
GitHub Puts Open Code of Conduct on Pause - s_kilk
https://github.com/todogroup/opencodeofconduct/issues/84
======
arihant
This is probably a parallel, but I still think Apple came up with the best,
most self-disciplining code of conduct of all times:

> _We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the
> line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, "I'll
> know it when I see it". And we think that you will also know it when you
> cross it._

Yes, they do publish more direct rejection reasons too. But those reasons were
enumerated by experience and were repeated over and over -- like religious
hate. What I like is they did not start with a committee of people saying,
"Let's brainstorm what could go wrong."

To be able to deal with a large fraternity of people, the better approach is
to not imagine a nominal case. You have to start openly, then establish a
nominal case with experience.

Mark Stehlik once said, "But, you don't make policies around edge cases; you
make policies for the nominal case and deal with the edge cases as the
exceptions they are." I like this because this enforces a clear intention of
_being able to deal with edge cases._ This is just like Apple's review
guidelines. Firstly, they call it _guidelines_ and not _code of conduct._ That
enforces that they are human and flexible.

The problem with having a code of conduct with a large fraternity of people is
that you immediately give the community an intent of what you like and what
you don't like. That discourages you to find things _that you may have liked
but now will never get to see._ That also gives idiots in a community a chance
to police potential talent based on now written code of conduct. That's a
grammar-nazi behavior. You may get great English teachers in that community,
but I doubt a Hemingway would want anything to do with you.

Also, it has to be unique to each project. Having a blanket open source code
of conduct is bad. It follows what you know, and discourages what you don't.
So it's essentially an inbreeding system. And if an open source project
accepts and celebrates an inbreeding system, then it is just a proprietary
company with no money and wget-able code, essentially failing on both ends.

~~~
tomp
The problem with blank statements such as this is that "the line" is a moving
goalpost. I'd (reluctantly) support even completely arbitrary enforcement, as
long as it's not retroactive. But if they first accept apps with Confederate
flag, and then ban them later, that's IMO a very bad precedent.

~~~
cmsj
The set of things that are acceptable, is always in flux. Such is life. Such
is the App Store.

You can choose to think about your content carefully before you put it out in
the world, or you can choose not to :)

------
josteink
That's the smartest thing they've done all week. Now it's time to bury it
dead. This is a solution looking for a problem (tm).

The only thing this code of conduct does beside state the obvious (behave like
adults) is the implied distrust expressed by introducing it in the first
place: that without being nannied into proper behaviour, we would all act like
vile animals.

Generally I find such nannying deeply offensive.

~~~
Svenstaro
I agree. I have yet to encounter a truly bad interaction on Github.

And what if I did? Learning to ignore things that could unreasonably sour your
mood is a valuable skill in life anyway. Life itself doesn't really have a
code like proposed.

~~~
anon3_
> And what if I did? Learning to ignore things that could unreasonably sour
> your mood is a valuable skill in life anyway. Life itself doesn't really
> have a code like proposed.

De-escalated depending on the context of the situation.

Code of Conduct defines problems and could turn anything funny, innocent, etc.
into an excuse to ruin someone's life.

9/10 times it's someone who doesn't program (an Adria Richards, Shanley Kane)
who will be attacking someone who actually contributes.

~~~
cmsj
-1. Implies lines of code is the only possible contribution one can make.

~~~
anon3_
Do you expect everyone to water down thoughts with a bullet-point list of
qualifiers to have a point?

The people causing the social outrage debacles, often _can 't_ program.
They're complete outsiders who think they can use social ideas and useful
idiots as a vehicle for _their own benefit_.

Many QAers and PM's can or have programmed some, at one point, or else they
wouldn't understand the domain of the problem.

Most of the trouble crowd tend to be social marketers and so-called
"evangelists" on twitter.

They're not programmers.

These people leading the vanguard of your code of conduct movements - they're
not even really tech. They're happy when you invent these new job positions to
give them a paycheck.

~~~
cmsj
You seem to be continuing to operate under the assumption that only people who
can code, are capable of contributing to a project.

There are so many things that can be done to contribute to a project, that
don't involve writing a single line of code. Testing, evangelism,
documentation, support, etc, etc.

Why should attempting to improve the culture of a project, be any different?

------
zxcvcxz
>Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions
like “ _hug_ ” or “ _backrub_ ”) without consent or after a request to stop.
[violates the code of conduct]

I can't tell if this is a joke or not.

~~~
plonh
In an employment environment, that is clearcut sexual harassment. The OCC is
bringing some of that professionalism to open source communities.

Why would it be a joke to ban annoying personally-targeted behaviors that are
unrelated to the work product?

I can't think of a case where discussing cuddling someone is appropriate for a
Pull Request, mailing list, or IRC chat

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_In an employment environment, that is clearcut sexual harassment._

Wait, really? I've never posted it myself, but textual descriptions like
"[hug]" as a way of expressing gratitude or solidarity are common and mundane
in plenty of communities.

Now, sure, cluttering technical discussions with stuff like this isn't
preferable. To call it "clearcut sexual harassment" is ludicrous and
completely devalues the term in question.

~~~
jlarocco
> Wait, really? I've never posted it myself, but textual descriptions like
> "[hug]" as a way of expressing gratitude or solidarity are common and
> mundane in plenty of communities.

I'd bet none of the communities you've seen it is a workplace.

~~~
tbrownaw
No, actual workplace interactions that have all the involved humans in the
same physical location don't use textual descriptions.

Instead you get the actual actions. Because people who spend that much time
interacting tend to not _stay_ in a Platonic Ideal "strictly professional"
relationship, but become acquaintances or even friends. In which case it's
_that_ set of rules that apply, rather than the ivory tower set of rules based
on said Platonic Ideal.

~~~
jlarocco
So your workplace doesn't use email, source control, instant message, group
chat, or any other kind of electronic text communication?

But in a way that just emphasizes why "[hug]" would be awkward and borderline
inappropriate in a work setting. How often do coworkers physically hug at
work?

I'm not saying it would always be wrong to use "[hug]" (or even physically hug
somebody at work), but I'd expect it to be far less common than in some other
settings.

~~~
bakabaka9
Nothing wrong with spontaneously hugging at work to relieve stress, assuming
that all parties understand the purely Platonic meaning of the act (after all,
we're grown-ups).

I also tend to close my (less serious) working emails with stuff like "Love,
kisses, [Name]" — and no one ever got offended by that, albeit the majority of
my team would probably dislike some random bearded guy actually kissing them.

Awkwardness is in the eye of the beholder. Working with adults (with no
serious mental health issues) alleviates the need for a prohibitive, mildly
disgusting CoC, like the one discussed in this thread.

------
nadams
I feel like an open code of conduct is unnecessary.

Really - the only thing you need to remember is - be nice to each other and be
patient with those supplying advice and those who are asking for advice. (I
have screenshots of discussions that violate this simple fundamental rule). I
have flagged 40+ comments (that were accepted and acted upon) on stackoverflow
alone of people just being stupid jerks.

The SVN people did a great presentation about how to protect your project from
poisonous people [1]. Their story goes is that someone came on the SVN mailing
list ranting about how SVN sucks and doesn't have the features he wanted -
according to the talk the SVN community was polite and the guy just went away.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q52kFL8zVoM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q52kFL8zVoM)

~~~
jameskilton
It _shouldn 't_ be necessary, but it is.

We live in an age where if an action is not explicitly called out as
unacceptable, a significant number of people will perform said action, because
if it's not explicitly unacceptable, it's obviously acceptable. In short, if
you don't say I can't abuse people, it's ok for me to abuse people.

Oh, and these people will also happily throw around the "First Amendment" as
justification, which makes me incredibly sad for the future of our nation.

Solving _that_ behavior though is incredibly difficult.

~~~
curun1r
The reason they're unnecessary is that codes of conduct aren't legally
enforceable and the resulting actions from violating them can be taken by the
community regardless of whether they have a code of conduct. I agree with Bo
Burnham when he said, "Who needs a thousand metaphors to realize you shouldn't
be a dick?" [1] (or, in this case, a thousand prohibited behaviors)

If someone does act in a way that is unacceptable, the community should,
politely, explain to them that that sort of behavior isn't allowed _and_ why
it's not allowed, since often times people are communicating in a foreign
language or are coming from a culture that has different norms. If the
behavior persists, you take whatever action you would have taken had you had a
code of conduct.

Basically, there's no practical need for legal-level detail in a code of
conduct, just use, "don't be a jerk."

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxc20saM8DA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxc20saM8DA)
(audio NSFW)

------
ehvatum
This section of the "code of conduct" is extremely odd without some context:

> Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over
> privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:

> ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and
> ‘cisphobia’

> Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,”
> or “I’m not discussing this with you”

> Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts

> Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial

> Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or
> assumptions

I'd put this in the context of:

* normal people are political and can not understand a technological meritocracy

* the percentage of the github community that is black is much smaller than the percentage of the worldwide or even US population that is black

* the github community is a technological meritocracy and the problem of underrepresentation is external

* not understanding this, normal people would like to impose a political solution, and the form this solution takes is grotesque and offensive to people who do understand meritocracy

~~~
josteink
You may have missed the memo, but according to new wave feminism, the word
"meritocracy" represents discrimination because you _don 't_ give special
treatment to people based on sex, ethnicity etc.

I'm not kidding, and Github had adopted this view as well. [1]

Among many, this CoC is seen as a continuation of this largely feminist
agenda. And we don't think it belong here. Open source I'd apolitical, meaning
you can avoid political issues entirely in a good and neutral environment.

Why work so hard to make it political? For what gains?

[1] [http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-
rug](http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug)

~~~
DanBC
Meritocracy is sexist because it's bullshit. We know it's bullshit from the
resumé experiments or the blinded orchestra auditions etc.

~~~
josteink
So your argument is that because it's hard (impossible?) to achieve a true
meritocracy the term and goal itself is "bullshit" and should be dismissed?

Should we apply the same standards to other common things? Equality?
Democracy? Justice?

See how that works? Yeah, it doesn't. Your argument is a non-argument.

~~~
DanBC
No, my argument is that people who claim to be operating a meritocracy need to
be aware of a bunch of biases or they risk being sexist[1] whilst also
dismissing any accusations of sexism.

[1] etc

------
thomasfoster96
Looking through some of the issues on that repo, the amount of bad faith
people have in the very idea of a code of conduct is astonishing. Not to
mention the sheer ignorance of issues affecting minorities within the tech
community (seriously, Jon Stewart could have had a weeks worth of material).

Sure, the wording of the code of conduct wasn't perfect, but it'd be much
nicer if people wanted to see it improved in good faith. There's a lot of ugly
things that happen in open source projects, which aren't rosy as some may
assume, and the idea that making more people feel welcomed and safe in
communities like GitHub can't take precedent over the possibility that a few
current contributors will find themselves outside the rules on a regular basis
is very worrying.

~~~
intortus
It seems like the loudest voices are brand new accounts with some sort of
anti-diversity agenda.

~~~
thomasfoster96
There's what looks like an obviously fake account (lots of 0-star repos with
nonsense names) who just started arguing in an issue that privelige doesn't
exist and that people are only lazy. That really doesn't help at all, and I'm
kinda surprised that it seems as though people are trying to reason with
people like that.

------
_mikz
GitHub ? Looks like TODO group are more companies than just GitHub [1].

[1] [http://todogroup.org/members/](http://todogroup.org/members/)

~~~
Albright
Yeah, I was just gonna ask - what does this have to do with GitHub beyond
being hosted there?

But now I guess my question shifts to - what does it mean to be a "member" of
this group? Is using any of the services provided by member companies binding
me to that CoC somehow?

EDIT: Ah, looks like there's answers in this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10027561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10027561)

------
skarap
This is a gem: "Harassing photography or recording, including logging online
activity for harassment purposes"

------
xiaoma
Github really has jumped the shark.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
Not yet. They will when they'll impose that silly CoC on all hosted projects.

------
bluecalm
It is terribly worded and quite off-putting. It also has a lot of stuff in it
which could be summed up as "be a decent person". Saved space could be used to
express specific ideas about desired behavior. Some comments:

 _Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual
orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical
appearance, body size, race, age, regional discrimination, political or
religious affiliation_

Both too general and too specific. If the goal is to say offensive comments
are not permitted then leave it at: "offensive comments". If comments
regarding things on the list should be avoided say it. I mean, what about
"comments about sexual orientation, mental illnesses etc. of other project
members are not permitted". Why is political affiliation on the list I don't
really know either. Political affiliation or religion might be completely off-
topic for open source projects but putting them in the same list as
race/age/body size/physical appearance/gender etc. makes very little sense.
Just don't talk about politics or religion if they are unrelated to the
project. Don't talk about diet ideas either when we are at that.

 _Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices,
including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment_

"Don't make personal attacks and avoid personal remarks in general".

 _Deliberate misgendering_

Already covered in "comments about gender/sexual orientation/mental
ilnesses/etc. of other members".

 _Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions
like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop_

It really doesn't seem to be necessary and makes the whole thing sound not
very serious.

 _Threats of violence, both physical and psychological Incitement of violence
towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to
engage in self-harm Deliberate intimidation_

Yeah but make it shorter: "Threats of violence, intimidation or encouraging
them".

 _Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their
consent except as necessary to protect others from intentional abuse_

Actual problem and specific behavior hidden among 20 or so points which could
be shortened to 3. More points like that please.

 _Publication of non-harassing private communication_

Another good point: specific behavior which isn't universally understood as
undesired and should be specifically included in CoC.

 _‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and
‘cisphobia’_

Reverse sexism is sexism. Remove all "reverse" non-sense. The whole text reads
like mumbling on Tumblr.

 _Refusal to explain or debate social justice concepts_

Yeah, refusal to explain or debate recent fruit diet should be included as
well.

 _Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or
assumptions_

All this is covered in point about sexism and discrimination. Cissexist or
cisgender aren't actual words in a dictionary and should be avoided in an
international CoC.

 _If someone has been harmed or offended, it is our responsibility to listen
carefully and respectfully, and do our best to right the wrong._

This is nonsense. Someone being harmed is a serious issue. Someone being
offended - not so much. Mixing the two takes away from serious issues and
dilute them in ocean of meaningless words without any specific behaviors
attached to them.

 _Although this list cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honor diversity in
age, gender, gender identity or expression, culture, ethnicity, language,
national origin, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual
orientation, socioeconomic status, and technical ability._

Blablablabla, 3rd time in the same text. Just remove the whole section. It
doesn't contribute anything.

 _If you experience or witness unacceptable behavior—or have any other
concerns—please report it by contacting us via abuse@todogroup.org. All
reports will be handled with discretion. In your report please include:_

"If you experience unacceptable behavior or have any questions, contact us at
abuse@todogroup.org. All reports will be handled with discretion." The rest of
the paragraph is pointless.

Overall it's a terribly written text which is thin on specifics and repeats
itself several times. Maybe ask an actual technical writer to put things
together. Make it shorter as well.

------
Globrazu
The reason so many people are against “Code of Conducts” is because they are
not used as a baseline for professional behavior (against which there would
also be arguments in Open Source), but as a political cudgel to score points
and enact things like: [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-
resignat...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/)

See also: [http://dancerscode.com/blog/why-the-open-code-of-conduct-
isn...](http://dancerscode.com/blog/why-the-open-code-of-conduct-isnt-for-me/)

But look at some instances for people who have tried to win political
arguments by invoking CoC or are lobbying to instate them on Open Source
projects.

Here is a case, someone from Italy was openly against reassignment surgery for
kids on Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/krainboltgreene/status/61156951531550720...](https://twitter.com/krainboltgreene/status/611569515315507200)

Uh-oh my wrong-think senses are tingling, he had a different opinion on a
social issue on his private Twitter account. How could this possibly be
handled? Ignore him, discuss this issue with him or agree to disagree? No,
clearly he must be somehow punished for this. Luckily he is apparently
contributor to an Open Source project called Opal, so let’s bring it up there
and insist:
[https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941](https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941)

This is fortunately brought up by someone who has already developed their own
“Code of Conduct” that would require that it be followed on “public spaces”
(like Twitter, Facebook or forums) and if not be removed from the project:
[http://contributor-covenant.org/](http://contributor-covenant.org/)
[http://where.coraline.codes/coraline_ehmke.pdf](http://where.coraline.codes/coraline_ehmke.pdf)

“ _By adopting this Code of Conduct, project maintainers commit themselves to
fairly and consistently applying these principles to every aspect of managing
this project. Project maintainers who do not follow or enforce the Code of
Conduct may be permanently removed from the project team.

This code of conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces
when an individual is representing the project or its community._”

It’s basically a shakedown game for ideological control of a space and seems
to work this way:

1) Someone gets offended by something someone in the Open Source community
said (usually on Twitter or at an official event), they demand they be removed
or otherwise punished for the offending thing.

2) They flood GitHub or similar with demands to remove said individual and/or
at least adopt a “Code of Conduct” to prevent such “despicable” behavior like
disagreeing in the future, which includes all Social media and official events

3) Once project creators have been socially shamed as some sort of bigots for
not wanting to do anything against this sufficiently and the activists got a
foot in the door they push a self-formulated “Code of Conduct” on the project
like above

4) Then they demand it be upheld and anyone that says anything they deem
offensive be removed from the project, if it happens another time they can
point to said “Code of Conduct” and ask the project creators to abide. A “safe
space” has been created. After this they don’t particularly give a shit if
great software engineers get pushed out for disagreeing or the project even
fails beyond this point, because said people don’t want to abide by their
ideology.

Meritocracy is also generally a trigger-word for these people, they absolutely
hate it. Just bring it up in conversation and they reveal themselves and their
intentions rather quickly: [http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-
meritocracy-rug](http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug)

[https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-dehumanizing-myth-
of...](https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-dehumanizing-myth-of-the-
meritocracy)

Another recent issue was GitHub removing a WebM Converter repo because it used
the word “retards”, you can see the same individual involved in the first
Twitter conflict pop up throughout the comments yelling at other people to
leave:
[https://github.com/nixxquality/WebMConverter/commit/c1ac0baa...](https://github.com/nixxquality/WebMConverter/commit/c1ac0baac06fa7175677a4a1bf65860a84708d67)

------
toufka
For those confused, here is the actual code of conduct [1]

[1]
[http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/](http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/)

------
stefantalpalaru
> to protect people who are typically the target of harassment in open source

So if you are subjected to an unusual type of harassment, you're on your own?

~~~
tomp
I guess the idea is, to prevent (or at least discourage) the usual types of
harassment up-front, and deal with the more unusual, rare forms on-the-fly as
they appear.

~~~
bluecalm
Yet, there is specific point about "reverse-sexism" and "reverse -ism" not
being considered a problem. The concerns are valid, the text is written with
an agenda in mind and the agenda makes people weary.

------
tomp
I fail to see how this has anything to do with GitHub, except using GitHub as
a hosting platform. Can somebody please change the title?

~~~
ForHackernews
Github recently adopted this Code of Conduct for all of their own-brand
projects, and they were encouraging other open source projects to adopt it as
well: [https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-
condu...](https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-conduct)

~~~
tomp
But the question is, are they also supporting/adopting this change/suspension?
That's not clear from the linked post.

~~~
jp_sc
At least the GitHub's Atom and Electron projects are evaluating alternatives.
See:
[https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/8206#issuecomment-128858...](https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/8206#issuecomment-128858335)

------
anon3_
I group "Code of Conduct" with Political Correctness.

For anyone interested in a good read on the subject, check out _End of
Discussion: How the Left 's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates
Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun)_ by Mary Ham and Guy Benson.

It's an excellent read, and shouldn't be too much of a sting to the social
outrage panderers out there.

