Comment by wisty
13 hours ago
Every political group has bad faith actors who care more about winning the argument than the truth. And worse faith actors who are just there to trash talk people. Just look at the red button / blue button argument (where the vitriol in the debate would only make sense if the buttons were real, or if people like being jerks).
Better faith CoC people talk about freedom of association vs freedom of speech - if a platform doesn't like their oppponents, isn't it fine to ban them? Or say it should just be treated as a more utilitarian "be nice" convention for the mailing list (obviously it depends who is calling the shots, but that is true in any project).
>Better faith CoC people talk about freedom of association vs freedom of speech - if a platform doesn't like their oppponents, isn't it fine to ban them?
Sure, but the problem here is far more insidious. By latching into delicate and, at times, controversial issues, CoC may hold a project hostage and threaten character assassination.
Imagine that for some bizarre reason, CoC establishes that issues are only to be talked about on Mondays. People can comply, or they can leave, no biggie. Strange but clear cut.
Now, say it instead establishes whatever politically motivated consideration. The choice now becomes one of positioning oneself into the current political climate. This makes sense at times, but also leaves a door open for abuse akin to rules lawyering, gotchas and crybullying. Sometimes creates a phantom HR that has no interest beyond exerting its power and which does d with no accountability.
Problem is anyone raising this as an issue or rejecting such proposal is going to look bad while doing so. It's easier to keep your head low.
And your argument is that the CoC that does the Monday thing is better, or what?
"Better" in the sense that it doesn't risk the problems the other does. My intention with that example was to make it clear I don't have a problem with people doing whatever, regardless of me liking it or not.
I think they're saying CoCs are being weaponized to enable arbitrary enforcement/discipline using subjective terminology (which I have noticed as well), and that that's a bad thing.
I have also noticed a stark hypocrisy where the moderators do exactly what their own rules say not to do, and they get away with it, but their users don't.
It's like they're just using the CoC to suppress opinions they don't like.
1 reply →
The blue red button thing only works as a hypothetical. If it was real everyone would be choosing the same button and if blue was ever unlucky enough to lose, life would just go on for a majority of people.
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This is not my view the only bad stories I have seen here are instances that should be taken care of even with out code of conducts. The reason why I see no problems with code of conducts is that it gets really tiresome to interact with people who are abrasive.
It is not a political thing in my view. I get more tired by the metadrama. Things did change when open source became a business. It is impossible to compare a voluntary based project with a big one. I think the issue is that most people have no experience in doing large scale self organization.