This new CoC trend is similar to some HOA (homeowners associations) horror stories where the people in charge of the HOA do so for the power trip as opposed to actually providing value.
The big theme in all the most exasperating cases, whether to do with HOAs, CoC enforcement, or even the police seems to involve:
1. wide difference between rules as written and agreed to versus how they are applied
2. unchecked power for enforcers, who can flout punishment/scrutiny, as above, for reasons below
3. insufficient interest from parties not directly impacted
On the other hand, the whole CoC thing feels like it was created by people on a power trip, and/or as a virtue signalling instrument to appear "inclusive", and/or a convenient character assassination tool that can be selectively enforced. Keep in mind that "violation of the code of conduct" sounds much worse than "this person offended me/made me uncomfortable" even though in most cases they are used to refer to the same thing.
People for the most part know how to behave themselves, disagreements can be resolved in private between the involved parties and if someone keeps being a dick you just don't engage with them (note that a CoC will not change anything if the person intends to keep harassing their victim). We've been working fine like that, both online and in the real world without any CoC (the law is enough to deal with actually serious cases).
A CoC doesn't add anything to people already acting in good faith (other than being a thing they can be "cancelled" about), but does nothing against a dedicated malicious actor who couldn't care less about it anyway.
Someone wanting to instigate drama and intentionally get offended must've said something about "inclusivity", everyone jumped on it as a virtue-signalling tool and now here we are.
> We've been working fine like that, both online and in the real world without any CoC
I'm not sure what you consider "fine". Misogyny has been par for the course for a long time. Not to mention verbal degradation of e.g. ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. We have not suddenly removed these formerly accepted behaviors, even though things have gotten better.
It is possible that there really isn't a problem in communities you engage with, and that consequently their CoCs make little positive impact. But do you really know what kinds of inappropriate remarks e.g. women around you face? It is easy to dismiss anyone who had such negative experiences as a professional victim, but surely the world doesn't just consist of "perfectly reasonable and encompassing people that know better than to offend", "harassers that purposely ignore any community guidelines"?
In short: Yes, CoC creation and enforcement will naturally appeal to certain groups of people that have more personal motives than those of the community. The same is true of HOA, police, unions, workers' councils and so on. But please be careful to dismiss their usefulness due to this.
While I don't think this point is necessarily wrong, surely we can agree that in recent years there has been expansion of what is considered abuse. As with any push to change ideas, not everyone is on-board.
Is being subjected to a micro-aggression abuse? 20 years ago you'd only get a "yes" from a few activists / academics. Today you'll find a vocal (and growing) minority claiming it is a form of violence.
We don't all agree on the new rules, and CoCs are a method of making everyone follow them.
Indeed! See "Misogyny was par for the course". I understand that's not what you are getting at specifically, but the whole point is that just because it's been acceptable before doesn't mean that it's right.
> We don't all agree on the new rules, and CoCs are a method of making everyone follow them.
Exactly! The intent is to cause a change in behavior, and that's not going to happen if everybody has to sign off on it. Most people don't like having to change their behavior.
Again, CoC enforcement is not without its flaws, and policing interpersonal interaction is never going to be a hard and fast thing. But CoCs give everyone tools to nudge behavior away from what is objectively causing (subjective) distress.