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Comment by monksy | Hacker News Reader

Alternative explanation in the same vane as your theory:

The cognitive and time cost of compliance for language policing takes away from valuable programming and planning involved in developing solutions. (i.e. "banned words" [swear words] and politicalized words [whitelist/blacklist,etc])

Antoher possibility is the people who don't want to deal with that are gone and we're seeing a loss of their contributions.

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That’s a pretty big leap IMO. What gives you that impression?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281...

It's really not a big leap, though. People who are afraid of violating a code of conduct because they're "under the watch of language police" are basically experiencing a form of anxiety that may or may not have a basis in reality.

Being afraid of being sent to the HR DEI board because you named a process 'Child1' then ran Kill(Child1) ... or any less obvious scenario similar to that ... is not going to do great things to your ability to work.

This tells me more about the impacts of anxiety writ large than it highlights the problem of “language policing.”

"Oh, THEY are policing my language. THEY are watching everything I say!"

You're reading the idea of language policing as some actual thing, like people are hanging over someone watching every word they say. It certainly might be true in some offices or with some coworkers, but, I'm pretty sure feeling that your every word is policed is closer to a form of anxiety than an actual problem in most offices.

Or, your coworkers are basically bullying you over minor nitpicks, which will keep you in a state of mild anxiety.

Either way, having to monitor your every word is definitely closer to being anxious than not, and is definitely going to have some impact on your performance.

> You're reading the idea of language policing as some actual thing, like people are hanging over someone watching every word they say.

I’m not sure where you got that impression. I didn’t say anything like that anywhere. You’re just making assumptions in service to what appears to be some axe grinding.

the point here being: the perception of being surveilled by "language police" on its own is either anxiety inducing or the result of an existing anxious disposition. The actual act of "language policing" is also going to induce or worsen an existing anxious disposition.

Not that commenter, but with 20 years of experience in open source I share their hypothesis.

Language policing slows down technical progress, very significantly I would wager.

I would also argue that it prevents important technical conversations and accounting. If you have a m/s architecture, and you're concerned about redudancy/cost/etc.. well that conversation has been delayed and potentially prevented over the constant correction of saying manager/worker instead. It's a mental/cognitive/communication tax on the contributors.

Agree. You'll never get a count of all the people who may have been interested in contributing to a project but decided against it because of a COC or language police.

Yep. I keep noticing that places which tell everyone how "inclusive" and "welcoming" and "safe" they are have a strong correlation with being hostile, unsafe spaces where you're walking on eggshells with the implicit threat of dogpiling and vicious character attacks. Nothing says "friendly" like a big list of rules on the front door, and being told "you can feel safe here because we support hunting those unsafe witches!". This applies well beyond just FOSS projects

It's sort of like the stock horror media trope where a community that projects a facade of being a happy utopia is maintained by unspoken but vicious enforcement of conformity

exactly, those who scream loudest about these things tends to be the biggest offenders themselves. There is an old saying: "thief thinks every man steals". This is of course not a 100% rule, but odds are generally good :)

I guess I should put it another way. Sure it’s a valid theory, but I think asserting it as borderline self evident/a big enough deal that it primarily explains the profanity in repos is another matter entirely. I could also assert 5 other valid theories I’m sure. Doesn’t mean they’re all accurate or worth weighing.

So yeah, I’m just curious how those of you who responded to me are quantifying this.

If I find someone with 20 years experience that disagrees with your take, what then? I’m just wondering how y’all are quantifying this, as I explained in another comment.

Everything has an opportunity cost. It's just often not explicitly realized or acknowledged.

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