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Comment by mongol | Hacker News Reader

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I rarely find a CoC to be "woke", and it would be helpful if you can provide cover concrete examples. What I see in big products is mostly "Don't attack others, don't tell dirty jokes, no harassment of any kind" which I find neutral and fair.

I had a look expecting to find a few quickly, but couldn't. The ones I saw do mention you can't be mean about, say, gender, but among a vast swathe of other features. So I can't see how that's particularly woke.

I suppose there was the brouhaha at Stack Exchange about their code or conduct and how you must use user-provided pronouns if they are specified (not even using terms like OP or "they") but looking at CoC now I can't see any mention of this. Not is SE an open-source project, it is a for-profit closed-source project with volunteer contributions.

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/ is (was?) the most widely adopted code of conduct in FOSS, initially drafted by a Ruby contributor, who also happens to be transgender if that's pertinent information to you. It's the genesis seed from which all this code of conduct madness stems from. Personally I'd stick with "be excellent to each other" or "say what you want, just don't use slurs or deliberately insult other contributors" or something vague, ambiguous and universally understood as that. I'm not really a fan of rigorous social rules, so my view on this starts from that position.

Unfortunately it seems that "be excellent to each other" is not specific enough to be understood by everyone.

E.g., "address people using the name and gender that they use to refer to themselves". You would expect this to be obvious, and yet... Or maybe making this explicit is promoting a "woke ideology"?

> don't tell dirty jokes

That alone is annoying and limiting. Constantly having to filter and mince your words to comply with this slows down thinking and reduces creativity.

Remember dongle-gate? People should be allowed to joke about dongles all they want.

I don't know how such a simple thing can be "annoying". Do you tell dirty jokes with colleagues when you have lunch in the cafeteria? If not, how is it difficult (not) to do the same thing online? That seems a very low bar.

I am a male and I am not some sort of saint that never watches porn or never has dirty thoughts in my private life, but this (dirty jokes) isn't something I would complain about.

btw I noticed that many women really don't like dirty jokes, like, disgusted by them. This can be a real turnoff for inclusivity -- imagine a woman interested in contributing to the project but decides not to participate because of issues like this.

Why did you bring up dongles? I thought we were discussing CoCs

These aren’t social clubs, they’re organizations of humans dedicated to building software. Telling jokes in e.g. an issue task or a project mailing list wastes everyone’s time. And why would you be having to filter in the first place?

FOSS software projects are social clubs. They're endeavors undertaken willfully, voluntarily, usually without any expectation of financial compensation, out of personal interest. They have a goal, yes, but at the end of the day people get involved because it's fun, and they're trying to have fun and do something they think is cool. Telling someone they can't share a winkyface in chat is offputting to I'd say most talented people that do this sort of thing out of personal interest. I don't think it's a coincidence that we see alongside this rise on CoCs a rise of frustratingly hostile user experience in software.

The motivation for this whole thread is the social club, the community aspect of a software project.

This is an example

https://meta.chaos.social/rules

For example "No right or alt-right bullshit, Nazi content, conspiracy narratives.". What about leftish bullshit? That also exists, so why be so specific? The answer to me is pretty clear. These are rules for a specific political worldview.

you're mad a private organization doesn't want to be associated with nazism, conspiracy theories or alt-right nonsense?

There you go, agitating. That's not what they're saying. They're saying that the rules are one sided, you're allowed to be an ideological extremist as long as you're the right kind of ideological extremist.

I'd personally like to contribute in communities again, like it used to be, where insane political ideology of any stripe was not an important aspect of contribution. It seems these days people like me, who don't want to either see the N word every five minutes or hear about late stage capitalism and gender identity, don't have a place in the FOSS world.

But it's a private org, they can limit speech how they see fit. Communities need to have rules; if not communities can become pretty toxic, and drive people away who might want to contribute, or even just seek help.

By making it clear they ban nazi's and the alt-right, people know what they're getting into when they join. I don't see the issue, and I don't buy into "horseshoe theory" or the idea that far left and far right are just two sides of the same coin, because they're not.

You're hearing lots about late stage capitalism because of the times we're in.

You're hearing lots about gender identity because until recently in modern capitalist society it was dangerous for people who didn't fit traditional gender norms to express that openly.

Well so is the Hyprland community, yet we seem to be discussing the merits of deciding for them how they limit speech. We don't want them to do it how they see fit as you put it, because their criteria are not to our liking.

I personally find the politicization of everything off putting and won't contribute to projects that do it. I'd call the constant push to shoehorn gender identity into every crevice of our lives toxic and I'd say it drives me and other people away. But that's OK right, because they don't want people like me contributing, that's the point, and maybe I have a right to not want people like them contributing in my projects also, maybe I don't want to be inclusive towards people that aren't inclusive towards me.

>I personally find the politicization of everything off putting and won't contribute to projects that do it. I'd call the constant push to shoehorn gender identity into every crevice of our lives toxic and I'd say it drives me and other people away.

Is gender identity being "shoehorned" into every crevice of our lives, or are people just more comfortable expressing who they really are? And now that they are, people who didn't need to feel bad about expressing their identity don't always know how to handle it.

>We don't want them to do it how they see fit as you put it, because their criteria are not to our liking.

No; they're perfectly allowed to limit speech how they want to. But we're allowed to criticize it as well.

You're mentioning a service ran by a very particular community that draws Antifa logos on badges given to participants of its events. Of course it's not going to tolerate right-wing bullshit and it has every right to state that, but I fail to see how that's on-topic here. It's hardly a surprise that a CoC used by a community that's likely "woke" by your standards appears as "woke" to you.

I was asked to provide an example and gave one. How could that not be on topic?

You asserted that CoCs "usually broadcast a woke world view", and when asked for an example provided one that's used by a clearly left-aligned community. You could very well make a completely opposite statement and also find a supporting example and it would be just as informative.

Many communities aren't explicitly politically aligned and their CoCs aren't either.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/usually

Wow, I think I'm too lawful left aligned to handle that level of "chaos". D:

There are plenty of CoCs which explicitly advocate for ideas from Critical Race Theory such as “anti-meritocracy” (meritocracy discriminates against the historically disadvantaged) and “anti-racism” (you have to be discriminatory to fight discrimination). I’m on mobile so my Google-fu is a little weak. All I can leave you with is the (unsatisfactory) anecdote that people have expoused these ideas to me in real life, saying things like “If you don’t have enough PoC contributing to your FLOSS project, you need to go and invite some regardless of if they are good contributors or not”

> There are plenty of CoCs

Examples, please.

https://floss.social/about

See:

https://github.com/sagesharp/code-of-conduct-template/blob/m...

And from that:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9Cprioritizes%20margi...

Two notable examples:

https://wiki.gnome.org/Foundation/CodeOfConduct

https://www.elastic.co/community/codeofconduct

Probably more but I’m on vacation. Also I’m expecting you to respond saying something like “Those don’t count” anyways

> Also I’m expecting you to respond saying something like “Those don’t count” anyways

The HN guidelines explicitly say take ppl in good faith. We have guidelines on this site.

https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/1/code_of_con...

The only time I've ever seen CoC invoked is as a kind of weapon to settle petty disagreements. Something someone disagrees with becomes "making me feel unsafe" or such nonsense. They're one of those ideas that seems harmless but in practice is only something agitators use to make the project about them (usually some woke ideology thing) instead of the project. I would never get involved in project that had a CoC.

You have over 20k(!) karma on HN and you've never seen the CoC(community guidelines) invoked in a way here that wasn't as a weapon to settle petty disagreements?

Codes of Conduct are absolutely, 100% a way to enforce a specific world view. Anyone who disagrees should look up the first SQLite CoC and how the HN community reacted to it.

The idea of a code of conduct should be fairly neutral but it never is. I tend to avoid communities with posted CoCs.

In reality 90% of people do not care one way or the other, they just want their problems fixed.

In theory you are right and I would agree, but unfortunately we live in a world where it's not immediately obvious to everyone that women, people whose skin is black, homosexuals, trans, etc are normal people who deserve same respect that anyone else, and for those people (for which it's not obvious), it can be useful to be explicit what "other people" means.

Fidonet used to have a two-bullet CoC:

- don’t annoy others

- don’t be easily annoyed

Plus moderators that made sure you stayed on topic.

It was plenty.

The problem with this is that it relies on an unspoken standard of "annoy". If you misgender someone, does that count as annoying them, or as them being easily annoyed?

The way it worked is that likely both sides would get an admonition

It depends on the intent.

I think the userbase of Fidonet was slightly different of that of the internet as it is today.

The issue with people is that we all have very different ideas of what kind and respectful behavior is? Especially relevant when so many different folks from so many places come together online.

Setting the minimum standards helps set expectations for all participants. I don’t see an issue with spelling things out in more concrete terms.

For clarity, could you give your definition of “woke” please?

Not a definition, but anything that promotes identity politics sets off my woke radar.

Maybe the problem is your radar. I understand that extreme ends of the social spectrum are frustrating for people supposedly not caught up in whatever the thing is, especially if it’s off topic, but if “anything” sets it off, you might consider recalibrating.

People taking offense to every damned thing, not accepting apologies or remediation, hijacking conversations about an off topic politicized issue, or other similar disruptive behavior is one thing, but people standing up for themselves or asking for a little common courtesy and respect like anyone else sounds reasonable to me. If someone, not necessarily you, were to lump both of those people together and dismiss, participate in bad behavior, or fail to hold others accountable for it, then they would be the problem, and are generally why exhaustive and/or “woke” reactions are born.

Your comment has very little to do with what I wrote.

Is someone identifying themselves part of ”identity politics”?

>I think a Code of Conduct stating "Be kind and show respect to each other" would be sufficient.

You're missing the (IMO) point of a CoC: to pre-empt unnecessary discussions on what e.g. "show respect" means.

Basically, if you write explicit rules up-front like "don't call schlems a bunch of wafters", and someone says "hey, you bunch of wafters" in \#schlem then we don't have to re-hash a dumbass philosophy discussion yet again about whether moderators really have a right to censor free speech about $TOPIC.

In other words, a CoC is like a FaQ you tell assholes to go read when they claim what they're doing is fine and accepted. This is good because it helps keep the topic to actually interesting technical discussion.

In General they do. But I disagree about your simpler is better point. I wouldn't want to have your average /pol/ User as part of my work if i can help it and it seems asking people to respect different gender and sexual identities is a great filter for toxic conservative edgelords.

I feel the opposite, although I may be wrong.

But making a strong statement about the basics covers everything, and treats every bodies dignity at the same level.

Example:

1. Treat everyone with respect, regardless of differences

2. Treat everyone’s perspectives constructively, regardless of whether you agree with them

3. Consider honing your communication skills here. Fewer posts of increasing quality helps our community here, and increases your power in life everywhere.

Or something like that

It seems clear to me that would cover gender issues, but the point is don’t bully anyone is a stronger statement

—-

May be wrong but I have been thinking about this topic of specific vs general ethics communication a lot lately

Someone having trouble processing what gender identities mean can still learn to treat people with respect, without having to feel like they are being told what to think.

Picking up a habit of respectful treatment of people you don’t ever understand or agree with, explicitly independent of any specifics, is important in itself.

You are probably correct in principle but I guess it's more of a practical thing. People that are bothered by respecting other peoples gender identity aren't going to be swayed by these principled arguments. It's simply more practical to just filter them with a few specific keywords and not have to deal with them, those that stay aren't likely to become a problem.

You are also filtering out people who have trouble with that topic, but would see the sense in uniform respect.

But I am speaking out of interest here, not experience

So your point is well taken

Simpler is better, though. People's ideas of themselves shouldn't be the new "I'm vegan, btw" and forcing everyone to know and care about your idea of yourself is fucking bullshit, because nobody cares and the topic is something else.

It's extremely narcistic to believe that everyone needs to care about how you think of yourself. I don't respect your gender and sexual identity simply because I don't care, it's none of my business.

> I don't respect your gender and sexual identity simply because I don't care, it's none of my business.

And that's why it should filter you. I can respect someones idea of themselves and their gender or sexual identity precisely because I don't care. Working with People as opposed to working with machines requires accepting their individuality in a lot of facets. I personally am disgusted by religion and religious ideology, yet I can work with people even if they are believers, because I respect them as human beings.

Reminds me of the old I’m color blind, I don’t see race trope. Recognizing where someone is coming from, even if you don’t personally like it, that’s a basic requirement for communication.

Those instance where people complain about misgendering? That’s not when someone accidentally uses the wrong pronoun. It’s when a person purposefully ignores someone else’s wishes and calls them in a way that is hurtful.

To me saying it’s just messages in a bug tracker, and identity doesn’t matter, that person can’t be serious. I feel we have to learn this lesson over and over again.

This is the one of the biggest things. If someone identifies with a set of pronouns (and it's one of the mainstream set no less) and the community goes out of their way to misgender them, there's no excuse for it, other than they're being purposely toxic. This is also something that takes zero effort to do (just call everyone "they" unless they explicitly indicate otherwise), and metiocracy or otherwise has no bearings.

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