Comment by skore | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skore | Hacker News Reader

Historically, is there any good example for a community that had issues and was improved by a CoC?

I'm really interested because - All I've seen over the years is that a community has toxic people in them and it's either because of their actions or (funnily enough) because of their initiative that a CoC gets drafted and put in place. Afterwards, these toxic people now see themselves in charge of upholding the CoC and you get a neat little mall cop situation.

It depends on the CoC, of course, but in my experience the actual details only change the rate of decline in community quality. If it does end up getting better, it's often in spite of the CoC, not because of it.

Inevitably, people who aren't as anal about the rules find themselves pushed out of the community by sheer frustration over being policed by the mall cops. More often than not, the people who are pushed out happen to be the more productive members of the community (in other areas than policing).

I had an experience where I was policed for using the "highly offensive dictionary ``complete cock´´". Not towards a person, just as a general expression. I was so astonished, I had to make a screenshot. It marked the beginning of the end of my participation in that particular forum.

A year later, another developer was pushed out of the community for using the word "pussy". As in: "I decided I will finish this code tonight instead of being a pussy." Fun times.

I have anecdotes about how CoCs have improved communities, but I don't really want to play dueling anecdotes with you. It sucks that you've seen Coc's used as a bludgeon; I haven't.

However, it's sorta irrelevant here: we're not expecting this to really change much of anything, and we don't think the community needs improving. Like the FAQ says, "we know that the Django community is open, friendly, and welcoming. We want to make sure everyone else knows it too." The goal here is to articulate and write down the standards that we already basically follow but have been (until now) unwritten.

In fact, if you're worried about having the book thrown at you, you should be happy about this change. Before today, if I thought you were being a jerk, I could throw you off IRC or the mailing list or whatever and that was that. I was, until a few hours ago, essentially sole arbiter of standards in the Django community, and those standards were ones that basically lived in my head until earlier this year.

Now, those standards are written down, and there's a process and some oversight to make sure I don't unilaterally decide someone's worth hitting with the ban-hammer.

So really, if you're honestly concerned about being people ousted for violated community policies, this sort of documentation and process should make you feel more comfortable, not less. We're replacing a BDFL-ship with open documentation, a committee, and organizational oversight.

I appreciate and agree with the points you are making. I really was talking general, it seems like my points were taken a little too much in a python or django related vein.

I do think there are inherent problems with a CoC. You state that the rules probably won't change anything and I agree with that. I think that shows the power of an implicit agreement of conduct. Because even if a CoC tries to inform that, I remain unconvinced that it can.

I suppose mostly what I have a problem with is the concept of expectation itself. A CoC is a lightning rod that is cited when people feel wronged. You sort of turn that around by saying that I might feel safer with explicit rules, but I could just as well argue that the more explicit the rules are, the more suspect they are to being misused or misinterpreted. Because what they do is create the explicit expectation that they will be upheld. What part of them and in what manner is subject to interpretation and those "toxic" people are usually quite inventive when it comes to finding such transgressions. Managing expectations like that can be a very tricky thing.

I might be biased by my experience here, but I've just seen a little too often how making conduct a high ranking concern can create a vacuum that attracts politics.

In the end, I'm quite certain that you are right with the beginning of your second paragraph. Although I would still say - If it's not needed and it won't change anything, then why have it? (And yes, I read your FAQ, so feel free to ignore this question ;-) )

the Pycon conference adopted a code of conduct and last year saw a record number of women attending and giving presentations:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/women2/2013/04/09/record-number-...

clearly you can play the "correlation is not causation" card here but anecdotal evidence of "harm" done by a CoC isn't any better.

Also, the CoC's we're talking about here wouldn't eject someone for using the word "pussy". if anything, it would protect this person as the CoC would call for an appropriate reaction, instead of an off-the-cuff overreaction.

this is the same conference that spawned dongle-gate?

The conference spawned nothing. It has a policy, it adhered to it, and by both sides in the situation's own admission, did what it said it would do.

The "spawn" here was the internet.

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