They are even harmful. Very harmful
Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
121–130 of 270 posts
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 fel…
Can you provide sources for these claims?
> animals as pets
This seems to say they are perfectly fine with pets: https://www.peta.org/about-peta/why-peta/pets/
> guide dogs
Seems to imply they are not against service animals in general: https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/monkeys-arent-pets-...
Not trying to defend anyone, just looking for objective evidence.
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#123CoCs are one of the reasons why I choose to not contribute. I don't enjoy the risk of someone with an axe to grind to drag me into some absurd GitHub comments drama and feel justified by some generic wording on the CoC.
Same, but for slightly different reasons. I was a big open source contributor of a few well known projects, but the CoC stuff just kinda soured me on it all.
Not because I enjoy reading or writing hate speech or anything, but these were places that didn't tend to have any obvious problems with troublemakers, so it felt self congratulatory. And don't even get me started on the sheer amount of bikeshedding the discussions around it became, mostly from people who'd never even contributed to the project.
It suddenly made me realize there were probably more productive and less frustrating ways to spend my time.
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#124Earlier 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…
Presumably the code of conduct was introduced to solve a problem. So I'd be interested in hearing about an example of a community that had problems with their social fabric, and then introduced a code of conduct, and then could demonstrate that those issues in their social fabric were addressed.
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.)
If said people kept their opinions to themselves, the issue would never arise in the first place. Pretty much the whole problem in semi-public spaces like this is that folks with strong reactionary beliefs don’t tend to leave them at the door
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
But could they not do the same without a CoC?
Yes, that's the point of why CoCs are essentially useless. Humans should be able to interact politely in any setting and if they don't, the issue needs to be settled with good old human interaction anyways.
This is how I feel. I treat the presence of a code of conduct as a sign that, particularly for small projects, the folks running the project don't have experience leading others. Always comes down to the relationship, the individuals involved, and the way things are communicated.
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#127I really like heavy codes of conduct. They're the Open Source project equivalent of those brightly colored frogs in the tropics. They're kind enough to signal their own toxicity so others know to keep their distance.
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#128My theory is that this is designed to kill open source.
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For software projects that are overwhelmingly conducted online the very concept of "marginalized group" is close to irrelevant I wish this were true, but it simply isn't. If a group is full of white cis heterosexual guys and someone turns up with a random screen name and says nothing about themselves, everyone assumes they are also a white cis hetero guy even if they're not. The implication is "you have to conform,…
> everyone assumes they are also a white cis hetero guy even if they're not Hard disagree. And how is this even relevant? > The implication is "you have to conform, and if you don't then you don't belong". Conform to what, being nice? That was already the case. A group is very unlikely to change their ways regardless, especially just because you barge in and say you are marginalized and start getting offended at thin…
I think that you've made my point really quite well. I gave perhaps the most basic possible example of accommodation, adjusting a single word with no impact on other project members and you were still able to argue about it.
> Maybe you believe it is necessary to identify yourself online as belonging to some group, perhaps in order to force a change, but again I think this is just trying to play politics where it's often not welcome.
People just want to be themselves. If the very act of appearing to be from a different group is "playing politics" then what you actually mean is "you cannot be different".
This behavior is exactly why a CoC is needed.
Re: Heavy codes of conduct are unnecessary for open source projects
#130The 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…
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