I've been involved with Software Development for over 20 years started with VB6 and some perl/python in 1998. I saw the "informal code of conduct" and it never worked. What really happened: many people were treating terribly and most of it was swept under the rug. CoC were created for valid and good reasons. I'm not defending the Rust community here, it seems childish to me. The past is not what you are trying to claim it was in this post. Look up the MANY Rails conference sexual harassment issues and worse.

We should not whitewash the past because the present isn't what we want.

Full disclosure, I usually do not involve myself with large groups -- so my views are likely to be a bit more innocent/naive.

The past that I lived in was comprised of people you personally knew; not anonymous membership in a large organization or group, where you could never hope to know everyone on a personal level.

There was very little opportunity for people to be unchecked dicks to one another, because you saw everyone consistently and could easily notice when something was going on.

Perhaps this is an unsolved issue about scaling human communities?

I do think this is kind of naive. If you consider something like a sexual assault, or even the more severe forms of harassment, that tends to happen among people who know each other, and people often don't talk about it after being victimized. So you not knowing those stories out of your tight knit community doesn't mean much -- if those stories exist you might need to have the parties involved trust you a lot to confide it, or you might need to really probe people about it.

And now we have a CoC and people are still mistreated. smh.

You shouldn't need a giant, complex CoC to tell people engaging in sexual harassment and creepy behavior to leave. Which is usually the type of stuff people point to for why it's so important to spend thousands of hours debating the rules.

If I've learned anything for Reddit mod culture it's that when you see super involved rules on the sidebar it's still ultimately just post-defacto justifications for whatever emotional mood the mods are in that day. The longer the rules = a good measure how aggressively the mods gatekeeps their community for things that go well beyond the scope of what the community was originally about.

This is how things like Programming becoming lower priorities in such communities than personalities/views of the people running it.

more like "and now we have a CoC, so when anyone is even slightly grievanced, multiple careers will get torched (and not even always the party you'd expect)"

Instead of a tool to be used to solve problems local to an organization or an event, it's wielded as a bludgeon in always the most public way possible (either by the org/conference or target of the CoC itself) and time and again this has shown to be bad for everyone and an endless source of drama.

I am an older geek. I never got the CoC against sexual harassments. It is f*cking illegal. Should be reported to the police and taken care of by the actual laws.

Coc seems like a law thing but who is enforcing it? Laws you have democratic elected people voting which laws, you have police checking if people follow them, courts giving out punishment. See they are 3 separate entities for a reason. Coc is written by the org, enforced by the org an punished by said org. Doesn't seem like an improvement.

If the police actually cared about sexual harassment, that might be a good idea. They've never shown any sign that they do.

Also, lots of behaviour can be pretty shitty without being illegal.

Sexual harrassment isn't necessarily illegal, it's so loosely defined.

I will be the one pointing out that you were compromising and cooperating so well because the diversity of opinions in the room was pretty limited.

It happens that not being an asshole also mean asking yourself if maybe everything was cooperative because you were excluding so much that none of the people with a different opinion could join.

As such... Making you the asshole. And not cool.

But you know, I definitely could be wrong here. But I will note that nothing you presented discredit that theory. All the arguments presented fit it as well as the theory that it was great before.

It is readers pick for what was happening here.

Fair point, and one I needed to reflect on.

I think in my past, whenever I've been in a leadership position over a group of people, we've all been there to achieve some goal. We were all cooperating to reach the same end -- and those with a different opinion of that "end" were excluded.

I have also been on the opposite side of this: I've been a member of groups whose goals I did not agree with. And no amount of civility or communication would bridge that chasm; therefore my opinions and thoughts were excluded (and I voluntarily left).

There is no right or wrong here -- if I step back and stop injecting my own feelings into the conversation: there are just differences.

I don't like theories. I don't like abstract things that try to become a source of truth, while completely ignoring and marginalizing the very real human element involved. I have no respect for them.

In my view, "don't be an asshole" is basically: you join a group of people, do not carelessly or intentionally go against the norms of that group. Do not insert yourself into a group of people that you know you will not get along with. There is no right or wrong, but there is conflict and no conflict.

But even now, as much as I have tried to take a step back with an objective lens, and disassociate from my very real thoughts, feelings, and beliefs: what is the point? I hold all of these because they are integral to who I am. As do the people of the Rust community.

Disjointed thoughts, without a goal to neatly encapsulate them all. Or perhaps my goal was to share my human experience with others? To socialize and create bonds with others? Quite a silly thing to do on the internet.

Something you may have missed here. What if the shared goal and belief of the group, was one that in practice is also exclusionary?

In that sense, even if the tone stays civil in group, the problem is still there.

Any examples of how this happens in practice with software projects? Actually curious about this.

Have you remarked how few software projects, even big and visible, handle privacy well, especially if you consider things like stalking? And then what happens to the people that come talk about it in these groups?

The people are pushed out because "their concerns are not something this project is about". Which is consensus and focused on getting results right?

That's just vague accusations/opinions, zero examples.

Perhaps you are afraid that other people might not come to the same conclusions if you let them make their own judgements?

>We were all cooperating to reach the same end -- and those with a different opinion of that "end" were excluded.

If you mean those with a different opinion about the overall "end" of the project, this would make sense.

If you mean those with different opinions about any part of it, like how the project should implement reflection for example, it makes absolutely no sense to exclude them.

This would translate into an authoritative culture, where everything is predetermined, and no dialogue is allowed, except perhaps for trivial matters.

> I have also been on the opposite side of this: I've been a member of groups whose goals I did not agree with. And no amount of civility or communication would bridge that chasm; therefore my opinions and thoughts were excluded (and I voluntarily left).

What if you couldn’t leave? Perhaps the cost of leaving is too high, or you’re required to for a job. Membership in many groups isn’t even a direct action, it’s a by product of some other action. Take functional programming, I love it, but holy fuck I should have known as soon as I saw the word “pure” there’d be fucking Nazis, xenophobes, and bigots.

> Do not insert yourself into a group of people that you know you will not get along with. There is no right or wrong, but there is conflict and no conflict.

Take my functional programming example: I have caused and will cause conflict. Because sometimes “not being an asshole” is actually being an asshole. Life’s full of color like that, you know?

Seriously? You encountered Nazis in functional programming fora? Like, more than in your typical programming fora? (Any at all is more than I've met, but then I never socialize much.)

Maybe they meant “Functional Programming Nazis” like in “Grammar Nazis”; i.e. not actual Nazi Nazis.

Excluding someone else from a group doesn’t make someone an asshole. Every group has one or some thing(s) that separate them from the rest, otherwise they’d never have formed a group. Maybe it’s a vision, or a goal, or a belief, but there’s something that holds the group together. Contrary to what you’re saying, it’s integral to the cohesion of that group to exclude people who will not fit well.

There are countless examples of this phenomenon throughout history. Take for instance, the formation of the USA, the Catholic Church (Great Schism, Protestant Revolution, etc.), the American Civil War, etc. On a smaller scale, I know I’ve worked with people who would be a good fit on one team, but don’t match the culture of another. Or people who are very passionate about something, but wouldn’t do well in a group focused on something else. Sometimes, even, people have the same ends and such different means that they cannot coexist in the same group. You can see this with sports teams; everyone wants to win games, and some players or coaches don’t fit on certain teams because their idea of how to win doesn’t align with others’.

The reality is not everyone fits into every group. Trying to force that will yield a lot of resentment on both sides, in my experience. Much better to nip the problem in the bud.

Since micro aggressions are a thing number 2 is hardly possible.

That's not my understanding of micro-aggressions [1]. IIUC, inadvertently doing a micro-aggression isn't being an asshole, but persisting in it after it has been pointed out definitely is.

[1]: Disclosure: I'm a minority (disabled), but I'm also a white man.

The question is whether everything that is called a micro aggression is one.

Ever heard of the Law of Penetrance of Negative Residues?

Your assumptions about micro-aggressions existing are wrong. "Don't be an asshole" is (or should be) about how you act towards others not how others perceive your actions. If someone wants to be offended, that's them not being cool.

I feel offended by woke people.

State your assumptions, prepare to be boarded -9front IRC banner.

If (2) was a core piece, then having worked on enough open source projects I can assure you that informal code of conduct didn't do shit. ;P

From this “Graydon's reply” you linked:

> Some people, naturally, feel that the norms spelled out in the rust CoC makes them feel excluded. To which all I can say is, yes, it's true: the rust CoC focuses on behaviour, not people, but if there's a person who cannot give up those behaviours, then implicitly it excludes such a person. If someone just can't get their work done effectively or can't enjoy themselves without stalking or harassing someone, or cracking a sexist or racist joke, or getting into a flame war, or insulting their colleagues, I suggest they go enjoy the numerous other totally viable language communities.

Hm... So, if someone just can't get their work done effectively or can't enjoy themselves without going behind the backs of the whole ostensibly “Leadership” group, what then? Has that person been ostracized yet? Have they even been named?!? (I sure ain't seen no sign of it.) If not, why not? There seems to be a hyuuuge amount of effort being expended to spare that person's feelings...

Which seems a) misdirected AF, and b) all too typical of these “governance by namby-pambyism” CoC committee organisations that everything on the Internet appears to have turned into in the last half-decade or so.