused trouble in the first place, and the latter looks, if not identical, at least ver…

The way I see it, the people who would cause friction anyway won't be stopped by a CoC.

And the people who wouldn't cause friction are already behaving so they don't need one.

Another commenter (cannot find their name now but I saved the text) said exactly what my experience has been:

> 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).

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

#120

Post by thunderfork »

serial_dev wrote: post #52
ang_cire wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm just having a hard time imagining someone who wants to be racist sexist xenophobe jerk to other people, but they saw you drafted a CoC last year in the root of your repository, so they won't... Or they were racist sexist xenophobe jerks, then you point out that "our community has a CoC", and they will stop. None of these things happen in real life.

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