GitHub's Atom Switches from the Open Code of Conduct to the Contributor Convent
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The Contributor Covenant's approach seems to be to make a clear statement of intent, and relying on the community to apply it correctly. It doesn't specifically ban, say, offering a backrub, but the necessary and appropriate response to someone saying "ha, but there's no rule against repeatedly offering a stranger backrubs, IS there?" isn't to draft a new rule, it's to show them the door.
It seems like you don't need a laundry list of things that are not OK to harass people about unless certain types of harassment are OK. For example "differences of opinion" is not on the list. Is it OK to harass someone who disagrees with me? I doubt that's the intention, and it's probably covered by the rest of the covenant, but if that's the case why do they need to list out all the things it's not OK to harass people about? It just seems needlessly complicated and ripe for causing further drama.
Maybe they're just aping what they see in other places. Eg freedom of religion should be a no-op, fully covered by other rights. Folks should be free to think and do as they please. Religion shouldn't be an excuse to get away with other things. Yet this wording seems copied around as if it was deep or something. Same thing here, with a few added classes?
This code of conduct applies both within project
spaces and in public spaces when an individual is
representing the project or its community.
For example, suppose on my personal website I include a link to my resume, and on that resume I list my work on the project. Suppose also on my personal website I have have a blog, and on that blog I post an article containing sexualized language or imagery.
Am I in violation of the CC?
The use of sexualized language or imagery is one of the specific examples given in the CC of a violation.
I would say that, based on current common usage of English, stating on a site unrelated to the project, as part of biographical information (such as a resume) that I contribute to the project would NOT be "representing the project or its community", and so would be outside the scope of the CC.
Have we been reading the same thing? What about the part where they consider "other unethical or unprofessional conduct" to be violations of the CC?
This whole thing is set up to be arbitrary and highly political in its application. I invite everyone to see the broad and hand-wavy language for themselves: http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/2/0/code_of_conduc...
It's only 18 lines long, if you can believe it.
None the less, for a corporate interpretation of the exact same topic but with respect to email:
http://www.emaildisclaimers.com/Sample_disclaimers.htm#Liabi...
Generally speaking identifying yourself as a legal representative of a project or community has all kinds of interesting legal problems; you don't want the project sued because some idle conversation between some contributor and a service provider was seen by the provider as a verbal contract between them and the project for their services.
Another example would be copyright, if the project owns the copyright to your self made pr0n example (because you posted it on the project wiki) then you're probably in huge trouble, but if everyone legally agrees you own the copyright and not the project, well, its kind of hard to argue you represent someone you're clearly not legally working for.
Some links: https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://twitter.com/elia/status/611319469982527488 https://github.com/opal/opal/pull/961
Opal's code of conduct says:
"This code of conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces where an individual explicitly associates their presence with the project; non-project related material on accounts explicitly marked as personal should not be considered to be so associated."
Having someone post things in a public place where they identify as a member of a group can reflect badly on the group. It is in the group's best interest to enforce that people who identify with a group on a certain medium do not say/do things that would not be allowed on official group channels.
This specific instance seems to have been intended to be interpreted differently than it was and did not need to be brought into the spotlight.
No one within the group had a problem though. Coraline Ada came from outside the group and caused the disturbance.
> This specific instance seems to have been intended to be interpreted differently than it was and did not need to be brought into the spotlight.
It's good that this instance is being brought into the spotlight because it shows the dangers of introducing identity politics into open source.
Someone making the group look bad to anyone is bad for the group because it limits the(already pretty small really) potential pool of new contributors.
As far as "showing the dangers of introducing identity politics into open source"... you must not be a part of the same open source movement as myself. Identify politics have always been huge in the open source world. People work on projects, shun projects, ostracize projects, all because of identity politics.
Identity politics has been a large part of open source (and free software before it) since the beginning.
I don't think so, it's pure meddling.
> you must not be a part of the same open source movement as myself.
I must not because it used to be widely acknowledged that no one on the internet cares if you're a dog. Identity politics (specifically aggressive feminism) have made their appearance in the past 5 years.
Even in the very narrow sense you mean this isn't remotely true. Maybe take some trips back to old Usenet content?
But mordocai is absolutely right. "identity politics" is the foundation of free and open-source software.
While I don't agree with ESR on everything, I'd say he's a better source about this than mordocai: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6642
Who on earth said open source was based on feminism (whatever that could mean)? Please reread my above comment.
Meanwhile it never hurts to reexamine that age old assumption that every generation's fight is a novel one. The hacker ethic is fundamentally a set of political beliefs and if you really believe that those SJW boogeymen are the first to try to exclude people based on not aligning with some holy set of political opinions, then, again, you're missing out on the entire history of the FOSS movement. You don't even have to go far; ESR has some great writings on that very topic :)
It wasn't until 2010 that it seemed to really take off in the media so I'll personally excuse the "5 years". If you try to find feminist articles or gender politics articles circa 2004-2006 it can be pretty difficult, but if you try to find them from 2008-2010 they become plentiful and easy to find.
I find it intellectually dishonest to stretch "identity politics" to be about "Free vs Proprietary" in the context it was used in, because context will always matter more than a strict dictionary definition.
The nitpicking over terminology (and analogies) is an extremely annoying tactic. So I'll cite Layne's Law [0]. While in the actual "dictionary definition" of identity politics, he is factually wrong. You do indeed have to have a very narrow scope of identity politics (gender, most specifically) to become accurate. In modern usage, in regards to SJW/feminism, "identity politics" is almost exclusively about "gender politics".
No, you cannot narrow a definition to be about your pet cause and then declare anyone discussing the (fairly transparent) larger context to be nitpicking. The "modern usage" you're talking about is limited by self selection and is not, in fact, modern usage so much as jargon with a specific meaning to a particular subculture (or subcultures). Meanwhile the term continues to have a well defined meaning with an extensive and well documented history.
> The whole internet SJW brigade seemed to get its footing in 2008, which would make it about 7 years ago. Before that it existed in niche groups nobody ever heard of or dealt with and was far from being mainstream.
> It wasn't until 2010 that it seemed to really take off in the media so I'll personally excuse the "5 years". If you try to find feminist articles or gender politics articles circa 2004-2006 it can be pretty difficult, but if you try to find them from 2008-2010 they become plentiful and easy to find.
I have no idea how to respond to this except to suggest you may just not be very good at finding sources before 2008?
:::Edit (also TL;DR)
This example doesn't match up because "Dogs are prone to heart conditions" would be the original argument, but I would need more context that was talking about Rottweilers and Dobermans to allow the meaning to be obvious, but the terminology used to be poor. My point here is to not get stuck on the words used - but the meaning intended behind them.
:::End Edit
Discussing the larger context when you've already delved into a specific context isn't merely nitpicking, it's intellectually dishonest. I'll give you a contrived example, albeit not an exact comparison of the current issue, to illustrate my point:
Argument: "Rottweilers and Dobermans are prone to heart conditions."
Counterargument: "Dogs are not prone to heart conditions!"
Well, the context has already been specified to a niche. Both statements are true but are now arguing what are fundamentally different things. One is talking about specific breeds (subsections) of the species (idea) "dog" while the other is talking about the species "dog".
It would be intellectually dishonest to argue about "dogs" when the person was arguing for "Rottweilers and Dobermans". Even if both belong to "dogs".
Gender/racial identity politics are both subsections of "identity politics". They had already delved into an argument/subsection regarding gender/racial identity politics, and then you went and argue about the broader concept of "identity politics". The issue is you do not want to actually argue against his points. You wanted to argue about his usage of "identity politics". That's intellectually dishonest.
Here's a better way to approach someone either misusing a term or using a broad term where a more specific term would suit their argument better:
"Identity politics is a broad term and could include 'free vs proprietary' ideals, which is the foundation of Open Source / FOSS. It sounds like you're arguing about 'gender politics'. I want to make sure we're on the same page."
They can then clarify that yes, they meant "gender politics" and they might even apologize for using a term that was too broad in meaning.
The point of a debate is to counter someone's arguments, which means you have to make some effort to see their arguments as how they were intended rather than how they were stated.
That means do not nitpick over trivialities and definitions. If you're unclear on a definition of a word they are using, have them clarify it. But to purposefully misunderstand and argue an entirely different concept is unfair to the other person. Especially if they don't recognize what you are doing. (So I'll repeat ad nauseam: intellectually dishonest behavior)
>I have no idea how to respond to this except to suggest you may just not be very good at finding sources before 2008?
"Sources" and "so many sources I could establish a well-stocked multi-floor library" are two different things. I'm not saying sources don't exist at all.
If a black person tweets something I disagree with, and I let that lower my opinion of blacks as a group, isn't the best response for people to call me out for being an idiot and possible racist rather than to ask the black person to curtail their speech or to remove indications from their twitter account that they are black?
Similar if a woman tweets something I disagree with, or a member of a particular religious group, and so on.
I don't see why it should be different for associations that are formed around an open source project.
You are essentially advocating running open source projects as if they were religions, where converts are expected to uphold the religion's values in all aspects of their life rather than just in church. That makes sense for a religion, since those values are the point of the religion. It makes no sense for an open source software project.
The only problem is, if I associate (within a smallish group) with someone who is an very outspoken idiot, this association might taint my reputation. If I am grouped with this person within a relatively big group (male, female, white, black, human, mammal) this does not happen.
Personally I am trying to find the boundary that makes a group big enough, that these kinds of associations do not happen anymore.
With belief-based groups, it's somewhat reasonable to use one person's beliefs as a predictor of the group's beliefs; if the guy leading your kid's youth group starts spouting racist nonsense, then it may be time to find a new youth group. However, that's not true of project groups outside of the radical left¹, where people often put aside their differences in beliefs to further some other goal. Circumstantial groups are similarly heterogeneous: just because one Redditor is a staunch /r/MensRights follower doesn't mean that another can't find that subreddit abhorrent and instead follow /r/shitredditsays.
I think the reason that making the separation feels difficult for many people is that they find themselves in far more belief-driven groups than purpose-driven groups, and don't notice the circumstantial groups that they're part of.
¹ The American radical left focuses somewhat horrifyingly on ideological purity, to the point that many gay gun enthusiasts find more acceptance in gun clubs than gay rights groups.
Well for me this whole business is sometimes very hard. I learned by training to kind of understand most peoples way of thinking in borders (or discourses if you are to follow Foucault). Thinking in differentiation and defining ones self ex negativo in what they are not. But these thoughts/concepts do not come natively.
I understand, that this oftentimes has to do with identity, but deep inside me all these concepts do not really make that much sense.
I really have to internally translate and rationalize these ideologies like race, citizenship (being proud of some place where one was born is so weird imho), gender differentiation and so on. As I do not experience these feelings. I cannot relate as these concepts are totally alien to me.
Except maybe that I seem to be somewhat different in not understanding these concepts, as everybody else seems to do.
And, as I've been repeating ad nauseam, these codes of conduct fail to distinguish between genuine harassment and garden variety ass-hattery. Attempting to govern the latter is a fool's errand, and good for nobody in the long run.
I don't think anybody can honestly claim to have never fallen short of absolute professionalism and kindness. These codes of conduct are little more than pretexts to ostracize and publicly shame arbitrary individuals.
Without the doc, if I hurl nasty insults and personal attacks, the community will tell me to fuck off and not accept my work. Won't they?
"Be respectful. If someone violates this, give them the benefit of the doubt and talk to them about it before bringing it to the community. We're all adults here, lets act like it."
It seems better to allow people to say what they want (with the assumption that it's reasonable and respectful) and provide a path for conflict resolution than to try to codify exactly what "respectful and reasonable" means. Both because that's different for every community, and any strict set of rules is ripe for rules lawyering/abuse.
This kind of thing isn't that necessary. Though some rules (like, I dunno, no posting dumbshit gifs) might tend to increase the quality of conversation. These particular ones seem more about making someone feel they've made an impact, rather than driving a high quality community. Though the justification will be that by policing everyone's behavior, we'll end up with all sorts of great work being done by people that are too offended to otherwise participate.
More likely, if you want to drive involvement, is to make sure your project itself isn't intimidating for people to start on. Good starter docs, explanations on how to submit changes, volunteers that gently help new comers, etc.
The Open Code of Conduct is a design-by-committee list of all the reasons you're a terrible person and you just don't know it yet, but don't worry as soon as you slip up we'll wage a campaign of harassment against you because you're "privileged" and you deserve it. And don't you dare criticize it, because "reverse"-isms don't exist.
ESR has written about one of the CoC authors here: https://archive.is/6F9Yr
Tldr: the people who claims to deliver a product providing order and civility (the "CoC") are usually the people who are conducting the abusive behaviour.
In such a CoC is very alarming signal with regard to who is in charge of a project's management.
His political position is that open source projects should be about the code, not gender, politics and endless subjects ripe for tactical abuse and causing drama.
Personally I find that a perfectly reasonable and rational position. What fault do you find with it?
There isn't really a right or wrong answer, in that the stereotype is usually true that workplaces that are horribly mismanaged or have certain inherent issues tend to be unionized because they really need it, and workplaces that are better managed or have different inherent conditions tend not to have a union. Likewise there are some groups of humans that need more... political thought police... than other groups of humans. And the groups that need thought police, frankly, do need them, and the groups that don't, tend to really not need them, to the point where it wouldn't be just a merely useless appendix but an actual cancer on the group.
Most of the drama (for both unionization and conduct codes) comes from insider debates about exactly which category a group belongs to, worst case its kinda 50:50, or from outsiders just rabble rousing as political operatives often do. Sometimes ignorance breeds hatred, when otherwise well meaning folks who don't really know anything, none the less have very strong opinions based on lack of experience, or anecdote.
She saw something she disagreed with in a Twitter conversation, and saw that the author's Twitter bio mentioned he contributed to Opal.
She then submitted an issue to that project suggesting he is not someone they should have in their project: https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
This was a bit controversial.
> We will not act on complaints regarding:
> ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
What exactly constitutes "representing the project or its community"?
It refers to anything that the mob disagrees with.
This is the most scary development in open source I have witnessed.
I will have nothing to do with an open source project that means I cannot express my views in public (whatever those views might be) without fear of reprisal.
Are you sad that it's being made explicit and being talked about or that it's being talked about in terms of identity politics?
Related HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10043356
Edit: looking at the discussion in general and this article by ESR[1] in particular, I'm surprised they didn't just drop this COC nonsense entirely instead of adopting a new "flawed" one.