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Comment by Certhas | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I was called out on it, and I corrected myself. I wouldn't want to be part of a project that bans people who make an effort towards decency. The fact that standards differ and a consensus needs to be found for what constitutes decency is not an argument against it.

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.

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I think part of the problem is that in the CoC context, the slighted party now looks at your username, cross references it against reddit and twitter, searches your posts for something else to take umbrage at, and makes the case that you should be excluded from the community. The result is a very real chilling effect on speech on all public platforms because now you're never allowed to make a comment that might be taken out of context to offend now or at any time in the future.

This is the key to the whole thing and I'm glad someone finally said it. Open-source projects aren't incapable of getting rid of contributors who cause problems to the detriment of project productivity without having a formalized Code of Conduct. Why add something to a project that causes more problems than it solves? CoC proponents have good intentions but fail to see the chilling effect potential, even as it plays itself out in real time, right on cue (Ts'o).

I agree with this worry and think a CoC should make clear that it covers conduct within the project only.

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.

I believe they were trying to refute your initial point:

> 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?

Thanks.

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.

> 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...

> Just because something isn't that hard, doesn't mean we don't slip up sometimes.

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.

It doesn't mention automatic sanctions either. Your argument is essentially: If we are OK with some sanctions on some behaviour what will stop someone from enforcing unreasonable and draconic sanctions!

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.

> 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.

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.

Does it look like I'm shying away from conflict here?

Yes.

It's attitudes like yours, that seem to equate conflict with aggression, not admitting mistakes with strength and bullying with commanding respect, that need to be opposed. CoCs or not.

> It's attitudes like yours, that seem to equate conflict with aggression

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.

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