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GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

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Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#91

Post by LexiMax »

commandlinefan wrote: post #75
practice9 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Drupal, like GCC proposed rules, allow punishment of someone for something they did outside the community, and not only the guy was punished, an ex girlfriend of his was harassed by "helpful" people Oh wow. I was undecided about the helpfulness of CoC as sometimes people in the project can become hostile, unstable or passive-aggressive. But this case is very bad. Seems like CoC opens up ways for character assassina…

> CoC opens up ways for character assassination Has it ever been used in any other way?

Are you asking if a set of rules used to outline acceptable conduct in project participation has ever been enforced in good faith?

Because they have, and I guarantee you that you've been aware of such enforcement actions in the past.

Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#92

Post by bragr »

theepauk wrote: post #79

The only effect of a Code of Conduct I have ever personally witnessed was that people were being bullied for greeting others. The greeting they used was "hey guys", and instead of recognizing that language is fluid and different to different people they tried to impose their linguistic views on others. The people who encouraged this behavior were people on the Code of Conduct committee and at the top of the project's…

I'm from a part of the US where "guys" is used as a gender neutral collective noun. My mom and grandma would call out "guys, dinner is ready!" to the whole family to call us to the table for example.

So it's definitely whiplash inducing for the same group of people preaching inclusion and tolerance, and how we need to accept regional and racial dialects in the workplace, to then turn around and implement slackbots that nag and shame me for my regional speech patterns.

Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#93

Post by brookst »

bsimpson wrote: post #71
unconed wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not only that: when the committee for enforcing the CoC decided the CoC wasn't actually violated, the entire witch hunt continued with more and more made up reasons why this person was bad and deserved to be punished. This included the project lead writing blog posts and then silently editing them afterwards. It was never about the rules, only about creating a body of people with the aurhority to act like total c…

"We welcome everyone, except the people we don't welcome."

[flagged]

Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#94

Post by numbsafari »

phpisthebest wrote: post #72
speeder wrote: post #35

I see a lot of people here forgetting a real case of CoC abuse. There was this famous Drupal dev that wrote a transcript of a fetish wedding on his fetish social media profile. An enemy of his on Drupal quoted that transcript and used it as examples the Dev should be punished. Drupal, like GCC proposed rules, allow punishment of someone for something they did outside the community, and not only the guy was punished,…

In most instances it is not the rules that are the problem, it is the people enforcing the rules that is the problem Power Corrupts, and any time you give a group of humans power over another group of humans they will abuse that power. EVERY TIME. No human can resist, and it an immutable law of psychology. Power Corrupts and will be abused. CoC's formalize this power, and result of which is inevitable

> In most instances it is not the rules that are the problem, it is the people enforcing the rules that is the problem

This is the key to any group organized by the Rule of Law. Having the rules written down, in theory, means that everyone knows what the boundaries of their liberty happens to be, and they are free to behave without constantly asking for permission. That's the theory. The reality is that sometimes that "laws" are poorly written for that purpose, and sometimes the way the group enforces those "laws" fails rise to the aspirations.

I think a CoC for a larger project is helpful for not only advertising the norms of the group, but creating an an opportunity to avoid arbitrary enforcement.

Unfortunately, a lot of those CoC are simply copy and pasted from other groups without the adopting group really understanding what they are adopting, and there's an absence of a "jury of your peers" and instead you are always "tried" by (often) self-selected judges who are mostly there for the thrill of being an enforcer.

So, it's like half-assed Rule of Law and you get half-assed results. But it's a step in the right direction.

Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#96

Post by RobotToaster »

roenxi wrote: post #51
JonChesterfield wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair warning, I do not like codes of conduct. They're an authoritarian power play justified by fear. Codes of conduct are more about changing who is in the community than about changing the conduct of existing community members. Periodically someone runs afoul of the ruling elite who pass judgement upon them behind closed doors, usually leading to excommunication. The atmosphere of knowing what you say will be report…

In addition, open source projects are generally balancing on a knife-edge between irrelevance and obsolescence. Any bureaucratic tool that draws attention away from their core focus carries a risk of derailing them. The CoC people are relatively transparent that they want to be able to push people like Torvalds and Stallman out of projects. Raising the question; do we have a limitless supply of Stallmans and Torvalds…

>Any bureaucratic tool that draws attention away from their core focus carries a risk of derailing them.

Probably why M$ owned github encourages them.

Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#97

Post by dmm »

LexiMax wrote: post #85
roenxi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, open source projects are generally balancing on a knife-edge between irrelevance and obsolescence. Any bureaucratic tool that draws attention away from their core focus carries a risk of derailing them. The CoC people are relatively transparent that they want to be able to push people like Torvalds and Stallman out of projects. Raising the question; do we have a limitless supply of Stallmans and Torvalds…

> There is a long queue of people lining up to criticise him, but nobody has successfully cobbled together an alternative to the FSF. This isn't true. I have actually seen several non-FSF/OSI attempts at licenses in the recent past, most notably License Zero with its Prosperity and Parity licenses, as well as alternative licenses like the Server Side Public License and Business Source License. The trouble is that att…

> The trouble is that attempting to learn from the lessons of past licenses tends to draw a lot of dogmatic outrage because said licenses either don't conform to the open source definition or four freedoms - or at least, not in the opinion of the OSI or FSF.

They generate outrage because they are accompanied by people trying to change the definition of open-source, not with the idea of alternative licenses.

Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#98

Post by LtWorf »

LexiMax wrote: post #85
roenxi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, open source projects are generally balancing on a knife-edge between irrelevance and obsolescence. Any bureaucratic tool that draws attention away from their core focus carries a risk of derailing them. The CoC people are relatively transparent that they want to be able to push people like Torvalds and Stallman out of projects. Raising the question; do we have a limitless supply of Stallmans and Torvalds…

> There is a long queue of people lining up to criticise him, but nobody has successfully cobbled together an alternative to the FSF. This isn't true. I have actually seen several non-FSF/OSI attempts at licenses in the recent past, most notably License Zero with its Prosperity and Parity licenses, as well as alternative licenses like the Server Side Public License and Business Source License. The trouble is that att…

Ah so it's everyone's fault if they didn't rush to adopt some nonsensical license?

Re: GCC Adopts a Code of Conduct

#100

Post by VancouverMan »

Akronymus wrote: post #32

Overall it seems like a pretty decent CoC. Altough, I am REALLY not a fan of this line: "In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them." I fear that that stipulation will be used to try and kick out people for holding "bad" opinions outside of the project. Like what was tried with Elia Schito.

Enforcement of this code of conduct would seem to inherently put the enforcers in violation of the Code.

The Code states, "Harassment and other exclusionary behavior aren't acceptable."

Yet, targeting specific individuals with exclusion seems to be the main method of enforcement.

As you indicated, the linked-to page recommends exclusion be used: "In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them."

The GCC Code of Conduct Response Guide (https://gcc.gnu.org/conduct-response.html) also advocates for the use of exclusion: "In ongoing situations, any member may at their discretion employ any of the tools available to the committee, including bans and blocks."

And: "An imposed vacation (e.g. asking someone to "take a week off" from a mailing list or IRC)."

And: "A permanent or temporary ban from some or all project spaces (mailing lists, IRC, etc.)."

The "vacation" one seems particularly insidious to me, as it tries to portray externally-forced exclusion as something that a person voluntarily imposed on himself.

Like so many other open source project codes of conduct, this one also seems to be inherently self-contradictory and hypocritical.

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