The problem with the Code of Conduct

Re:The problem with the Code of Conduct by anon6357814 on Monday March 12, 2018 @08:56PM (#16573069)

I feel excluded by CoCs. Not because they prohibit behavior which I otherwise relish to engage in on a daily basis, more because of fear of coming under some behavioral rule enforcing institution within a community because some behavior could be interpreted as violating the rules when seen under a bad light.

This is mostly a gut reaction, a feeling that CoCs serve more to tighten the overton window and fear that I might find myself on the wrong side of sharp demarcation which should be more of a soft gradient. It's like a wanted poster, being declared a thought criminal.

Of course many things in a CoC are individually sensible rules, but as a larger set they feel like a demand for a flawless human who is always genuinely nice, polite and only makes perfectly inoffensive jokes and never raises their voice while arguing things etc. I'm quite aware that I am not that perfect human, I have issues with empathy and following what was considered group consensus (it has cost me friends and a job before). Those CoCs just feel a bit like a "only people with A-grade social skills welcome here" sign to me.

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Re:The problem with the Code of Conduct by phyzome on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @01:05PM (#16577638)

I sometimes get this anxiety too. And then I remember that if I were black, or a woman, or etc. etc. etc. I'd maybe have a similar anxiety as a baseline:

« a demand for a flawless human who is always genuinely nice, polite and only makes perfectly inoffensive jokes and never raises their voice while arguing things »

Yeah, that sounds similar to the frustrations I've heard from women and people of color, being held to a higher standard than their white or male colleagues.

I'm societally allowed to be rude, even threatening! And I'm rarely called on it. But that's not actually a good thing.

So I think it's totally fair to have a CoC that says "be nice to people" and has some teeth and makes white men a little nervous. "A little nervous" is kind of a baseline for a lot of people. Think of it as educational.

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Re:The problem with the Code of Conduct by anon6357814 on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @03:25PM (#16578975)

That sounds like a low equilibrium point.

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Re:The problem with the Code of Conduct by phyzome on Monday March 19, 2018 @04:51PM (#16623023)

It doesn't have to be permanent. I think that once white men have more of a taste of this nervousness, maybe we can fix some stuff that's deeply broken in our society. But I think it's necessary as a first step.

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Re:The problem with the Code of Conduct by WhitneyLand on Monday March 12, 2018 @09:05PM (#16573099)

That’s wrong that you feel excluded, I wish you didn’t because that’s a hurtful thing. But the very concept of having any code of conduct is likely not the cause.

Even the exact same document will make people feel more or less comfortable depending on other factors like the culture of an org or the people you commonly run into.

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Re:The problem with the Code of Conduct by AstralStorm on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @04:05AM (#16574467)

But it is by design. A code of conduct is meant to exclude people based on their behaviour. Most of these alleged codes have no clear guidelines how to exercise them and so are either ignored or applied to the letter without the spirit.

Or the examples are strawmen. You can easily spot these by a nonspecific, generalized language or lawyering up.

Our rule set (not some CoC) provides concrete examples of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. (Quotes and actual descriptions of things that actually happened.)

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