On the Proposed PHP Code of Conduct | Hacker News Reader

On the Proposed PHP Code of Conduct

paul-m-jones.com

90 pointsbwaine32 comments

This is a an argument built on appeals both to Eric S. Raymond and the last several years of Twitter/Tumblr drama. It doesn't even discuss the CoC; instead, it adopts as a premise that any CoC that refers to "safety”, “welcoming” and “respect" must be tool of Twitter oppressors.

There are valid arguments against widespread adoption of CoCs (for instance: they can end up as window dressing). But this isn't an example of one.

I knew that the #1 "rebuttal" of this would be: "links to ESR: disqualified!"

>it adopts as a premise that any CoC that refers to "safety”, “welcoming” and “respect" must be tool of Twitter oppressors

No it doesn't. It explains its argument for why that is, and provides examples.

Edit: I also knew, when I saw this post had been up for an hour, that it wouldn't make it to hour 2, no matter how many upvotes.

Why did you think it wouldn't make it? Does HN have a policy to avoid anything related to the SJW mess? Genuinely curious, I'm a new user.

Yes. Things like this often get memory-holed. I don't know if it's by users or mods, but because I have showdead on and this post still can't be found on the front (or next) page, I tend to think the latter. It also doesn't say "flagged" on it.

I sure as shit flagged it.

At least you admit to childish abuse of the flag system. The link clearly does not violate any submission guidelines.

This is a weird post: it's been popping on and off the front page for me, which might have something to do with the "vouch" feature I just learned about. It seems like it's the object of a tug-of-war.

That's exactly what it is.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm sorry that my misunderstanding of the UI, and some bias around the subject, led to conspiratorial thinking.

I wish the community didn't have such a slim tolerance for discussion of this subject that's not uniformly toeing the progressive line, as I thought this was fair in tone and argument, but if I'm in the minority, it's nothing to go nuts about. I can see both sides.

Posts about this and related topics get heavily flagged regardless of what side they're on. I don't see the community in toto as driven ideologically one way or the other, though obviously some subgroups are.

We turn the flags off sometimes when an article is particularly substantive. For example, we did that yesterday for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10923885, because that article was factual and had historical value. When we do that, though, it isn't because we agree or disagree ideologically.

It seems more of an effort to retain people working on the project that fall into the protected categories, and losing those people is a real possibility if someone else's negative attitudes get back to them, regardless of whether they're vocal about it.

I'm not sure whether I think the public spaces bit should apply to everyone though. Certainly project leadership should be held to it if that's what they're aspiring to.

No moderator touched this post. It doesn't say [flagged] because we only print that when the thread is dead (closed to new comments) and the software doesn't kill threads when there's an active discussion.

It did say [Flagged] for a while, though. I was reading the discussion and it bounced in-and-out of existence while I was trying to contribute. The Reply button would disappear; at one point the link and title were removed, then restored. I guess this is what the Vouch system is for.

>This is a an argument built on appeals both to Eric S. Raymond and the last several years of Twitter/Tumblr drama

I see no appeals to ESR (just a "for-further-reading" reference). Did we read the same article? And claiming an argument is "built on twitter drama" is a meaningless abstraction.

> It doesn't even discuss the CoC; instead, it adopts as a premise that any CoC that refers to "safety”, “welcoming” and “respect" must be tool of Twitter oppressors.

This is a silly and naive argument (unless it's just flat-out dishonest). If you proposed selling ground beef hamburgers at a vegetarian restaurant, would you expect the response from the vegetarians to include a detailed dissection of the proposal? No, it would just note that it involved a proposal to sell meat and thus wasn't appropriate for the restaurant.

There's no agreement that a Code of Conduct is even necessary. Jumping right into debating the details of the CoC means you've skipped over that very crucial argument of whether a code of conduct is even a good idea in the first place, regardless of what is in it, specifically. It's dishonestly narrowing the frame of the discussion to favor the decision desired by the CoC faction.

I think there should not be any Code of Conduct in OSS projects. I like the BDFL model more. If the BDFL does not like what you do, you are out of luck. Join or create a fork. If what the BDFL likes does not resonate, nobody will contribute and the project will die.

I think hacking was never about politics through words. Sure hackers might had or have an agenda, but their weapon is programming not writing. I have nothing against political activists who use writing as their tool of choice, but there are plenty of groups you can join and do that. For me it makes no sense to mix the two concepts together and scare away actual hackers who just want to write code.

If you do not like the community, fork it. That is was everybody does for technical or political reasons, why should there be written rules for stuff most people like to do as a hobby in their free time?

This post seems to be complaining about oppression, but doesn't seem to address the opposite end, oppressive attitudes/terminology used to intimidate those advocating for social equality. It offers no pathway to making the situation better.

This sort of discussion seems to go in an endless loop since one side wants to advocate for equality & try to use as many tools as possible to that end, while the other side does not seem to like the heavyhandedness & prefer to maintain the status quo as a reactionary measure, which does nothing to fix this disconnect or the fundamental issues.

It would be more productive to acknowledge the problems that plague others wanting to enter the ecosystem, and try to do things about it than to complain that one side is acting in an undesired manner - the status quo is already undesired as it is.

The problem is that these CoCs are being pushed on open source projects not because there is or was a problem with that project, but simply to push the politics of the CoC authors.

Was there actual bad behavior going on in the PHP project that prompted the CoC to be submitted? In the case of Opal, there wasn't. One of the core contributors said something on his personal Twitter that offended someone, then people came into the project with CoCs demanding his head.

Anyone can fork a project. That's how you deal with a toxic community, not strong arm yourself into a position to judge and oust existing community members and use the media to shame those that oppose you.

Forking is an extraordinary measure, and often not practical - that is usually a very poor option.

Personally, I disagree with your approach to dealing with a toxic community. Having done moderation in various forums/chat rooms & now open source for almost 12 years, that's usually an approach that encourages poor behavior through insufficient action. As to a solution, I don't know what would be the best way to prevent it, but I'm not so naive to suggest there is an easy one-sided path to avoid it.

The thing is these communities aren't actually toxic. Large open source projects take patches based on merit. Lots of people don't even have human identifiable usernames or avatars on Github and yet get patches accepted.

The real toxic behavior that's been happening in open source over the past 5 or so years is the influx of non-developers forcing their political causes into projects and distracting from actual development while bringing negative media attention to OSS via clickbait/ragebait friendly stories.

I think you stated that better than I ever could.

I perceive a code of conduct as colonization, and the arguments/drama as a beachhead.

What are the problems that plague others wanting to enter the ecosystem? Assuming you mean some form of discrimination, I can't imagine an open source maintainer rejecting patches due to someone's race, sexuality, etc.

In industry, the only somewhat legit barrier I have heard is the influx of brogrammers, but that's mainly annoying, and it affects anyone who doesn't mix with frathouse culture (i.e. nearly all good programmers).

>> "...one side wants to advocate for equality..."

The core premise of the linked article is that "equality" is merely a smokescreen used by one side to mask more nefarious objectives.[0]

[0] Note that I am not making any claims about the truth or falsehood of that premise, but rather am making a descriptive statement about the article's contents.

For all the talk about an endless loop, your post doesn't seem to escape the very loop you bemoan.

I don't think the framing you present is helpful. Your post assumes all disagreement with the means is from people who disagree with the ends (are "reactionary"). Acknowledging that some may agree with ends but not means is the easiest way to start the process of breaking the loop and moving to meaningful conversation.

How is the status quo undesired?

I contribute to open source, I get to use quality open source, and so does anyone else who cares to.

I'm no expert on the topic, but bemoaning the death of nuance and the invasion of identity politics doesn't automatically count as an attempt to maintain the status quo. It's just a rejection of a specific solution and/or the methods such a solution calls for.

(This story became flagged between the time I finished this comment and the time I submitted it. I used "vouch" to unflag so I could post the comment anyway, then "unvouch" to undo my vouch. While it was vouched, it got upvotes and this comment got upvotes, leading me to believe that there is interest in discussing this, but I'll leave it to others to make that decision)

The proposed code of conduct is terrible, because of this unclear section:

   This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces
   and in public spaces when an individual is representing
   the project or its community.

What is a "public space" and what counts as "representing the project or its community"?

For example, suppose Alice [1] is a core contributor to PHP and they adopt this code of conduct as written. On her Facebook public biographical information she proudly lists her PHP affiliation.

She also mentions her hobby of writing adult-oriented Harry Potter fan fiction, and links to her stories at fanfiction.net. These stories are full of sexualized language and imagery. Her author page at fanfiction.net also cites her PHP affiliation.

Is Facebook a "public space"? Is fanfiction.net a "public space"? Is listing her PHP affiliation on those sties count as "representing the project or its community"?

This is not just a theoretical issue. The author of that code of conduct submitted an issue to a project on Github that was not using a code of conduct trying to convince them to remove someone who tweeted something she thought was transphobic, on the grounds that he mentioned the project in his Twitter profile and so his statements reflect on the project [2].

[1] I'm using Alice as a generic name here. If there are any people named Alice who are PHP contributors, this is not a reference to them.

[2] https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

PS: Swift is using the same code of conduct. I sent them an email asking how they interpret these things, and their response was:

   We want to clarify with you that “representing the project
   or its community” in the context of “public spaces” refers
   to behavior at Swift-oriented events, and not to individual
   social/online profiles or unrelated interests.

PPS: The author of this code of conduct has stated that version 1.4 will expand that unclear section by adding:

   Due to their strong association with the project, core 
   contributors are always seen as actively representing it.

See https://github.com/CoralineAda/contributor_covenant/issues/1...

What's vouch? The opposite to flag? Available to hand-picked users or is that based on another karma level?

It's always fascinating to learn about mechanisms I've never even heard about, either by such comments or by dang's mails telling you to do X.

I was curious too, and I found this post explaining it:

http://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements

The fact the creator of this CoC started out by personally going to projects and calling them out for not having a CoC then trying to sell them on their own CoC should be reason enough to roll your own instead of forking Contributor Covenant and letting them get fame and speaking dosh from harassing maintainers into using their project.

CoCs are a good thing, but should be something coming from inside the project outwards.

I've never read the Rosario github thread before, but it seems fairly obvious to me that this is a troll - or at least, I'm uncertain enough about its legitimacy to not use it as a prime example of SJWs threatening open source contributors.

This post directly targets an individual in the PHP community and not the CoC in question. I'd suggest renaming this post as misguidance, irregardless of which side it is from, isn't addressing the point.

I don't think he is attacking her, stating his objections to something she proposed isn't an attack neither is pointing out things she has said and/or written.

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