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In my opinion, code of conducts become a distraction and a cause for worry to anyone contributing to these projects because someone inevitably gets their feelings hurt and points to some well-intentioned rule in the CoC to get the 'offender' shamed/removed even if no harm was intended.
Before this discovery, I would have guessed that "someone inevitably gets their feelings hurt and points to some well-intentioned rule in the CoC to get the 'offender' shamed/removed even if no harm was intended" was a much larger percentage of the cases than it is. I also would have thought that anything that makes a lot of people uncomfortable that they might accidentally cross the line is worse than the current harm.
Now that I've much more personal experience with what it means to be a person who is an actual target of harassment, I realize that these edge cases make up a tiny proportion of the harassment that happens. And when you bring the hammer down on people who are unequivocally harassers, it is important that you do so in a way that's fair and not subject to recharacterization as unjust later, when no one who was there is a part of the conversation.
A great many good people being uncomfortable is unfortunate, but I also think it's a sign of the kind of cognitive dissonance that I experienced before playing with my wife. I had never experienced anything other than the usual toxicity, so I naively assumed that it couldn't be that prevalent. The fact that a CoC feels like overkill is, perhaps, evidence for the proposition that the problem with harassment is much more real than it might feel to those of us who are not targets of harassment.
And the kind of people who will harass someone so shamelessly are exactly the kind of people who will boldly lie about not being given a reason for their discipline, or who will loudly complain about the rules not being explicit, even though it's incredibly obvious to everyone present that their behavior was beyond the pale.
The edge cases are edge cases, and unfortunate, but I don't believe most cases are edge cases.
And I’ve got an email from Riot that they banned someone I’d reported in Valorant, so they don’t do nothing. I don’t think either of us have enough evidence to know whether it’d be better or worse without the CoC.
To the contrary, it's pretty easy to deduce that the CoC had nothing to do with the ban of the player you reported. Do you genuinely believe that a "CoC enforcement committee" sat down to review demos of the reported player and analyze whether their actions constituted CoC violations? No, that process is reserved for political enemies and occasional power trips. The ban was almost certainly a result of an automated process. For example, in CS:GO, if a player receives significantly more abuse reports than average, they will be muted by default. No human review is involved. I imagine the Valorant ban is something similar, because there is no way Riot could afford to pay actual humans to go through these reports.
It's easy to see codes of conduct as draconian or unnecessary if you can't empathize with the people they're designed to protect. I'm not saying the CoC system is perfect or that there aren't false positives, but your statement here is _dramatically_ privileged.
Is it just arbitrary? Do you just depend on more people enforcing their views out to stop harassment? If so, then why not codify it?
Yes. Just as "kind" is. To the reporters and the officials, "saying somebody is wrong" is unkind, so it's clearly arbitrary.
That did piss off quite a number of people, who filed much more hard-pressing (in their opinion) issues (like, some useful editor functionality being broken) and received precisely zero feedback.
That is exactly my point. Some committee member doesn't get to say "that may be offensive to someone" either. They need to wait until someone actually reports being offended.
The problem is not the CoC, but the lack of accountability, oversight, and transparency in enforcement.
It's not necessarily the case that you have to spend nearly as much on a code of conduct system where the ultimate worst-case scenario is that an innocent person is denied a platform or has the reputation tarnished in a reversible way.
As an example, the mozilla community participation guidelines (currently at version 3.1) are quite short and readable and many sections are essentially your "dress appropriately" example (i.e. "Be Respectful"), with quick a paragraph to clarify the idea.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part...
So another area where that type of thing can happen is in union negotiations. Unions in the US started out fighting for basic decent treatment - reasonable hours and pay, safer working conditions, etc... Some years ago I was in a manufacturing plant and the break (lunch) room had a big television in it. Turns out the union had demanded the TV in their most recent contract. Someone I was speaking to berated the union "those idiots demand a TV, don't they have real concerns?" I realized the problem is that the adversarial nature had grown so bad - probably on both sides - that nothing could be had without a negotiation and putting it in writing. That goes for work from the union: "that's not my job" or worse - "you're getting written up for doing something that's someone else's job" to the management "no we're not giving you anything we don't have to by contract". Once you start writing things down and trying to nit-pick it can lead to a terrible place where nothing is easy for anyone.
How many conferences did you run before CoC's became popular?
As a white, male engineer, I haven't ever found a need for codes of conduct because I've had the privilege of never having been harassed. This isn't the case for all groups, so it's best to have one.
This is what they're supposed to do. In reality, this is impossible because so many of the rules in a CoC are subjective, and therefore are enforced based on the opinions of the people enforcing the CoC.
> but more importantly, give organizers something tangible to point to when there is a violation.
This just gives the enforcers a sense of moral authority to impose their opinions, nothing more. I don't see that as a benefit of what is inevitably an incomplete document, and frequently poorly thought out as well.
Except... they don't.
They say things like (quoting from the NumFOCUS CoC):
> We will not accept harassment or other exclusionary behaviors, such as:
> ...
> Other unethical or unprofessional conduct
That leaves things wide open -- whatever the committee decides is "unprofessional" is hereby banned. How am I supposed to guess their mind?
One option is to designate someone or some group as arbiters / benevolent dictators, and have the rule of "If so-and-so decides you're making the place worse, you're not welcome." It's certainly effective. But it exacerbates Jeremy Howard's complaint - which is not so much about CoCs per se as about the group of people who enforced them and the way in which they did so. I don't think getting rid of CoCs will really solve that problem.
One option is to have a closed or invitation-only group - but that's at odds with the goals of many communities. (And it doesn't reliably solve the problem, it just makes it less likely you'd run into it.)
I think CoCs just become a new tool for a different subset of assholes to abuse. Yes it does suck for those who have a legitimate issue. I've yet to see how CoCs solve that problem in practice.
I'm on the fence on this issue but it's sounds like you're willfully misreading that statement.
Strongly disagree that empathy is unwanted, though; perhaps you are laboring under a narrow definition. Empathy cannot coexist with inaction.
You actually do mean this as an attack - you quite literally accused me of being "_dramatically_ privileged"
Maybe you meant it as an attack and maybe you didn't. If there was a HN CoC, maybe I'm the kind of asshole that would try to accuse you of abuse. See how easy it is to abuse the system?
(And yes, you could bring up to the moderators that this is an attack, but you could do that in the absence of any written rules, too, and if the moderators are the sort of people who would agree with that argument, then neither having nor not having written rules would save this forum.)
In your opinion. As the recipient of said 'claim' I took it as an attack. Maybe I'm an overly sensitive person, maybe it's the end of a long week and I'm just feeling cranky, either way it offended me. So in this fictional world I feel that I have been attacked, and the HN CoC frowns upon members hurting other members' feelings. What should be done?
I think the NumFOCUS CoC doesn't say that though (although it's ambiguous because it includes "Be kind" in the normative text, and I'd agree that's a problem), and other CoCs are more interested in the objective (or, at least, more objective) question of whether a personal attack actually happened than the question of whether a participant felt attacked. The Contributor Covenant, for instance, prohibits "Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks," to which 'I'm sorry you felt insulted, but this was not an insult' would be an adequate defense.
It does appear that the relevant sections of the NumFOCUS CoC aren't unique to them, though I can't tell exactly where they came from, and you have convinced me that this is a problem. (Geez, this is license proliferation all over again.) Thank you!
1) Liberal values are associated with privilege.
2) Because of this association we should embrace authoritarianism.
Is authoritarianism any less privileged? It assumes that the authorities are on your side and protecting your interests... that seems right down the middle of privilege. A low privilege person would probably benefit from liberal governance/norms that limit the damage hostile authorities can do.
A Liberal is anti-arbitrary power. In the context of formal governments and legal systems, that includes having written laws.
I would argue having a vague CoC which is designed to be interpreted and applied arbitrarily by power tripping bureaucrats actually increases arbitrary power.
Through the CoC, the committee here was empowered to persecute any action they didn't like. That's the opposite of Liberalism.
If you advocate for getting rid of CoCs, IMO, you have to have an answer for how actual harassment should be dealt with. Many people I've spoken to did not feel safe at tech events of the past because of rampant harassment that would be swept under the rug. The tech industry of 2020 is not prepared to return to that world.
It seems like step one of dealing with harassment is to define it, which is the problem CoCs should solve. If you think they are failing, what is your alternative, if it's not to improve them?
Here's an idea, limit CoCs to actual harassment, with a warning. It's not harassment, definitionally, unless you persist after being asked to stop.
And it should be actual harassment, targeted at a person, rather than "this person's views or public statements offend me".
I don't like this personal attack and I feel less safe on this board because of it. Will someone go after this poster on my behalf please?
1) a Code of Conduct is necessary to enforce order 2) a Code of Conduct will prevent or discourage disorder
I think that 1) and 2) are both demonstrably false.
> I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture”
The person at the center of this actually disagrees with you. Having a vague CoC that was then not even really followed by the committee should not damn all CoCs. If you only see the worst most poorly executed examples of something then of course you'd be against them but that's not fair.
Whether they’re effective in practice, or if there are more effective methods is another question. But it’s hard to overstate the importance of their intentions.
...specifically under what is currently the top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24927123
I believe the author was referring to you.
I don't mean this in a snarky "get outta here" way, but: why are you here? Why not any other forum, tech-related or otherwise? Why not 4chan? Whatever the reason is, is the answer not quite likely to be at least in part made possible by the CoC and its strict enforcement?
Yes, a Code of Conduct is a good way to say no to harrasment, racism and stuff that's generally frowned upon.
But, as this case proves, they devolve too easily into thought police level crap, where the "Code" becomes vague and filled with useless buzzwords, that could be construed to fit any situation someone disagrees with.
And with the current cancel culture, there is a real, verifiable threat to people's livelihood when they are judged by Twitter Court for breaking a CoC.
- There is no presumption of innocence.
- There are no formal rights of an accused.
- There is no clear delineation of what constitutes a violation.
- There is no right to confront those making an allegation.
- There are no negative consequences for making a false allegation.
- All of which leads to a system whereby people are subjected to ostracism and official censure for violating unwritten rules, all without proof. A person can find their life ruined merely by saying the wrong thing or in the wrong tone, all while being told that the system is just and fair and seeking to protect the vulnerable. It is dishonest, it is gaslighting, and it is frankly Soviet.
I am a criminal defense attorney with experience in personnel law. I know first hand how important the presumption of innocence is, and I know first hand how disastrous these personnel management "policies" can be.
> All of which leads to a system whereby people are subjected to ostracism and official censure for violating unwritten rules, all without proof
Aka which hunt.
The downvoter crew has already arrived though.
It's not just people who are too green to know better. I've seen a user with a 2007 vintage account and >30k karma extol the virtue of smear campaigns.
Scary times.
Plus, in many cases they don't get applied equally anyway, the project leader is going to get handled a lot differently than a random contributor. AKA one gets sent to etiquette school, the other gets banned from the conference and mailing list.
In abstract the CoC are fine if are written and enforced by impartial angels with well developed common sense.
The people that usually push for them are for politics and power.
CoCs are problematic like much of lived human experience, but they're better than a structureless void that allows people to discriminate without a formal process that makes sure they can be held to account.
don't be a jerk
Everybody knows what this means. Nearly everybody will agree on how to behave.
I disagree. This whole situation with Jeremy is because of vague rules just like this. If I tell you that you are "wrong", you might consider me to be "jerk" and we can do this whole song and dance.
What communities are trying to police and prevent is outright sexism, racism, etc. For that, being explicit is better than just offering that someone is "being a jerk".
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-preference-defini...
[2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/merriam-webster-barrett-se...
Arguing about the meaning of words couldn't possibly be less to the point.
Just like he who controls the present controls the past, he who controls the dictionary controls the discourse.
The programming world historically has been the domain of white men, and these CoCs are often a response to the fact that things have changed.
Any talk about "CoCs are bad" or "CoCs are just for people to arbitrarily impose their morality" are wrong. We need guidelines, and we need to be prepared to refine those guidelines and how they are enforced on a continual basis.
That dismissive talk brings this quote to mind: "When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality seems like oppression."
Just for the record: I'm privileged (and generally pretty polite/non-offensive I hope), I've rarely needed to deal with any of the issues addressed by CoCs, and I've also never really dealt with any of the issues others claim are caused by CoCs. I don't personally have a strong opinion on them, and lean towards trusting activists when they say things need to change. I'm just commenting on why discussions about them are so frequently unproductive: there's both misunderstanding and deliberate misrepresentation, because it's not codes of conduct in general that people - possibly wrong people! - don't like.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bri...
The (intended) gist of my comments is to push back against the tactic of "look a stupid rule or stupid enforcement of rules; this is why we need to get rid of rules."
“Motte”: unobjectionable position no one would disagree with.
“Bailey”: more extreme position; the one you actually believe and that people take issue with. Must not directly logically follow from the motte per se.
Motte & Bailey (informal) fallacy: Jumping between the motte and the bailey for rhetorical effect, as convenient.
In this case, the motte is “codes of conduct are just like the HN guidelines, they’re everywhere and no one objects”. The bailey is the actual CoCs in question, and the culture of pushing projects, conferences, etc. to adopt them, which tends to be rooted in “liberal identity politics” or whatever you want to call it.
When people criticize the latter (the bailey), advocates retreat to the former (the motte) - they’re just normal guidelines like “be nice”, basic manners, who would object to that? - and then when the argument is over continue pushing for the latter.
Who is pushing what particular enforcement mechanisms? The Contributor Covenant is probably the most popular and most hated code of conduct. It just says community leaders will investigate and take appropriate action. It's very open ended.
In regards to CoCs, sometimes this snowflake mentality seems to go hand in hand, because they are tailored to the most fragile of sensibilities, which is a Bad Thing(tm). I'm not sure how this "shatters" someone or what that even means (not trying to attack here, as it just doesn't make any sense).
- Discriminatory jokes and language - Personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms - Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior
These are largely subjective, so why bother caring about what you might have said to set someone off?
So what if you won't take up speaking engagement requests? Duh. As we know that these CoCs are ridiculous and someone might want to seriously consider having nothing to do with organizations that utilize them.
He can post up talks on Youtube if he wants to be heard, especially now.
TL;DR Jeremy did a talk and it turned out strangely so nothing's lost here.
What I am saying is that even if all conference attendees agreed that the ten commandments were at the root of their ethical behavior (consider, for example, a conference among sects of Christianity that are focused on those commandments), Even then it would be useful for the conference to have specific statements about whether (for example) sexist language was permitted or not permitted during talks.
How is that even remotely better? It doesn't address... any... of the behavior that led to this type of CoC.