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

151–160 of 270 posts

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

#151

Post by JuniperMesos »

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…

Yes, claiming to feel harassed or uncomfortable by other people with the aim of forcing a moderator to threaten them with expulsion from the space if they don't recant a political statement is absolutely, 100% a way that many people attempt to push their political views on a community. Making any judgment at all about what moderators should do in this situation is equivalent to asking moderators to take sides in the political conflict at hand.

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

#152

Post by kelnos »

wastle wrote: post #138
thrance wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not American, and I don't think that "trans people have a right to participate in society" is a political take. The real issue is with people thinking that "trans people shouldn't exist" is a valid opinion to hold, and I don't feel particularly bad for them being "silenced". If this view falls in the American left's umbrella, then I'm sorry to say: they're objectively right and fuck the guys who hold anti-human…

The actual divisive issue is whether people who say they are the opposite sex to what they really are should be granted access to spaces that are designated for the sole use of the opposite sex. This gets relabelled by activists for the trans ideological cause with phrases like "the right to participate in society" and even "the right to exist", but these are so far from what is actually being demanded that it's esse…

> The actual divisive issue is whether people who say they are the opposite sex to what they really are should be granted access to spaces that are designated for the sole use of the opposite sex.

And of course that shouldn't matter for an online virtual space.

But that's unfortunately not it. There are many many people who believe that being trans isn't real, and that anyone who claims to be trans has a mental illness. In addition to denying trans people access to gendered spaces, they also want to deny them medical care, and do things like aggressively (sometimes even gleefully) call them by a name and pronouns that are painful to hear. (Which would still be reprehensible even if being trans was a mental illness!)

And that latter bit is something I have seen happen in online spaces. It's a form of harassment. If the simple "don't be a dick to others"-type CoC is one we can agree on, that's definitely a violation. It's not a "political stance" to say that people should call others by their preferred name and pronouns. It's just basic human decency to do that, and if there's someone who can't even do that basic human thing in a community I manage, then they are not welcome there, regardless of what informs them (often misguided religious beliefs) that they should be hateful like that.

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

#153

Post by majorchord »

kelnos wrote: post #149
majorchord wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "playing politics" means trying to get people to change something, or how a group of people is managed. Not all projects want other people telling them what to do or what they should or shouldn't do, and I think that's perfectly ok. If "people being themselves" means making SJW politics their entire identity and spraying it across the internet, then I'd say it's likely they're not going to be welcome in many…

> I think "playing politics" means trying to get people to change something, or how a group of people is managed. That's probably where the disagreement/misunderstanding is. I don't think that's a definition of "playing politics" that most people would agree with.

IDK, it seems to fit with the definition to me:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/politics

> the activities of ... people who try to influence the way a country is governed

Britannica says politics is "the opinions that someone has about what should be done."

"playing politics" itself apparently also has its own definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/play%20politics

But I moreso meant the plain politics definition.

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

#154

Post by kelnos »

wastle wrote: post #143
thrance wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spaces such as online open-source communities? This is nonsensical, listen to yourself. Your anti-human bias shows and it's actually disturbing. What spaces are you even talking about and why do you think people that look, act, talk and think exactly like their members should be barred from them? > trans ideological cause Got it, demanding human rights apply to trans people is now an "ideological stance". The America…

No, typically this issue is focused around spaces like female-only refuges and safe spaces, locker rooms and changing rooms, prisons, sports competitions, and so on. The divisive point being whether males who say they are female should be refused or granted access. That you have chosen to characterise this with wording like "anti-human bias" and "demanding human rights apply" further illustrates my point.

No, that's not the typical focus of the issue, and repeating that over and over won't make it so.

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

#155

Post by kelseyfrog »

notarget137 wrote: post #90
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.

It baffles me how much political every aspect of life has become. We can't just talk about things and hold genuine discussion. It always boils down to "us vs. them" standpoint.

What would genuine discussion look like on the topic of trans people existing? I'm not sure I would know how to identify it even if it existed.

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

#156

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

pessimizer wrote: post #134
swiftcoder wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends whether "weird people" means people with unusual hobbies/sexualities/clothes/hair/etc, or "weird people" means the ones who want to keep all the first category of people out...

Not for people with boundaries. I've done work I was absolutely delighted with in both process and product with people whose views I detest. If you can't grow up enough to do that, you can't have a civilization. If I have to like you in order for us not to fight, I warn you that we're going to have to fight.

What was the most detestable view?

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

#157

Post by kelnos »

florkbork wrote: post #47

Yeah, nah. Watch how an open discussion here: https://github.com/nixos/rfcs/pull/98 ... devolves into a massive outcry because a bunch of folks not behaving in good faith didn't like "we don't support fascism or bigotry". It reached the level of * Vile sock puppet attacks on a trans individual, who merely kept saying "Fascism, no thanks in this community" * "Denounce the Marxists!" As a rallying cry becomes a talking…

I don't think your rebuttal is all that convincing, though. What belief do we have that a CoC would have prevented the behavior you note in that pull request? That sock puppet account was either 1) a random drive-by person who isn't associated with NixOS at all, and is just a hateful troll, or 2) is an actual NixOS community member who created a throwaway account to spew garbage.

How does a a CoC fix either of those problems? I'll answer that myself: it doesn't. Random hateful trolling is going to happen everywhere, and all you can do is stamp it out as quickly as possible by deleting comments and banning accounts.

The second possibility is more insidious: that there's a member of the NixOS community with these hateful views, and has otherwise managed to keep those views to themselves in their interactions with the community. Or they sorta maybe kinda keep it under wraps most of the time, and people sorta maybe kinda know about it, but look the other way for whatever reason. If project leadership knows about something like that and doesn't take action, a CoC isn't going to fix that, either.

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

#158

Post by florkbork »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #112
florkbork wrote: post #66

Earlier 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…

The examples are deliberately chosen as extremes, where they have an ethical standpoint.

I suggest the examples work even better with the context you add - you do not have to agree with the ethics or like them!

On the "funding terrorism" insinuation...

Did PETA publish an ethical statement about: - Protecting university infrastructure - Obeying authorities - Agreeing with negative media coverage about them

I sincerely doubt it.

Their misdeed in your view is donating $45k for a guy's legal defense, who was the spokesman of the ALF, not PETA. By that logic, any government funded public defender is the taxpayer condoning murder, robbery, etc. We can both agree objectively that isn't true - guilt by association is the fallacy there; funding a legal defense is separate from the act requiring the legal defense.

I would argue you have this talking point because of a concerted media effort to brand things as "Eco-Terrorism" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare - and that is a coordinated effort to change the focus.

BUT, let's assume PETA are exactly as you say.

Scenario 1: they publish no standpoint, pretending to be a local book club who have simply enjoyed the prose of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation.

Scenario 2: as above, but they publish their ethical standpoint upfront and it is easy to access.

After you have gone a few times, one day a chap stands up, say he's the Lorax; has been a member for years; is head of the Once-ler Action Committee demands everyone hijacks a plane to fly it into the nearest highrise, because he's for the trees; buildings use timber and the North American Squirrel is suffering.

In which scenario are you more surprised? In which scenario were you given the most choice about how you can interact with the group; apply your own standards of behavior or what to expect? In which scenario are you better equipped to object ("we care about the wellbeing of squirrels, but your case is driven by a flimsy ideological argument that has little to do with the shared values!") In which scenario are you more likely to seek external help from an authority; because it is trivial to identify the extremism is out of place?

This is my point - having no stated ethics or CoC is objectively worse when radical/extremist viewpoints creep in due to malicious actors; vs at least publishing a basic standard.

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

#159

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

skissane wrote: post #139
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.

Likely more than 50% of the world's population agrees with viewpoints that some would label "trans-eliminationist rhetoric". So if you are saying anyone who ever expresses such viewpoints–even in forums completely unrelated to the project–is barred from contributing to it, you are potentially excluding more than half of contemporary humanity.

Do you want me eliminated?

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

#160

Post by lenkite »

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…

The bigger the CoC, the more toxic the project - this is bog-standard law.
Post reply on HN