The basic idea of a Code of Conduct is fine, but it does need to be formulated such that it doesn't become a hammer for vindictive people and their hurt feelings.
In other words, if the CoC is written by or has any input form SJW grievance experts, then the answer is a solid "NO".
Because governments have been taken over by progressives and their anti-science hate mongering.
There's never evidence for these differences in outcomes being the result of sexism or bigotry.
Look to my post on the whole thing for more.
We joke about these things but we know it is true and we know it is horrible. It is time to let people who are willing to create tools to destroy the social fabric know that society does not want or need them.
The next time a Googler resume crosses your desk, just send it to the round file. Judging by the story about Google+ and that dev cycle, youâ(TM)d probably just get an entitled idiot who only codes in the tiniest of silos.
Well given that Googlers can, do and even brag about operating blacklists that seems like a pretty good idea.
Really? Those are the folks who *left* Google. I think you should ask them if the reason they left was its involvement with unethical projects. Also ask what they did to try to stem the tide. What you should avoid is headhunting from Google unless/until it cleans up its act.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @09:49AM (#57528957)
That is not an SJW.
An SJW is someone who perceives injustice, and aims to correct that injustice through more injustice.
Now, I say "perceive", but I want to make sure you are aware that that does not mean "fake". It could be fake, but the injustice they perceive could also be real. The important part about what makes an SJW, is how they go about correcting that injustice.
And you perceive SJWs as being unjust, I see. And you are different because....?
He isn't attempting to use whatever force is available to him be it governmental, corporate or direct violence to punish someone he's labeled as an SJW for percieved slights. He simply doesn't like them and I'm assuming, avoids them.
Is it ethical to gas light the public as a sitting president? Trump did this regarding his inauguration and the election results and alleged voter fraud in his first few weeks. He tried to do it again at the UN regarding his admin's accomplishments and was laughed at.
Is it ethical for a sitting president to directly benefit from international business deals conducted by his companies during his tenure? To make your son-in-law effectively secretary of everything + ambassador to oil land?
Is it ethical to gas light the public as a sitting president?
We are not talking about what the president is doing, since the Republicans involved in the hearings had nothing to do with Trump on anything.
I'm not saying I'm voting for Trump, or even any Republicans for that matter. What I am saying is that categorically Democrats have abandoned civility and I'll not be voting for a single one of them, despite a long history of doing so in the past when I liked the candidate.
It seems to me that people who use the term SJW are having difficulty either understanding prejudice or dealing with their own prejudice. People who say SJW now - a derogatory term against anyone who fights against prejudice are like the people 30 years ago who went around calling people 'ni gger lovers' - another derogatory term.
Codes of conduct were created to address the problem of people who took advantage of the geek community's refusal to enforce its social norms, turning a group that was supposed to be a haven from bullies into a haven for bullies. A code that can't be enforced is meaningless.
At the same time, that enforcement must also be uniform and consistent, with procedures and safeguards to ensure that this happens. The stated purpose of a CoC is to ensure that no one has a license to treat people like shit without consequences, and that means no one.
There are people in positions of influence and power who feel that being LGBT makes you exempt from criticism. Because of this mentality, I am very leery of allowing LGBT people into any projects I'm involved in. Call me a bigot if you want, but the safety of my project is more important than your inclusion.
No. I think his point is that anyone that can make a claim to be further down on the privilege hierarchy can in many cases use that status of victim to bully and coerce others because any wrong they commit is rationalized as balancing the scales of privilege. It's really the thing that makes Marxism so dangerous.
Because of this mentality, I am very leery of allowing LGBT people into any projects I'm involved in.
Um, I am getting the impression that the "mentality" you're talking about is yours, not theirs. You're the person who thinks they're exempt from criticism, aren't you? Is that why you have withheld all evidence and keep referring to these people generically? You don't want them to get identified/caught.
Seeing how most corporate HR departments default to protecting the "victimized class", I can easily see how the GP would not want to be targeted by having said victim class involved in their projects. His line of thinking isn't about wanting to avoid criticism, It's about avoiding becoming unemployed because he said or did something that offended. His concern isn't without precedent. The fiasco with James Damore is a prime example.
Nope. Some rules, CoCs and laws (not referring to any in particular) are simply bad or wrong and should not be enforced. Some legislation, for example, is simply despicable. Mandatory minimums, anyone?
I agree with the nature of the problem but I don't see how a CoC will actually fix it. Management should already be stopping any bad behavior that they see, so I don't see what this changed.
OTOH I don't have a better solution.
There is a tendency for the powerless to become abusive when they finally get a taste of power. Maybe this is what is happening in a social sense when people who were low on the social ladder early in life find themselves higher up now.
On its own a CoC will absolutely fix nothing. How many pointless laws do we have on the books? Or in some instances outright malicious laws or very helpful laws that no one sees as either until they attempt to enforce them? A CoC is merely one piece in my opinion. It does codify expectations and establish a clearer baseline for everyone to follow, but the real key is empowering the correct people. As with anything, if the wrong leaders are in place a CoC or any type of law or guideline becomes complete
As someone who manages groups and thought that we don't need a CoC and can just expect a close team of people to behave well for the most part and correct their own bad behavior when it is pointed out, though not a silver bullet, I now think it can be very useful.
The main thing I think it does is to set expectations for well-intentioned people. Mal-intentioned people are not going to obey a CoC, there can be misunderstandings of what is appropriate among well-intentioned people. And I don't see this as only something for liberal snowflakes. Imagine a hypothetical right wing organization that welcomes playful bullying. A code of conduct that explicitly omits bullying might alert people who dislike bullying to stay away.
I see it as an explicit declaration of what behavior is tolerated and expected in a particular community. I see this as a good thing regardless of the details of any particular CoC. That said, there is nothing to prevent misguided people from creating horrible details.
When there is a CoC and specific behavior can be pointed to as violating or not-violating it, it can make discipline or lack theoref not feel like favoritism or bullying. It also helps those in charge of discipline to overcome their own biases (e.g. I disciplined Bob for doing X, I should probably also discipline Alice for doing Y because that is also called out in the CoC)
Long story short, you can be in favor if good CoCs in general without being in favor of specific bad examples (just like everything else)
I don't think I am the one whose bias has been revealed. I don't condone bullying. I would never work for an organization that tolerated it. My hypothetical example was to show that even if you don't share my personal sensibilities, a CoC can still make a lot of sense. Apparently your own bias did not allow you to do anything but jump to a conclusion about my motives.
But let's say hypothetically I am lying about my motives (I'm not*). Why should it matter. Can't you just have a discussion about ideas
I wouldn't personally find that behavior useful, and I would not want to work at such an organization. If that was how the people in that organization wished to operate, I would find a code of conduct expressing that explicitly to be very useful.
The problem with the codes of conduct we are seeing right now is all of them are about enforcing a far-left political ideology. All codes of conduct we are seeing right now are "bad examples". So maybe it's time to throw the baby out with the bathwater instead of repeating the same mistake over and over.
All I am advocating for is explicit honesty. Surely that the far-left does not (or at least should not) have a monopoly on that. If you have a set of conduct that you would like your employees to act according to, even if that set is simply "Don't complain about
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @04:58AM (#57528189)
The bullies are the very same people who demand CoCs. They come into these OS communities and force their politics everyone, wielding CoCs like weapons.
CoCs are a tool of bullies. They were never meant to be applied uniformly or consistently.
It may prove to be the case that these CoCs are enforced inconsistently, and that once the creepers are purged, enforcement will end. This would still represent such a marked improvement over the status quo that I am seriously tempted to not care.
Did I say I wanted it to be used only one way? No. I said I was tempted to not care if it was, because you really do drag things down that badly. But I stopped short of calling it my preferred outcome, because you do have a point: checks and balances must be preserved.
And hey, if you don't want to be called a creeper, there's a really simple solution: don't be creepy. This is what people have been trying to tell you since at least middle school. Rather than grow up, you went bitter, but that's your problem,
What if I told you I actually agree with pretty much everything you said, only directed at you? I've mentioned a few times that not merely am I not an SJW, but not the kind of person most SJWs would think is a very good ally. I wasn't kidding.
Much like you, I'm not a fan of people abusing safe spaces. A safe space is supposed to be a place people go to regroup, not a place people hide from the world. It's supposed to be a tool, not an enabler. And I do worry about SJWs abusing the concept to make the world
Any time we restrict freedom, it is always to favor some groups over other groups.
Indeed. And you'd think you could resolve this with a state of lawlessness, but it turns out that in practice, this just doesn't work. An abuser-class inevitably rises, picks its "undesirables", and sets about abusing them with impunity. Essentially all a society does by taking this path is to outsource the job of defining and persecuting the undesirables to these abusers.
So what's a society to do, if it can't get it perfect? The closest you can get is to define the abusers themselves as the undesirables, a
You really don't get it. Your utopia with no "abuser-class" is impossible considering human nature.
Well, duh. If it had no abuser-class, there would be no need to remove abusers. This is something that would likely have to be kept up, probably with no end, but that isn't much different from how it was just a couple of years ago, and we've only gone downhill since then.
In fact, that's not even what you really want. You want to impose your moral values, which, of course, can only be done if you become the abuser. What you want is a society where you are the abuser.
Even if that were true, it would only make you the same as me, and what I'm doing would reduce to legitimate self-defense. But it's not true anyway. The only two moral values I intend to impose on anyone is a simple "don't abuse people" and
That's not what I said. I said there will always be abusers (however you define what is abuse). You can't have a society without abuse. Let me be even more clear, any attempt at controlling abuse can only result in more abuse.
Abusers make society? What a crock.
Let me give you my definition of abuse : it is the use of power either in order to coerce individuals into doing something they don't want to do, or in order to forbid them from doing something they want to do.
Are you sure you're not an SJW? That bankrupt and self-serving definiton could have been pulled straight from their playbook.
Yes, we are going downhill, and the reason is because people like you are now trying more and more to stop abuse, which as I explained, can only result in more abuse. We are going downhill because of abusers like you.
If I am an abuser, then by your own standards you have no right to stop me. Kindly step aside.
I'm someone who advocate doing nothing, meaning not using my power, you are someone who advocate using your power to control me. We are really not the same. Of course, you could claim that I want to forbid you from using your power to control me, but then, using your own argument, this would mean I'm the one who is fighting against abuse, and you are the one who is the abuser.
Chewbacca Defense. Now you're practically spewing random words, claiming to oppose abuse and support it within the same sentence. Nice doublespeak.
That's obviously not true. The only way to enforce your rule would be to use power, that is to abuse people who don't obey you. It implies you want to be judge, jury and executioner. What you are trying to do is to become the ultimate abuser.
So you're an anarchist, then? The abuser's wet-dream of a system (in whatever way the term "system" applies)?
You have to realize that everyone abuse each other at one time or another. Your vision of a distinct abuser and a distinct abused is not what happens in reality.
The laws in the US *are* tools for bullies. You have to be rich to play that game, though. For example, if I don't like what a newspaper (like Mother Jones) writes, I can sue them and cost them tons of money, even if I eventually lose (like Frank VanderSloot, and he threatens his employees with lawsuits to cover his sexism, too). If there is a system of rules, the rules can be abused by malicious people. That is what the ancient Chinese legalists discovered, and we still haven't figured out how to solve the
I don't know how accurate three felonies a day is but I would say an absolute lower bound is 1/week to 1/month. Don't think so ? Remember copyright violation is a felony punishable by fine and imprisonment.
Prosecutorial discretion has indeed been ruined for everybody, though generally more often in the opposite direction from your claim: people who should be getting the book thrown at them get their charges dismissed.
I have not, in fact, experienced a police state. But you've got people here claiming that in order to not live in a police state, the laws must be ignorable without consequence. And while I'm not surprised that you'd start trying to drag out Putin's own talking points in your defense, I am not impressed.
I voted 'unnecessary'. Not because i think it's always unnecessary - every community should/could do as it see fit.
However when it comes to source code, or any thing technical, i don't want have it to be bothered with any 'CoC' or whatever.
We have legal stuff that it (source code) needs to comply with. We have (software) licenses that work pretty well. For me that's enough. Source code and its license should have nothing to do with the social rules from the community that develops it.
However, if developers feel harassed, they are free to moderate their mailing list/forum/whatever how they see fit. If someone not agrees they can always fork the code and move on.
It (CoC's) may not be my preferred option but i also cannot tell others what to do or not to do, including setting 'house rules' for their communication. However when it comes to using source code, i only care from legal stuff aka licenses. Any CoC is by definition irrelevant to me as outsider.
The poll is badly formulated. Probably deliberately. No you may not frame the question that way. a code of conduct is a good thing. thecode of conduct we've been discussing is evil. A properly written code of conduct can smooth personal problems and prevent malfeasance. It should include gender- and race-neutral language specifying acceptable behavior. It should not be extreme or onerous. What it should not include is any specification of protected classes of people. There are many opinions and writeups about codes of conduct. Just avoid SJWitis and you'll be fine.
Indeed, Cheese.
In all my years reading and posting (occasionally) to Slashdot, I don't think I've ever lost two points on one post. It's likely the first time I've been down-modded as a "Troll".
The only Code of Conduct that makes sense is explicitly encouraging disagreement and challenging each other. This is the only way to make mission critical systems. You can't hugbox, gold star and safe space your way out of some obscure processor overflow or failing turbopump. Note this movement has grown in places where nothing mission critical happens, like app and game developers and is now spilling over into critical systems. NASA engineers used to say "Always question, never defend."
Except the common CoC are basically a huge list of rules which are each jumping points to _start_ an attack or disagreement. Legislating every detail of human interaction doesn't magically make humans follow your legislation. They're still human.
And if the CoC isn't LEADING people into working together (which is the role of a HUMAN, not a rulebook).
It's like we've gone 70+ years back in history. We spent all this time shunning dogma of religions and now we've replaced it with our own secular dogma. A list of rules that nobody has proven ACTUALLY HELP facilitate a healthy, productive work environment by any research.
And yet, we're supposed to just jump onboard, with no proof, because if we don't, we're somehow an "oppressor" or "white supremacist."--even people who were for gay marriage long before it was popular! When literal liberals and democrats can be "not progressive enough" for your doctrine, it raises even more alarm bells. If you treat people like this BEFORE we sign on and give you additional power over us, what the hell are you going to do when you get more power?
In fact, on the contrary, there's plenty of research and articles written about how the people who subscribe to these CoC are _are_ the toxic people in organizations that constantly seek "recreational outrage" and feel adrenaline at the prospect of "outing" a potential rule breaker.
Look at the Sqlite thread on Hacker News. Half the people laugh. The other half are _absolutely outraged_ that someone would adopt a CoC... that isn't their own. They're even pushing to find every single user of Sqlite to "highlight their bigotry". Wow, this is definitely the kind of conflict resolution, healing, and general comrade we need to push for!
I mean think about it. If the people pushing for CoC's act like such assholes to anyone who disagrees, do we really want to give them an ounce of power in our organizations? And the only reason anyone has given them power, is because they use under-handed methods like trying to imply you're a bigot if you don't follow the lynch mob. And people who use personal attacks instead of objective, empirical data, isn't a fucking scientist. They're a hell-and-brimstone preacher with a iMac instead of a bible.
I survived the 90's oppression of the right-wing authoritarians. I'm not about to willingly adopt oppression from the left-wing authoritarians.
The SQLite CoC is literally that of a medieval monastic order. It requires belief in Christ and strongly encourages an ascetic lifestyle. Do you not see the problem with that?
I don't think most people that are in favor of CoCs see it as, "hugbox, gold star and safe space" guarantor. I've worked on critical systems for major operations and we still had standard business conduct expectations just like any job. I had engineers that tried getting down right nasty or trying to override basic protocols get their ass reamed all the way up and down the ladder by both internal management as well as a few times by the customer management (in a few cases they were straight up fired). Ev
That's not the problem a Code of Conduct is trying to solve. No code of conduct I have ever seen (and I've read many) has said you cannot disagree or challenge someone on technical matters. What a code of conduct aims to prevent is interpersonal conflict that has nothing to do with technical matters - this in fact helps prevent better technical solutions from being discarded for non-technical reasons.
Under every single Code of Conduct I've seen - and I challenge you to find one where it does not - you are p
That's not the problem a Code of Conduct is trying to solve. No code of conduct I have ever seen (and I've read many) has said you cannot disagree or challenge someone on technical matters. What a code of conduct aims to prevent is interpersonal conflict that has nothing to do with technical matters - this in fact helps prevent better technical solutions from being discarded for non-technical reasons.
Under every single Code of Conduct I've seen - and I challenge you to find one where it does not - you are perfectly enabled to say "this code does not work, it is rejected". You usually aren't allowed to say "this code sucks you fucking retard go back to fucking sheep and leave programming to the real men", but you're always allowed to argue the technical merits in a mature, professional manner.
Even when you clearly and unambiguously attack the fruits of idiots fucking up the fuck ups naturally tend to be low grade people who are perpetually closed minded and defensive about EVERYTHING. They won't listen to advice intended to help, they take offense simply when advice is given.. they know everything after all and you are not their boss. Of course all criticism of their work is interpreted as a personal affront.
Giving these people additional avenues to attempt to wage revenge for being wronged on
You imply that the greater threat is from vindictive people looking through a Code of Conduct looking for ones they can pin on their target. I would be more worried about those people without a CoC - with no official list of causes for complaint, *everything* is a potential cause for complaint.
Consider, for sake of example, a vengeful person, outraged that you rejected their code. They find a potentially-discriminatory remark you made about how they should "maybe have paid better attent
Overestimating FOSS viability as a target for SJWs and overestimating their endurance. It will pass.
That doesn't mean FOSS is safe though - free (speech) in the FOSS camp won't be under attack by SJWs but by software patents and such. Way more dangerous for us. CoCs are just a minor distraction people shouldn't fall for.
Europeans are culturally predisposed towards strong authoritarian centralized structures of government and very limited freedom of expression
You've clearly never visited Europe.
I can think of only one country in Europe to which that description might even remotely apply. It sure as fuck doesn't apply to the UK, Holland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Hungary.. shit, look up the list of European countries yourself.
The 28% of people who think this code was overdue are also the bottom 28% of coders in skill. In short, they want the CoC because they don't want people reminding them that thier code sucks.
Shitty coders constantly tell other people their code sucks, too. Someone who can't point out another's mistake without being an asshole is likely masking their own insecurities about their shitty code.
It's the people who prefer "this code is broken" to "this code is broken, asshole." If you can't interact with others without being abusive maybe you should stick to solo projects.
This whole debacle is the direct result of all these "anyone can do it" initiatives. A small percentage of the population is actually qualified to develop software. This means a large percentage of those now doing it are going to be told to stop bothering those of us who are competent. Making it an offense to tell people their code sucks in a not so nice way simply means that time will be wasted and shit code will be accepted by other shit programmers who have a say because the competent people go elsewher
The project maintainer of awesome-django was literally accused of using 'white privilege' (he was Hispanic BTW, not that it should matter) to reject a merge request from a 'person of color', and the idiot who questioned it didn't even look further to see the person's patch *was* accepted after the maintainer asked for valid improvements to the patch.
This accusation was accompanied by, you guessed it, an attempt to force a CoC on the project, which the mai
This "Code of "Merit" to which you linked lays out exactly what the Linux developers followed (albeit informally)like priorhis bullshit and I believe it enumerated previously unwritten "rules" that every development project should. I hope Linus figures out that, while he isn't perfect, he was an excellent manager, and that people telling him he made serious mistakes as a result of his "issues" are projecting their issues onto him.
Linux succeeded because code quality was all that was ever important. Peopl
You apparently missed the "and if that doesn't work, not so nicely" part of my post. Some people won't go away no matter how firm you are with them, and resorting to insults is alas the only way to send them a message they will receive. Moron.:-)
That's actually pretty hilarious. You are literally the idiot that doesn't know that writing code and developing software are not synonymous to which I referred. Precious stupidity...
Oh dear, looks like someone can't create working software. It's ok, we'll write it for you. We're nice like that, even when you're throwing spurious childish insults around.
It should not be necessary, but I can totally understand that sometimes a few trolls can sabotage a well running community. For such projects, a "behave or get lost" policy is alas needed. The Code of Conduct just clarifies what "behave" means for that project.
Whether it's written or unwritten, every project involving more than one person has some sort of standard for how they are to communicate while conducting business, with the consequence being some variant on "you can't work on the project anymore".
Most small projects don't have a written code anywhere. They don't need to - the standards that are enforced are "whatever the project lead decides is appropriate is, and what they decide isn't isn't". If the team disagrees with those decisions, they leave themselves, and may form a new team - essentially, kicking out the project lead for violating what they think the standards should be. This happens in open-source, closed-source, even non-programming projects.
As a project gets larger, it becomes useful to document those standards. It cuts down on having to reprimand newcomers - when entering a new subculture, you don't have a good intuitive feel yet for what the expectations are, so you might violate the norms without even knowing. If you have a visible "this is how we roll" primer, that will cut down significantly on such etiquette snafus. And it streamlines enforcement - it is easier to ignore an appeal in good conscience if you have written down "do not do X".
Eventually, a project becomes big enough that a formal, documented code of conduct becomes necessary. This is usually around the point where the project lead no longer personally handles every disciplinary action. You need an official rulebook to keep all the rule enforcers on the same page. Otherwise, you start getting meta-conflict like "I did X and Alice banned me but Bob did X and Carol just gave him a warning" which just wastes everyone's time.
I think it is possible the trend towards documented CoCs might be pushing teams to adopt a more formal rules than they really need. This is not a serious error when it's a minor mismatch - might make you seem a bit more stuffy and uptight than you actually are, and if you require people be documented as signing it, that's a minor barrier to entry even if everyone who would want to work on your project agrees with the principles of the CoC. If you start instituting a chapters-long code and a conflict-resolution process with three levels of appeals, for a project with a half-dozen active contributers, yeah, now you're going to be getting in the way of actual work.
But on the whole, I think it's something a lot of big projects have needed for a long time, and on the whole, it's a positive move.
I'm here to code, not to listen about CoC crap, your feelings or other nonsense that doesn't deliver. If you're an asshole I'll call you out as being one but that doesn't mean that I will go crying on somebody's shoulder either. Either you can code along with me or I'll spend my time elsewhere. Now fuck off and stay off my lawn.
If people of certain groups want more of their code accepted, they should write better code.
Of course progressives accuse the community of being sexist or bigoted, but there's no evidence for that.
It's an utter lie, just as the NBA isn't racist for players being ~90% black.
People have different preferences and qualities, so too groups.
There will always be different outcomes for any characteristic you try to judge people by.
Most Open Source organizations I have been in, the codes have been adopted because some people wanted them and wanted to work on them, not because there was ever an event that proved them necessary, but since they are NOT distracting from real developers time, and thereby do no harm, and might potentially do some good, they are universally accepted.
It is complete and utter bullshit if an underwear manufacturer tries to impose rules on how I wear it, or a hammer producers tries to decide which kind of nails I can use it on.
Licences besides, no one can limit usage, manner of utilisation, working environment and conditions of tools I use. I can only show two of my ten fingers to such idiotic PC loving SJW wannabe bull crappers.
Ah and yes before I forget, I promise that at each and every opportunity my profanity level about such subjects would rise.
...takes into account contributors who suffer from ADHD and other disorders and allow for occasional outbursts of seemingly irrational behavior they will be okay. I voted "more discussion" for that reason because the few that I have read seem intolerant of people with personality disorders.
Honestly, I think that's one of those things that sounds good but is trickier in practice than people think. How do you make the trade-off between treating everyone equally and making special allowances? Would it only be for medically-documented and verifiable disabilities? I've been in a situation where the entire policy towards the disabled was just the word "respect", which of course meant different things to different people.
I think code stands or falls on its own. People use it to create software, or they don't. Codes of conduct only apply if you create some sort of social groups around the development, and by nature, those are purely optional to participate in.
I'm not a developer myself. I work in other areas of I.T. So given that, plus what I said above? Yeah -- I think I have no place expressing a viewpoint about codes of conduct. I guess they're great if the participants feel like most of them benefit from them being in
Unfortunately, like so many areas of socio-political life, the area has been occupied by a specific fringe of the spectrum, and is largely abused to push trollish agendas of fanatical feminism (not to be confused with feminism in general) and fascistic overexpression of political correctness (which has managed to turn a movement aimed towards liberty and freedom of speech into an oppression of any speech not conforming to a narrow corridor).
If you pay me money, I can be compelled to deliver on your schedule, to work at your building, to behave how you want me to behave and to design what you want me to design.
If you do not pay me money, then I will do whatever the fuck I want, when I want, where I want, and I'm going to build what I want. If the thing I'm building is also compelling to others, and my behavior is not so uniformly awful that nobody wants to work with me, then shit gets done. If I'm off the reservation, then either what I'm build
That's mere semantics (which I must concede, RMS is a master of arguing loudly about tiny semantic differences). Whether you phrase it as "these are the things you should do" or "these are the things you should not do", any community has rules (even unspoken, informal ones) for how to eject toxic members. That's all a Code of Conduct is - a definition of some term equivalent to "toxic individual", and some method of ejection.
If you want to prove the point, go onto some project RMS leads (does he still activ
Yes, please walk away from CoCs. It'll take about a month to replace you, and everyone will be so much happier without you dragging shit down that no one will miss you.
That's turning out to be an unexpected side benefit of a lot of these. The creepers aren't even demanding the enforcement process to which they would be entitled. They just up and voluntarily self-ostracize. It's great.
You still have to have those processes, since these are what they're so afraid of (witness their more positive reaction to en
I'm not really someone that most SJWs would find to be a very good ally. I do have some in my social circle, but we don't talk politics. I've told one or two of them what I'm doing here, and they've been horrified by my tactics, which is about what I expected. What I am doing here does not comfort anybody, and is not intended to.
You see, I'm not doing this because I care about any person or group in particular. I just hate bullies. And that wouldn't make you and me so different, except that you haven't yet
I answered Other, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I answered Other, but... (Score:4, Funny)
The same people who love HOA's.
Re: (Score:3)
If you need to codify your conduct, you have already lost and are now a juicy target to the SJW-griefers.
So no, codes of conduct are never "fine".
Why do armies, navies etc across the world (including the USA) have them?
Re: (Score:2)
Because military personnel is more likely to become violent in case of a conflict without a CoC.
Re: (Score:2)
There's never evidence for these differences in outcomes being the result of sexism or bigotry.
Look to my post on the whole thing for more.
Re: NO is the only correct answer (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We joke about these things but we know it is true and we know it is horrible. It is time to let people who are willing to create tools to destroy the social fabric know that society does not want or need them.
The next time a Googler resume crosses your desk, just send it to the round file. Judging by the story about Google+ and that dev cycle, youâ(TM)d probably just get an entitled idiot who only codes in the tiniest of silos.
Well given that Googlers can, do and even brag about operating blacklists that seems like a pretty good idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Mr. Woodcock?
Re: #DontHireGooglers (Score:2)
What you should avoid is headhunting from Google unless/until it cleans up its act.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes, the old conservative tactic of suppressing that with which you disagree.
Works for votes so why not.
Re:I answered Other, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
An SJW is someone who perceives injustice, and aims to correct that injustice through more injustice.
Now, I say "perceive", but I want to make sure you are aware that that does not mean "fake". It could be fake, but the injustice they perceive could also be real. The important part about what makes an SJW, is how they go about correcting that injustice.
Re: (Score:2)
And you perceive SJWs as being unjust, I see. And you are different because....?
He isn't attempting to use whatever force is available to him be it governmental, corporate or direct violence to punish someone he's labeled as an SJW for percieved slights. He simply doesn't like them and I'm assuming, avoids them.
Re:I answered Other, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because liberals have a hard time following the rules they set for everyone else.
Recently, I was told "Everyone who threatens to blow stuff up should be arrested and jailed for life"
I countered "including Madonna?"
You can imagine the stammering the followed as they tried to excuse her dreams of blowing up the Whitehouse.
It is the liberals (Score:2, Insightful)
What group has performed more violations of a civil code of conduct? Not the liberals.
Holy crap, you do realize that ANY talk that has even a slightly conservative speaker gets multiple protestors screaming throughout.
As we all saw on epic display at the Kavanaugh hearings.
And you have the nerve to claim that *liberals* are the ones who obey a civil code of conduct?
I am a Libertarian who has voted for candidates from all kinds of parties, not just R and D. But after what I have seen since Trump was elected
Re: (Score:2)
Trump did this regarding his inauguration and the election results and alleged voter fraud in his first few weeks. He tried to do it again at the UN regarding his admin's accomplishments and was laughed at.
Is it ethical for a sitting president to directly benefit from international business deals conducted by his companies during his tenure? To make your son-in-law effectively secretary of everything + ambassador to oil land?
This shit shouldn't
Re: (Score:2)
Is it ethical to gas light the public as a sitting president?
We are not talking about what the president is doing, since the Republicans involved in the hearings had nothing to do with Trump on anything.
I'm not saying I'm voting for Trump, or even any Republicans for that matter. What I am saying is that categorically Democrats have abandoned civility and I'll not be voting for a single one of them, despite a long history of doing so in the past when I liked the candidate.
Is it ethical for a sitting presid
Re: (Score:3)
Justice is good. Justice is right.
Modern incantations of "social 'justice'" does not meet the criteria for true justice.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems to me that people who use the term SJW are having difficulty either understanding prejudice or dealing with their own prejudice. People who say SJW now - a derogatory term against anyone who fights against prejudice are like the people 30 years ago who went around calling people 'ni gger lovers' - another derogatory term.
As long as it's enforceable (Score:5, Insightful)
Codes of conduct were created to address the problem of people who took advantage of the geek community's refusal to enforce its social norms, turning a group that was supposed to be a haven from bullies into a haven for bullies. A code that can't be enforced is meaningless.
At the same time, that enforcement must also be uniform and consistent, with procedures and safeguards to ensure that this happens. The stated purpose of a CoC is to ensure that no one has a license to treat people like shit without consequences, and that means no one.
Re: (Score:3)
Very true. And, the only thing worse than a code that can't be enforced is one that could be but isn't.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There are people in positions of influence and power who feel that being LGBT makes you exempt from criticism. Because of this mentality, I am very leery of allowing LGBT people into any projects I'm involved in. Call me a bigot if you want, but the safety of my project is more important than your inclusion.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Um, I am getting the impression that the "mentality" you're talking about is yours, not theirs. You're the person who thinks they're exempt from criticism, aren't you? Is that why you have withheld all evidence and keep referring to these people generically? You don't want them to get identified/caught.
Seeing how most corporate HR departments default to protecting the "victimized class", I can easily see how the GP would not want to be targeted by having said victim class involved in their projects. His line of thinking isn't about wanting to avoid criticism, It's about avoiding becoming unemployed because he said or did something that offended. His concern isn't without precedent. The fiasco with James Damore is a prime example.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, even worse is a code of conduct that shouldn't be enforced but is.
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
Let me guess, that would mean any code that you can't just ignore, am I right?
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. Some rules, CoCs and laws (not referring to any in particular) are simply bad or wrong and should not be enforced. Some legislation, for example, is simply despicable. Mandatory minimums, anyone?
Re: (Score:2)
Mandatory minimum sentences for specific crimes.
They're a bad thing because they remove the judge's ability to take into account context and mitigating factors and assure that justice is served.
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
And, the only thing worse than a code that can't be enforced is one that could be but isn't.
And... what's easily worse than both is a code that's enforced and shouldn't be.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with the nature of the problem but I don't see how a CoC will actually fix it. Management should already be stopping any bad behavior that they see, so I don't see what this changed.
OTOH I don't have a better solution.
There is a tendency for the powerless to become abusive when they finally get a taste of power. Maybe this is what is happening in a social sense when people who were low on the social ladder early in life find themselves higher up now.
Re: (Score:2)
On its own a CoC will absolutely fix nothing. How many pointless laws do we have on the books? Or in some instances outright malicious laws or very helpful laws that no one sees as either until they attempt to enforce them? A CoC is merely one piece in my opinion. It does codify expectations and establish a clearer baseline for everyone to follow, but the real key is empowering the correct people. As with anything, if the wrong leaders are in place a CoC or any type of law or guideline becomes complete
Re:As long as it's enforceable (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who manages groups and thought that we don't need a CoC and can just expect a close team of people to behave well for the most part and correct their own bad behavior when it is pointed out, though not a silver bullet, I now think it can be very useful.
The main thing I think it does is to set expectations for well-intentioned people. Mal-intentioned people are not going to obey a CoC, there can be misunderstandings of what is appropriate among well-intentioned people. And I don't see this as only something for liberal snowflakes. Imagine a hypothetical right wing organization that welcomes playful bullying. A code of conduct that explicitly omits bullying might alert people who dislike bullying to stay away.
I see it as an explicit declaration of what behavior is tolerated and expected in a particular community. I see this as a good thing regardless of the details of any particular CoC. That said, there is nothing to prevent misguided people from creating horrible details.
When there is a CoC and specific behavior can be pointed to as violating or not-violating it, it can make discipline or lack theoref not feel like favoritism or bullying. It also helps those in charge of discipline to overcome their own biases (e.g. I disciplined Bob for doing X, I should probably also discipline Alice for doing Y because that is also called out in the CoC)
Long story short, you can be in favor if good CoCs in general without being in favor of specific bad examples (just like everything else)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think I am the one whose bias has been revealed. I don't condone bullying. I would never work for an organization that tolerated it. My hypothetical example was to show that even if you don't share my personal sensibilities, a CoC can still make a lot of sense. Apparently your own bias did not allow you to do anything but jump to a conclusion about my motives.
But let's say hypothetically I am lying about my motives (I'm not*). Why should it matter. Can't you just have a discussion about ideas
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't personally find that behavior useful, and I would not want to work at such an organization. If that was how the people in that organization wished to operate, I would find a code of conduct expressing that explicitly to be very useful.
The problem with the codes of conduct we are seeing right now is all of them are about enforcing a far-left political ideology. All codes of conduct we are seeing right now are "bad examples". So maybe it's time to throw the baby out with the bathwater instead of repeating the same mistake over and over.
All I am advocating for is explicit honesty. Surely that the far-left does not (or at least should not) have a monopoly on that. If you have a set of conduct that you would like your employees to act according to, even if that set is simply "Don't complain about
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
By itself, a CoC doesn't do much: people still have to act to kick the creepers out. What a CoC does is legitimize the practices they use to do that.
Re:As long as it's enforceable (Score:5, Insightful)
The bullies are the very same people who demand CoCs. They come into these OS communities and force their politics everyone, wielding CoCs like weapons.
CoCs are a tool of bullies. They were never meant to be applied uniformly or consistently.
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
It may prove to be the case that these CoCs are enforced inconsistently, and that once the creepers are purged, enforcement will end. This would still represent such a marked improvement over the status quo that I am seriously tempted to not care.
Re: (Score:2)
Creeper : man that a woman doesn't want to fuck doing something she wishes a man she does want to fuck would do
Forgive me if I think that's a fucking insane basis for enforcing a CoC.
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
Did I say I wanted it to be used only one way? No. I said I was tempted to not care if it was, because you really do drag things down that badly. But I stopped short of calling it my preferred outcome, because you do have a point: checks and balances must be preserved.
And hey, if you don't want to be called a creeper, there's a really simple solution: don't be creepy. This is what people have been trying to tell you since at least middle school. Rather than grow up, you went bitter, but that's your problem,
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
What if I told you I actually agree with pretty much everything you said, only directed at you? I've mentioned a few times that not merely am I not an SJW, but not the kind of person most SJWs would think is a very good ally. I wasn't kidding.
Much like you, I'm not a fan of people abusing safe spaces. A safe space is supposed to be a place people go to regroup, not a place people hide from the world. It's supposed to be a tool, not an enabler. And I do worry about SJWs abusing the concept to make the world
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
Any time we restrict freedom, it is always to favor some groups over other groups.
Indeed. And you'd think you could resolve this with a state of lawlessness, but it turns out that in practice, this just doesn't work. An abuser-class inevitably rises, picks its "undesirables", and sets about abusing them with impunity. Essentially all a society does by taking this path is to outsource the job of defining and persecuting the undesirables to these abusers.
So what's a society to do, if it can't get it perfect? The closest you can get is to define the abusers themselves as the undesirables, a
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
You really don't get it. Your utopia with no "abuser-class" is impossible considering human nature.
Well, duh. If it had no abuser-class, there would be no need to remove abusers. This is something that would likely have to be kept up, probably with no end, but that isn't much different from how it was just a couple of years ago, and we've only gone downhill since then.
In fact, that's not even what you really want. You want to impose your moral values, which, of course, can only be done if you become the abuser. What you want is a society where you are the abuser.
Even if that were true, it would only make you the same as me, and what I'm doing would reduce to legitimate self-defense. But it's not true anyway. The only two moral values I intend to impose on anyone is a simple "don't abuse people" and
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
That's not what I said. I said there will always be abusers (however you define what is abuse). You can't have a society without abuse. Let me be even more clear, any attempt at controlling abuse can only result in more abuse.
Abusers make society? What a crock.
Let me give you my definition of abuse : it is the use of power either in order to coerce individuals into doing something they don't want to do, or in order to forbid them from doing something they want to do.
Are you sure you're not an SJW? That bankrupt and self-serving definiton could have been pulled straight from their playbook.
Yes, we are going downhill, and the reason is because people like you are now trying more and more to stop abuse, which as I explained, can only result in more abuse. We are going downhill because of abusers like you.
If I am an abuser, then by your own standards you have no right to stop me. Kindly step aside.
I'm someone who advocate doing nothing, meaning not using my power, you are someone who advocate using your power to control me. We are really not the same. Of course, you could claim that I want to forbid you from using your power to control me, but then, using your own argument, this would mean I'm the one who is fighting against abuse, and you are the one who is the abuser.
Chewbacca Defense. Now you're practically spewing random words, claiming to oppose abuse and support it within the same sentence. Nice doublespeak.
That's obviously not true. The only way to enforce your rule would be to use power, that is to abuse people who don't obey you. It implies you want to be judge, jury and executioner. What you are trying to do is to become the ultimate abuser.
So you're an anarchist, then? The abuser's wet-dream of a system (in whatever way the term "system" applies)?
You have to realize that everyone abuse each other at one time or another. Your vision of a distinct abuser and a distinct abused is not what happens in reality.
Th
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
When you have prosecutorial discretion who needs bills of attainder ?
This is the same problem as with our legal system. No matter what you do you are committing a crime.
If you haven't read it this book has an interesting take on the issue
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FThree-F... [amazon.com]
I don't know how accurate three felonies a day is but I would say an absolute lower bound is 1/week to 1/month. Don't think so ? Remember copyright violation is a felony punishable by fine and imprisonment.
From what I have seen of Codes of C
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
Prosecutorial discretion has indeed been ruined for everybody, though generally more often in the opposite direction from your claim: people who should be getting the book thrown at them get their charges dismissed.
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
The questions of process and recourse should be spelled out in the CoC, or possibly in a separate document released alongside it
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
False dichotomy, but thank you for playing.
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
I have not, in fact, experienced a police state. But you've got people here claiming that in order to not live in a police state, the laws must be ignorable without consequence. And while I'm not surprised that you'd start trying to drag out Putin's own talking points in your defense, I am not impressed.
Re: As long as it's enforceable (Score:2)
Then why are you the one acting like a shrieking wreck?
Re: (Score:2)
That's weird, when I visit Austin everybody seems normal. I fit right in.
Then again, Austin's gone downhill massively since it grew so much in the past decade.
Irrelevant (Score:3, Interesting)
I voted 'unnecessary'. Not because i think it's always unnecessary - every community should/could do as it see fit.
However when it comes to source code, or any thing technical, i don't want have it to be bothered with any 'CoC' or whatever.
We have legal stuff that it (source code) needs to comply with. We have (software) licenses that work pretty well. For me that's enough. Source code and its license should have nothing to do with the social rules from the community that develops it.
However, if developers feel harassed, they are free to moderate their mailing list/forum/whatever how they see fit. If someone not agrees they can always fork the code and move on.
It (CoC's) may not be my preferred option but i also cannot tell others what to do or not to do, including setting 'house rules' for their communication. However when it comes to using source code, i only care from legal stuff aka licenses. Any CoC is by definition irrelevant to me as outsider.
Someone is downvoting everyone with this opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
In all my years reading and posting (occasionally) to Slashdot, I don't think I've ever lost two points on one post. It's likely the first time I've been down-modded as a "Troll".
Conduct/Conflict (Score:5, Insightful)
The only Code of Conduct that makes sense is explicitly encouraging disagreement and challenging each other. This is the only way to make mission critical systems. You can't hugbox, gold star and safe space your way out of some obscure processor overflow or failing turbopump. Note this movement has grown in places where nothing mission critical happens, like app and game developers and is now spilling over into critical systems.
NASA engineers used to say "Always question, never defend."
Re:Conduct/Conflict (Score:5, Interesting)
Except the common CoC are basically a huge list of rules which are each jumping points to _start_ an attack or disagreement. Legislating every detail of human interaction doesn't magically make humans follow your legislation. They're still human.
And if the CoC isn't LEADING people into working together (which is the role of a HUMAN, not a rulebook).
It's like we've gone 70+ years back in history. We spent all this time shunning dogma of religions and now we've replaced it with our own secular dogma. A list of rules that nobody has proven ACTUALLY HELP facilitate a healthy, productive work environment by any research.
And yet, we're supposed to just jump onboard, with no proof, because if we don't, we're somehow an "oppressor" or "white supremacist."--even people who were for gay marriage long before it was popular! When literal liberals and democrats can be "not progressive enough" for your doctrine, it raises even more alarm bells. If you treat people like this BEFORE we sign on and give you additional power over us, what the hell are you going to do when you get more power?
In fact, on the contrary, there's plenty of research and articles written about how the people who subscribe to these CoC are _are_ the toxic people in organizations that constantly seek "recreational outrage" and feel adrenaline at the prospect of "outing" a potential rule breaker.
Look at the Sqlite thread on Hacker News. Half the people laugh. The other half are _absolutely outraged_ that someone would adopt a CoC... that isn't their own. They're even pushing to find every single user of Sqlite to "highlight their bigotry". Wow, this is definitely the kind of conflict resolution, healing, and general comrade we need to push for!
I mean think about it. If the people pushing for CoC's act like such assholes to anyone who disagrees, do we really want to give them an ounce of power in our organizations? And the only reason anyone has given them power, is because they use under-handed methods like trying to imply you're a bigot if you don't follow the lynch mob. And people who use personal attacks instead of objective, empirical data, isn't a fucking scientist. They're a hell-and-brimstone preacher with a iMac instead of a bible.
I survived the 90's oppression of the right-wing authoritarians. I'm not about to willingly adopt oppression from the left-wing authoritarians.
Re: (Score:3)
The SQLite CoC is literally that of a medieval monastic order. It requires belief in Christ and strongly encourages an ascetic lifestyle. Do you not see the problem with that?
Re: Conduct/Conflict (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think most people that are in favor of CoCs see it as, "hugbox, gold star and safe space" guarantor. I've worked on critical systems for major operations and we still had standard business conduct expectations just like any job. I had engineers that tried getting down right nasty or trying to override basic protocols get their ass reamed all the way up and down the ladder by both internal management as well as a few times by the customer management (in a few cases they were straight up fired). Ev
Re: (Score:2)
I feel like most of them are "nice guys" who are really concerned about "ethics in video game journalism."
Re: (Score:2)
That's not the problem a Code of Conduct is trying to solve. No code of conduct I have ever seen (and I've read many) has said you cannot disagree or challenge someone on technical matters. What a code of conduct aims to prevent is interpersonal conflict that has nothing to do with technical matters - this in fact helps prevent better technical solutions from being discarded for non-technical reasons.
Under every single Code of Conduct I've seen - and I challenge you to find one where it does not - you are p
Re: (Score:2)
That's not the problem a Code of Conduct is trying to solve. No code of conduct I have ever seen (and I've read many) has said you cannot disagree or challenge someone on technical matters. What a code of conduct aims to prevent is interpersonal conflict that has nothing to do with technical matters - this in fact helps prevent better technical solutions from being discarded for non-technical reasons.
Under every single Code of Conduct I've seen - and I challenge you to find one where it does not - you are perfectly enabled to say "this code does not work, it is rejected". You usually aren't allowed to say "this code sucks you fucking retard go back to fucking sheep and leave programming to the real men", but you're always allowed to argue the technical merits in a mature, professional manner.
Even when you clearly and unambiguously attack the fruits of idiots fucking up the fuck ups naturally tend to be low grade people who are perpetually closed minded and defensive about EVERYTHING. They won't listen to advice intended to help, they take offense simply when advice is given.. they know everything after all and you are not their boss. Of course all criticism of their work is interpreted as a personal affront.
Giving these people additional avenues to attempt to wage revenge for being wronged on
Re: (Score:2)
Blades cut both ways.
You imply that the greater threat is from vindictive people looking through a Code of Conduct looking for ones they can pin on their target. I would be more worried about those people without a CoC - with no official list of causes for complaint, *everything* is a potential cause for complaint.
Consider, for sake of example, a vengeful person, outraged that you rejected their code. They find a potentially-discriminatory remark you made about how they should "maybe have paid better attent
It's a fad. (Score:4, Interesting)
And it will pass.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the AGILE of "social engineering".
You're making two mistakes. (Score:2)
Overestimating FOSS viability as a target for SJWs and overestimating their endurance. It will pass.
That doesn't mean FOSS is safe though - free (speech) in the FOSS camp won't be under attack by SJWs but by software patents and such. Way more dangerous for us. CoCs are just a minor distraction people shouldn't fall for.
Politics How Tiresome (Score:2, Insightful)
Code of Conduct are explicitly political. They are a politicisation of apolitical hobbies in pursuit of gain in an entirely American Culture War.
I am sick of you batshit Americans and your twisted politicisation of everything. Your codes of conduct can get fucked like your creationists as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Europeans are culturally predisposed towards strong authoritarian centralized structures of government and very limited freedom of expression
You've clearly never visited Europe.
I can think of only one country in Europe to which that description might even remotely apply. It sure as fuck doesn't apply to the UK, Holland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Hungary.. shit, look up the list of European countries yourself.
Who thinks this was overdue? (Score:2, Insightful)
The 28% of people who think this code was overdue are also the bottom 28% of coders in skill. In short, they want the CoC because they don't want people reminding them that thier code sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Shitty coders constantly tell other people their code sucks, too. Someone who can't point out another's mistake without being an asshole is likely masking their own insecurities about their shitty code.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the people who prefer "this code is broken" to "this code is broken, asshole." If you can't interact with others without being abusive maybe you should stick to solo projects.
They can suck my CoC (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes it can be a problem. See https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.is%2Fdgilk [archive.is]
The project maintainer of awesome-django was literally accused of using 'white privilege' (he was Hispanic BTW, not that it should matter) to reject a merge request from a 'person of color', and the idiot who questioned it didn't even look further to see the person's patch *was* accepted after the maintainer asked for valid improvements to the patch.
This accusation was accompanied by, you guessed it, an attempt to force a CoC on the project, which the mai
Re: They can suck my CoC (Score:2)
Re: They can suck my CoC (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You just can't turn it into an incel reddit flame thread anymore.
CoC violation: personal attack.
See, that was easy.
Re: They can suck my CoC (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh dear, looks like someone can't create working software. It's ok, we'll write it for you. We're nice like that, even when you're throwing spurious childish insults around.
Depends on the project (Score:4, Informative)
If you need a code of conduct (Score:2, Insightful)
If you need a code of conduct to tell you how to behave in relation to other people, then you are one sad human being.
If you think a code of conduct will protect your precious feelings from getting hurt by such sad human beings, you are deluded.
*Every* project has a code of conduct (Score:3)
Whether it's written or unwritten, every project involving more than one person has some sort of standard for how they are to communicate while conducting business, with the consequence being some variant on "you can't work on the project anymore".
Most small projects don't have a written code anywhere. They don't need to - the standards that are enforced are "whatever the project lead decides is appropriate is, and what they decide isn't isn't". If the team disagrees with those decisions, they leave themselves, and may form a new team - essentially, kicking out the project lead for violating what they think the standards should be. This happens in open-source, closed-source, even non-programming projects.
As a project gets larger, it becomes useful to document those standards. It cuts down on having to reprimand newcomers - when entering a new subculture, you don't have a good intuitive feel yet for what the expectations are, so you might violate the norms without even knowing. If you have a visible "this is how we roll" primer, that will cut down significantly on such etiquette snafus. And it streamlines enforcement - it is easier to ignore an appeal in good conscience if you have written down "do not do X".
Eventually, a project becomes big enough that a formal, documented code of conduct becomes necessary. This is usually around the point where the project lead no longer personally handles every disciplinary action. You need an official rulebook to keep all the rule enforcers on the same page. Otherwise, you start getting meta-conflict like "I did X and Alice banned me but Bob did X and Carol just gave him a warning" which just wastes everyone's time.
I think it is possible the trend towards documented CoCs might be pushing teams to adopt a more formal rules than they really need. This is not a serious error when it's a minor mismatch - might make you seem a bit more stuffy and uptight than you actually are, and if you require people be documented as signing it, that's a minor barrier to entry even if everyone who would want to work on your project agrees with the principles of the CoC. If you start instituting a chapters-long code and a conflict-resolution process with three levels of appeals, for a project with a half-dozen active contributers, yeah, now you're going to be getting in the way of actual work.
But on the whole, I think it's something a lot of big projects have needed for a long time, and on the whole, it's a positive move.
Blah (Score:2)
I'm here to code, not to listen about CoC crap, your feelings or other nonsense that doesn't deliver. If you're an asshole I'll call you out as being one but that doesn't mean that I will go crying on somebody's shoulder either. Either you can code along with me or I'll spend my time elsewhere. Now fuck off and stay off my lawn.
Agency? (Score:2)
Of course progressives accuse the community of being sexist or bigoted, but there's no evidence for that.
It's an utter lie, just as the NBA isn't racist for players being ~90% black.
People have different preferences and qualities, so too groups.
There will always be different outcomes for any characteristic you try to judge people by.
Unnecessary, but not a distraction? (Score:2)
Most Open Source organizations I have been in, the codes have been adopted because some people wanted them and wanted to work on them, not because there was ever an event that proved them necessary, but since they are NOT distracting from real developers time, and thereby do no harm, and might potentially do some good, they are universally accepted.
This is my "other" (Score:2)
Licences besides, no one can limit usage, manner of utilisation, working environment and conditions of tools I use. I can only show two of my ten fingers to such idiotic PC loving SJW wannabe bull crappers.
Ah and yes before I forget, I promise that at each and every opportunity my profanity level about such subjects would rise.
As long as the Code Of Conduct... (Score:2)
...takes into account contributors who suffer from ADHD and other disorders and allow for occasional outbursts of seemingly irrational behavior they will be okay. I voted "more discussion" for that reason because the few that I have read seem intolerant of people with personality disorders.
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, I think that's one of those things that sounds good but is trickier in practice than people think. How do you make the trade-off between treating everyone equally and making special allowances? Would it only be for medically-documented and verifiable disabilities? I've been in a situation where the entire policy towards the disabled was just the word "respect", which of course meant different things to different people.
Never heard of this, what is it? (Score:2)
I thought I had an opinion, but realized I don't! (Score:2)
I think code stands or falls on its own. People use it to create software, or they don't. Codes of conduct only apply if you create some sort of social groups around the development, and by nature, those are purely optional to participate in.
I'm not a developer myself. I work in other areas of I.T. So given that, plus what I said above? Yeah -- I think I have no place expressing a viewpoint about codes of conduct. I guess they're great if the participants feel like most of them benefit from them being in
The Code of Conduct should be open source (Score:2)
Excellent Karma - Had Only One Article on Slashdot (Score:2)
yes, but... (Score:2)
A "code of conduct" is in principle a good thing.
Unfortunately, like so many areas of socio-political life, the area has been occupied by a specific fringe of the spectrum, and is largely abused to push trollish agendas of fanatical feminism (not to be confused with feminism in general) and fascistic overexpression of political correctness (which has managed to turn a movement aimed towards liberty and freedom of speech into an oppression of any speech not conforming to a narrow corridor).
So yes, it's a goo
If you pay me money (Score:2)
If you pay me money, I can be compelled to deliver on your schedule, to work at your building, to behave how you want me to behave and to design what you want me to design.
If you do not pay me money, then I will do whatever the fuck I want, when I want, where I want, and I'm going to build what I want. If the thing I'm building is also compelling to others, and my behavior is not so uniformly awful that nobody wants to work with me, then shit gets done. If I'm off the reservation, then either what I'm build
Poll: have you stopped beating your wife? (Score:2)
Are all hammers bad because someone used a sledgehammer to commit murder?
Are all hammers good because someone used a claw hammer to build a house?
Re: (Score:2)
That's mere semantics (which I must concede, RMS is a master of arguing loudly about tiny semantic differences). Whether you phrase it as "these are the things you should do" or "these are the things you should not do", any community has rules (even unspoken, informal ones) for how to eject toxic members. That's all a Code of Conduct is - a definition of some term equivalent to "toxic individual", and some method of ejection.
If you want to prove the point, go onto some project RMS leads (does he still activ
Re: Walk Away from CoCs (Score:2)
Yes, please walk away from CoCs. It'll take about a month to replace you, and everyone will be so much happier without you dragging shit down that no one will miss you.
That's turning out to be an unexpected side benefit of a lot of these. The creepers aren't even demanding the enforcement process to which they would be entitled. They just up and voluntarily self-ostracize. It's great.
You still have to have those processes, since these are what they're so afraid of (witness their more positive reaction to en
Re: Walk Away from CoCs (Score:2)
I'm not really someone that most SJWs would find to be a very good ally. I do have some in my social circle, but we don't talk politics. I've told one or two of them what I'm doing here, and they've been horrified by my tactics, which is about what I expected. What I am doing here does not comfort anybody, and is not intended to.
You see, I'm not doing this because I care about any person or group in particular. I just hate bullies. And that wouldn't make you and me so different, except that you haven't yet
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is if you want to keep your community from splintering.
Re: (Score:2)
Well aren't you a fucking racist, assuming that people are a certain skin colour.
Here's a hint: Software is written by people of all skin colours - and nobody gives a fuck. You're the only racist shit spewing ignorance here.