It can be quite hard to live up to everyone's standards of "decency". You just failed to do it.
> I shouldn't respond to hyperbolic language with the like.
Write that on the chalkboard one hundred times and maybe we'll let it slide. This time.
What point are you trying to illustrate? Are you saying I shouldn't have been called out on it? Because I disagree. The fact was, I found the post I replied to annoying, and I replied in a tone that was stronger than it needed to be. It's a good thing that was called out. Next time I'll take a breather before replying and we'll have a more constructive exchange.
> Because behaving like a decent human being is that hard, isn't it?
By pointing out that you weren't able to live up to that standard even when trying to champion it. How hard will it be if you're in a heated argument with someone when your work is at stake?
I don't know, this is the topic I get most heated about, I successfully lead pretty diverse teams, this definitely wouldn't happen to me in that context. After all discussion message boards like this are also a different context than a professional mailing list (and I strongly believe that context is important and not always appropriately taken into account).
Just because something isn't that hard, doesn't mean we don't slip up sometimes. So I'd stand by my assessment. It isn't that hard. I expect it of myself and my team. I still sometimes fail. Then a CoC, being called out on it, and given constructive criticism helps me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(psychology)#Disintegr...
Code of Conduct that you are defending doesn't mention it. It allows to state someone guilty right after first "slip up". Now I can take your comments and present them to the pretty diverse teams you successfully lead and you may be expelled from them due to your heated arguments on HN. But I wouldn't do that. I'm just making an example how exploitable Contrubutor Covenant's policies are.
To me this is roughly analogous to: If we let a maintainer decide what code to accept into the Kernel, they can just take malicious or suboptimal code and merge it!
I have seen attempted overreach in using statements made in different contexts against individuals, but overall it seems that these overreach situations were mostly corrected.
In fact a well written CoC should protect against this sort of stuff as well. It should make explicit this defence: This is my personal handle, not associated to my professional career, thus I am not representing my employer or an open source entity when I argue here.
The arguments I've encountered here in this thread are not for better CoCs, or for how we should behave towards each other, but just blanket rejections of CoCs.
That said, this chilling effect seems to come more from companies and public institutions in the UK/US than CoCs in the OpenSource community. I agree that this is something to clearly position against.
And I believe a well written CoC can help here by making this explicit: For example: By refering to behaviour in an official capacity. There is some subtlty with OpenSource projects and less formalized roles here. So that's a discussion worth having.
See, that's what I disagree with. To me that reads like almost pathological conflict-avoidance, or maybe it's the urge to not be a hypocrite. Either way, it's unnecessarily submissive and it's making you weak.
I don't. Aggressiveness, especially passive-aggressiveness (like in your original reply) is usually a sign of weakness.
> not admitting mistakes with strength
You ceded to an overly pedantic and uncharitable interpretation of the CoC that, if applied, would be disastrous. People can't live up to that standard, applying it would be counter-productive even to your own goals. My goal was to make you realize that, not cave in. You had not made a mistake.
> and bullying with commanding respect
Asking people to live up to an extreme interpretation of an already highly subjective CoC, that is bullying in my book. If you actually commanded respect, you wouldn't need such a document in the first place.
> ...that need to be opposed.
You're opposing a straw man.