
New FreeBSD Code of Conduct - doppp
https://www.freebsd.org/internal/code-of-conduct.html
======
Caveman_Coder
I wonder why tech communities need their CoC...

I'm a member of a local HAM radio group and we don't have any CoC and we don't
have any issues at all. The male/female makeup is about 70/30 and there are
people of various political/religious viewpoints, but I haven't once seen any
issues over these differences. I've seen leftists amicably talk and work with
conservatives because when we meet as a group it is all about HAM radio,
nothing else. I'm not sure why tech communities have all these problems to be
honest...it seems like there are groups that purposefully want to stir up
discord because they make money (get funding) if there are issues...

~~~
jacobian
I assume you have some standards of behavior, though, right? If a member of
your group, say, punched another member, you’d probably kick him out, right?

If so: you have a code of conduct, you just don’t have a _written_ code of
conduct. You’re relying on the relative homogeneity and shared context of the
group to know and follow the unwritten rules.

This tends to work ok for smaller more homogenous groups with shared social
values. But unwritten rules fail for people on the margins, and falls apart at
scale.

~~~
skookumchuck
> But unwritten rules fail for people on the margins, and falls apart at
> scale.

How ever did society survive before written CoC's?

~~~
andrepd
Badly. I for one am glad Bronze Age people had the brilliant idea to write
down their laws, as I'm glad Romans and Byzantines decided to spread their
legal system around.

~~~
skookumchuck
I suspect we're the first to attempt to codify rude behavior.

~~~
2trill2spill
> I suspect we're the first to attempt to codify rude behavior.

Many private groups have rules on good and bad behavior. There's simply
nothing new about it.

~~~
skookumchuck
I never heard of any before about 20 years ago when speech codes started
appearing on campuses. I've been going to conferences for 40 years, and the
first time I had to sign a CoC for one was last year.

It was simply if you behaved badly, you were asked to leave. Nobody needed a
definition of rude behavior.

~~~
Slansitartop
That's an interesting observation: a shift towards using a law-code paradigm
for regulating personal social behavior, from an informal consensus-based one.

I suspect that has something to do with the fact that law codes are legislated
by a select body, which is more susceptible to influence than an informal
consensus.

------
malvosenior
> Comments that reinforce systemic oppression related to gender, gender
> identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness,
> neurodiversity, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion.

Harassment should be harassment, no? Does it matter if the perpetrator is
"reinforcing systemic oppression" or just being obnoxious? Why put this clause
in here? Will it be enforced when someone says "kill all men" or "apply for
our speaking position if you're not a white male"?

This CoC seems sharply political, which is sad because something like FreeBSD
should more or less be totally free of politics.

~~~
soyiuz
When "killing all men" type of behavior becomes problematic you will have a
point. The problem has been that some people don't understand what "being
obnoxious" is and need it spelled out for them. Because men have not been
historically a target of oppression, the explanation now has the language that
it does, using actual examples / lines of harassment.

~~~
malvosenior
And this is what I mean by dragging politics into an open source project where
it doesn't belong.

> When "killing all men" type of behavior becomes problematic you will have a
> point.

Every time someone "ironically" tweets this, it's a problem. I've yet to see a
CoC used effectively to stop it.

~~~
soyiuz
Consider that from your point of view the open source project is free from
politics and the anti-harassment policy is "dragging politics into it." But
from the point of view of someone who has experienced harassment, politics
were indeed an issue. The inconvenience to you is minor. You now have to spend
an extra moment to consider another point of view. The inconvenience to your
aggrieved peer was major. They were actually harassed. The benefit to them
outweighs your annoyance.

~~~
malvosenior
Anyone can be harassed, white males included. There is a very legitimate fear
of speaking out against extreme left wing political statements in the tech
industry. This CoC is yet another weapon to use against people who don't agree
in inherent white male privilege (a concept that is most definitely
political).

The politically neutral move would be to not have a CoC or have one that
excludes _all_ demographic white/blacklisting.

------
whatshisface
> _Comments that reinforce systemic oppression related to gender, gender
> identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness,
> neurodiversity, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion._

So, there's a lot of "politicking" going on back and forth over this, but I'd
like to suggest a specific problem: by attempting to formalize what used to be
intuition, you're opening the door for people to follow up bad behavior with
legal arguments that it was actually allowed. For example, someone could say
something that was obviously meant against a group, and then defend it by
pointing to specific wording in the CoC. ("But can you _prove_ the oppression
was systemic? Says the person who is obviously acting maliciously but is not
obviously part of a system.")

~~~
soyiuz
Possibly. But the benefits outweigh the marginal scenario you are envisioning.
I again return to the example of HN, which has higher standards of
conversation than many other boards, due in part to strong moderating
guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

To draw a parallel, do you think HN would be more successful if it relied on
"intuition" for norms of discussion?

~~~
Yver
The benefits of that kind of CoC remain to be proven. Meanwhile, I note that
HN's moderating guidelines do not mention sex, gender, religion, food choices,
or most of what FreeBSD's new CoC describes.

HN's moderating guidelines are about content whereas FreeBSD's new Code of
Conduct codifies human behaviour, as the name would imply. They are different
things.

~~~
soyiuz
To your first point: The detriments of that kind of COC remain to be proven as
well. But why even bring this up? Even a perceived benefit to a marginalized
group is worth it. Do we imagine the status quo as somehow harmed by stronger
anti-harassment policies? There are numerous examples of sexual harassment
online and in person. The potential chilling effects of stronger guidelines
have to be weighed against the actual chilling effects (trauma, non-
participation) of those affected.

To your second point: The BSD guidelines address content ("comments") and
physical meetings, which I assume apply to conferences and hackathons. I don't
see the distinction you are making between "content" and "human behavior," as
content is human behavior online. There is good research on moderated
communities. Anecdotally, I am talking to you here and not on Reddit because
of stronger guidelines (and the resulting, to my mind, higher quality of
discussion).

~~~
whatshisface
> _I am talking to you here and not on Reddit because of stronger guidelines
> (and the resulting, to my mind, higher quality of discussion)._

That's a really interesting statement - I think that it has more to do with
the actual people in the community (including the individual people
moderating) than the guidelines they wrote. I think that if you took the HN
guidelines and told a major subreddit's team to implement them, the discussion
there wouldn't get any better. Why? Because it's all dependent on the judgment
of the community and the moderators, and you either have that resource (and
are already using it) or you don't.

------
gkya
I've always read that whitelisting is more preferable to blacklisting. So
wouldn't a rule like "FreeBSD projects' communication media are strictly
restricted to technical and philosophical discussions related to the projects
themselves, and all use of language for branding and naming must be
politically and socially neutral and not-offensive" would be actually better
than a list of what not to do? The law has lots of lists, and quite often we
find out that those lists were a bit too short, and things like loopholes
happen.

------
thoaway1
If more and more groups insist on forcing their ideological agenda down the
throats of contributors and users maybe it's time to start hacking on projects
that don't feel the need to bring politics into software.

~~~
rayiner
This is the exact opposite: It's rules for how to work on code without
bringing personal crap into it. Do you want a date? Do you think there is
something wrong with trans people? Do you have thoughts on race relations?
Nobody cares, check that baggage at the door.

~~~
whatshisface
As far as I can see, the real problem here is that some forms of baggage are
still allowed (an inevitable problem with any finite list of rules), meaning
that you will end up with baggage imbalances and endless debate over which
baggages are permissable self-expression and which ones are unacceptable.

~~~
ethomson
It is not a finite list of rules. It is an explanation of the values (eg,
respecting diversity) and a list of examples of things that are obviously
prohibited. It is explicitly "not an exhaustive list of things that you should
not do", and although it does list some _examples_ of things that are
prohibited - it provides examples that are "not limited to" the ones provided.

This clearly reduces the ambiguity in the community. And even if some
ambiguity does remain - which, as you point out, is inevitable - having
examples of obviously impermissible behavior and a framework for conflict
resolution is requisite for a community.

------
Joky
I very much empathize with Code of Conduct, and as many I regret that it is
necessary to have to make explicit what seems fairly obvious.

On a tangent though, I feel the word "harassment" is now generalized and used
for any "inappropriate conduct". It loses the meaning that I'm getting from
dictionaries (
[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/harassment](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/harassment)
and [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harass](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/harass) ) or Wikipedia (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment#United_States)
) which seems to include some specific elements that make it stand out, like
"repetition" or "persistence" in a behavior, or continuing after someone asked
to stop.

~~~
ygaf
>I regret that it is necessary to have to make explicit what seems fairly
obvious.

I don't think it was (necessary). Given the incident where someone tried to
get a github user 'fired' from a project for 'transphobia' on twitter, I have
no faith anything wrong even happened in FreeBSD's virtual workplace.

------
rayiner
This is great: simple and easy to understand. For everyone feigning confusion
about modern professional behavioral norms, just memorize this list.

~~~
coldtea
Or "anyone not familiar with the fashionable norms du jour, here's a list of
potential thought crimes as derived by one country's culture (and its internal
conflicts, cultural politics, and religious and post-religious baggage) and
imposed on supposedly global communities".

~~~
temprature
In what country is it acceptable to not treat others with basic courtesy and
respect? Which is really all the list is asking for.

~~~
skookumchuck
Why not just say that, then?

~~~
harryh
Because experience has taught us that some people need it explained in a bit
more detail what constitutes basic courtesy and respect.

~~~
skookumchuck
If they don't know it already, I doubt thrusting a CoC document at them will
enlighten them. People who are rude are intentionally rude. It's kinda the
whole point to being rude.

~~~
harryh
I agree with you to some extent, but note that we have all sorts of traffic
laws and not just a generic "drive safely."

------
aap_
This makes me sad. Do people _really_ need to be told what not to do and say
like that? To me it feels insulting that I am not trusted to be nice to
others.

~~~
temprature
Given that there's groups of people railing against being told not to do the
things on this list, yes, apparently.

~~~
aap_
Not liking being told what not to do does not imply that you want to actually
do it though. Maybe I don't want to leave the house today, but that doesn't
mean I will accept being locked up.

~~~
2trill2spill
> Not liking being told what not to do does not imply that you want to
> actually do it though. Maybe I don't want to leave the house today, but that
> doesn't mean I will accept being locked up.

So you agree with the contents of the code of conduct but your not going to
following them just to be difficult?

------
soyiuz
I am always surprised at the backlash against such codes of conduct. One can
point to numerous cases of harassment, abuse, and inequality in the tech
community. Who is harmed by a stronger CoC? Let's discuss an example where CoC
led to a negative outcome for some group.

~~~
xyzzyz
What’s the purpose of a Code of Conduct? If someone is abusive and harassing
others, you can eject them without having some Code of Conduct giving the
community permission to do so, and if you lack clout to eject someone for
actual abuse and harrasment, how will CoC help you? Do you think that without
CoC, people in the community believe that harrasment and abuse is OK, and it’s
only CoC that will make them change their minds?

Instituting the CoC is a power play. It allows you to increase your power and
influence by pushing the boundaries of what counts as harrasment much further
than it would otherwise be understood, for very simple reason — for most
people, fighting against CoC is not the hill they want to die on, as nobody
wants to be seen as defender of abuse and harrasment.

It is similar to child pornography legislation — you can go to jail for hand
drawn pictures of specialized children, which is pretty stupid if you think
about it, but most people don’t care: they aren’t pedophiles and so they
aren’t interested in sexualized content featuring children, and the personal
gain of feeling good about defending individual freedom and liberty is not
worth the status loss from, you know, defending actual pedophiles.

With CoC it is similar — you are expanding your sphere of power and influence,
and everyone opposed is just dirty defender of abuse and harrasment, and so
basically a harraser herself, and thus we need to eject her for the good of
the community.

~~~
soyiuz
Let's take a starker example, for the sake of the argument. The building I
live in today did not allow Jews, Asians, or people of color until the 1960s
(my family would not be allowed in). An explicit Code of Conduct, now in our
bylaws, prohibits discrimination based on those categories. Was it a "power
play"? Would you make the same argument as above to justify not passing bylaw
amendments that argue against discrimination?

The BSD rules are a softer version of that starker example. I am truly
perplexed by the resistance to it. It has huge benefits for a marginalized
group and marginal inconvenience for those already in power, already privy to
all of the benefits.

------
HumanDrivenDev
I wonder how short you could make a code of conduct. Here's my attempt:

1\. No politics

2\. No religion

3\. Don't be a cunt

~~~
louiz
Your rule 3 would probably create a looooot of drama.

So, attempt failed.

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
> Your rule 3 would probably create a looooot of drama.

I could provide a translation into US English. Asshole? Jerk? Douche?

------
schizoidboy
I like that they tried to define terms, but what does "the ways" mean? For
example, would someone not be allowed to say certain things, and if so, what
are those things?

> Systemic oppression: The ways in which history, culture, ideology, public
> policies, institutional practices, and personal behaviors and beliefs
> interact to maintain a hierarchy — based on race, class, gender, sexuality,
> and/or other group identities — that allows the privileges associated with
> the dominant group and the disadvantages associated with the oppressed,
> targeted, or marginalized group to endure and adapt over time. (Derived from
> Aspen Institute, via Open Source Leadership)

Edit: Added example ambiguity.

------
randomname2
Copied from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16377044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16377044)

Reddit discussion:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/7xapx2/freebsds_ne...](https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/7xapx2/freebsds_new_geek_feminismbased_code_of_conduct/)

Comments from one of the people responsible for creating the CoC are here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/7xapx2/freebsds_ne...](https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/7xapx2/freebsds_new_geek_feminismbased_code_of_conduct/du7200b/)

------
jsiepkes
There is a reason why laws are not drafted as specific as this code of
conduct.

If someone can think of another way of harassing then making "Harassing
photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment
purposes" it's allowed? I doubt that's the intention. So why the oddly
specific rules?

~~~
cperciva
_So why the oddly specific rules?_

Not weirdly specific rules; weirdly specific examples. And the answer is
"because these are things which have happened".

------
davehtaylor
It's sad that things like this have to be explicitly spelled out

~~~
psyc
While I’ve been persuaded that the CoC trend is probably net positive, I am
still very interested in this larger background problem.

“There is deep infantilism in the culture ... They want to be told, or, they
want to decide and say, ‘This is good, this is bad, I’m saying so.’ Anything
that in any way conflicts with that is not to be borne.” -Stephen Fry

------
protomyth
"Only permanent resolutions (such as bans) may be appealed." \- why?

------
mvdwoord
Bryan Lunduke did an episode on this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNdQJSlg54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNdQJSlg54)

------
bitcharmer
Can someone please explain why this was necessary and what was wrong with the
previous CoC?

------
qbaqbaqba
Hugs and kisses. If you don't mind.

------
Slansitartop
Where has the official debate or contributor feedback about this CoC been
occuring? I've looked through the FreeBSD forums and mailing list archives,
and I haven't seen a peep about this, not even an announcement.

------
coinerone
[https://github.com/Ybalrid/FreeHugsBSD](https://github.com/Ybalrid/FreeHugsBSD)

