People who actively maintain a project, and have done so with success for many years, notice something in the documentation that they think is outdated and perhaps a bit tasteless, hold a reasonable discussion about it like adults, and make a decision.
Someone who's at best an inactive emeritus contributor sees this and gets so worked up about it that he decides to risk severely alienating the actual technical contributors in order to override their decision in favor of his personal politics, and when asked to participate in the project's usual decision-making process pulls a Louis XIV ("le projet, c'est moi!") and invokes absolute authority while expressing an unwillingness to listen to any contrary opinions or arguments, resorting to clichéd insults about "trigger warnings" and such.
If you really feel you must argue that one of the parties involved here has "thin skin" (and I don't understand that, either) I do not see how you can, with any rational basis, come to the conclusion that it's the first group. I also do not see how there's anything admirable in the second person's response or actions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16980841
Unfortunately, this got censored heavily on HN.
Also, Rust-lang has CoC "cops": https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/team.html (scroll down to "moderation team").
>Responsibility: helping uphold the code of conduct
That's pretty crazy!
> They have a member on their core team who has advocated violence in the past. It's just that it's violence against white people so it's "OK".
As far as I know, the member you are referring to never advocated violence in the official Rust project space. That's enough for Rust.
https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941
>publicly calling trans people out for "not accepting reality" on Twitter.
>His Twitter profile mentions that he is a core contributor to opal.
>Is this what the other maintainers want to be reflected in the project?
>Will any transgender developers feel comfortable contributing?
There is no reason to believe these people are impartial.
https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942
The author of the issue suggests the adoption of a certain Contributor Covenant. Here is the latest version of the text:
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-con...
And here is the Node.js CoC:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nodejs/admin/master/CODE_O...
Here is the diff:
https://www.diffchecker.com/2Lj88IT6
The only substantial difference is located on the very first paragraph:
- education, socio-economic status
+ race
It is clearly the same CoC.
Nowhere in that text does it say that Twitter is some kind of private space where you can freely express unpopular opinions without consequences to your good standing as a contributor to software projects. The scope section actually says this:
>This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community.
>Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event.
As evidenced by the Opal issue I cited, the mere mention of a project on your Twitter profile causes people to assume it is an "official social media account" and therefore subject to the CoC.
>His Twitter profile mentions that he is a core contributor to opal.
>Is this what the other maintainers want to be reflected in the project?
So why were there no consequences following this report?
https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/issues/324
The Twitter in question clearly is associated with Node.js:
>@nodejs director. former @npmjs.
These facts were enough for me to form my opinion about CoCs and their enforcement.
This is something I'm particularly interested in, so it's a little frustrating that it lasted all of 20 minutes on the front page. Ah well.
If they actually wanted diversity then they would have to recognize that the majority of the world (and the diversity in it) has some very non-PC beliefs and their policies are excluding those people.
Being respectful of others, even in a codified way, is in no way an affront to my non-PC beliefs. I'm not going to start having opinions about whether my co-maintainers are going to hell, and if you want to make a policy about that, I'm not harmed in the least. If you want to ask me about my beliefs you're always welcome to do so privately, but I have enough faith in the internet to believe that nobody I'm working on an open source project with is in dire need of hearing the Good News as if they haven't thought about it before. I'm not excluded by someone saying that proselytization is off-topic.
And if you think that my beliefs nonetheless make me a poor representative for some group of people who don't share those beliefs, well, I will be sad privately, but I don't think I am losing anything I deserved if you kick me out of a position of leadership or responsibility over it.
I will admit that there are people who share my beliefs who also have a belief in excluding a group of people in an arbitrary category or in being disrespectful of others as a matter of policy. I disagree (theologically!) with them, and I also very much have no interest in working closely with them on anything. If you craft a set of rules that excludes those people on the grounds of their exclusionary behavior, you'll likely find that I'm the most empathetic towards them when others want me to cut them off, but you'll also find that I have no fundamental objection towards those rules, implemented as a defense mechanism.
The answer lately is that you aren't free to express that opinion anywhere, by doing so you could lose your job or be kicked out of a project. Being respectful to others will not save you, you have to keep your opinion completely to yourself.
I admit that certain people with public prominence might feel the pressure of public scrutiny, but I have never seen that pressure be aligned in any particular way, whether left vs. right, or religious vs. atheist, or "politically correct" vs. "politically incorrect," or whatever. Every US presidential candidate of every party felt this pressure. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about it yesterday (in an aside in his essay about Kanye West). I've seen /r/Catholicism accuse the actual Pope of virtue signaling. If I become a prominent person, I don't think there's anything about my particular beliefs that will make me more of a target of people looking for a reason to knock others down. Maybe they'll find what they're looking for more easily, but they'll look, regardless.
There are certain jobs I wouldn't be well-suited for. My denomination teaches that abortion should be legal, but should also be avoided. If you appointed me as a leader of a pro-legal-abortion group, I'd like to think I'd be honest to the people I represent and as effective as I can, but if you believed I'd be fundamentally compromised because my denomination isn't unequivocally pro-abortion and that there are better candidates, I'd say, yes, you can find better candidates. If I actually believe in the group's mission, I'd like to see the best person in the job, and if I don't, I certainly shouldn't have the job. I'm not qualified for all things, and part of the nature of having beliefs is that they influence your actions and worldview.
But that's about public prominence. The simple fact of the matter is that I feel completely welcome as a random contributor in projects with codes of conduct and among "SJWs," and I openly talk about my religion in casual conversations, and you are the one telling me that I should keep my opinions to myself.
I don't think you realize how precarious your position is when we've had things like opalgate: https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 . This person wasn't president, wan't a celebrity, wasn't high profile at all, merely a contributor to an OSS project that had some non-PC views.
> The simple fact of the matter is that I feel completely welcome as a random contributor in projects with codes of conduct and among "SJWs,"
You will be welcome right up to the point where your not, when someone like Coroline takes an interest in your profile and gets you removed from a project. It's also been known to happen in workplaces, low level people with no public prominence being fired for not having social acceptable opinions.
Two, what is the "one side" being favored here? It's not aligned on political axes - Stallman is a left-leaning person making fun of a right-wing policy, which is the opposite of many accusations I hear about codes of conduct. If it is aligned in favor of the consensus of the active maintainers of a project and against individuals, no matter how important, that seems like a very good thing that projects should be aligned on.
Three, I don't know what "thin-skinned" means here. I'd call the project maintainers who are holding to a consensus decision in the face of threats by their own project leader thick-skinned, and the man who can't admit that his irrelevant, unfunny joke from 25 years ago is irrelevant and unfunny thin-skinned.
Yes, you're correct. In this instance, there was no crucifixion, because the CoC/inclusivity crowd didn't have enough political capital.
See the NodeJS TSC drama I referenced. That's the "one side" being favored. That's the end result of pandering to people who take offense at the drop of the hat. This is simply Stallman refusing to concede to the notion that everything must be unoffensive.
It's literally an outsider trying to force the actual maintainers to do something they disgaree with. But you appear to support the outsider.
The "SJWs" would have no power if we were not the people actually doing the work; if nothing else, in a year or two's time, we'd stop producing anything and users would jump ship. But it's the people who scream about "SJWs" who are generally outsiders who think that their use of a project entitles them to overrule the project's own maintainers.
Case in point, the pointless NodeJS TSC drama [1] from yesteryear. I don't like JS to begin with, but that makes me want to avoid the project like the plague.
The problem with letting thin skinned people decide what you can and can't say, is they have a very long (and often contradictory) list. Suddenly, you find yourself in the middle of a kangaroo court facing charges of high treason, guilty until proven innocent. The sentence? Public crucifixion.
Stallman made the right call.
https://www.reddit.com/r/node/comments/6whs2e/multiple_coc_v...