[HN Gopher] Golang: Code of Conduct Updates ___________________________________________________________________ Golang: Code of Conduct Updates Author : 0xedb Score : 34 points Date : 2021-09-16 19:37 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (go.dev) (TXT) w3m dump (go.dev) | tick_tock_tick wrote: | > The paradox of tolerance is that the one group of people we | can't welcome are those who make others feel unwelcome. | | I really hope Google takes a strong stance and bans Muslim from | all projects due to their views on homosexuality. While a | minority of Muslims might not personally have an issue with | homosexuality I don't think it's fair to ask people to tolerate | members of such an intolerant religion. | alpinex100 wrote: | CoC proponents and committees talk with angel tongues about their | good intentions. In practice, it comes down to roughly 3-5 people | who play the "deciders". Here's a well known result of power | abuse: | | https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/ | | Most cancellations are plain abuses of power, with no fair | hearing (or no hearing at all!) of both sides. | | Characteristically, these power grabs occur when languages are | done and people (representing their corporations) fight for the | pieces. And they fight dirty. | WalterBright wrote: | The more specific a CoC is, the more loopholes there are that | people will exploit. We just expect "professional behavior", and | for those who want to argue about what that means, we refer them | to Emily Post's books. | | This works out quite well for us. | wmf wrote: | That can work if you have moderators who are trusted, fearless, | and ruthless. Most communities don't have those people. | travisd wrote: | This is a good change. It doesn't allow people to hide behind the | shield of "good intentions" while refusing to change their | behavior. Refusing to change your behavior after learning of its | negative impacts on others is negligent best. | | "Any sufficiently advanced negligence is indistinguishable from | malice." | asguy wrote: | > This is a good change. It doesn't allow people to hide behind | the shield of "good intentions" while refusing to change their | behavior. | | I just had a negative emotional response to your perspective on | this subject. It made me slightly upset that someone would | think that this is a good change. | | Should you change your perspective now that you've `learn[ed] | of its negative impact on others`, or should I get over it and | recognize that other people can have different opinions and I | shouldn't let that affect me? | Nicksil wrote: | You're being down-voted but you're spot on. | | >This is a good change. It doesn't allow people to hide | behind the shield of "good intentions" while refusing to | change their behavior. Refusing to change your behavior after | learning of its negative impacts on others is negligent best. | | Is woefully flawed logic. Expecting someone to change their | behavior when someone else says they're offended is awful. | The assumption is that the person speaking is _always_ in the | wrong and the complainant is _always_ being genuine. | tester756 wrote: | >Avoid snarking (pithy, unproductive, sniping comments) | | On the other hand... | | 9 out of 10 really skilled devs/engineers or profs that I met had | tendency to be kinda snarky, especially when somebody's trying to | do bullshit | | Is lack of subtle/direct snarkiness a good thing? | | It's like putting constrains on language/tools to express | yourself, maybe too harshly? | | Maybe it's considered normal in "cultures" where people are more | straightfoward | diob wrote: | I've had the opposite experience, and thus worked to make my | team a safe place for folks where they don't feel the need to | hide from snarkers (who often are trying to put themselves | above others by pulling everyone else down). | | As a senior engineer / team lead, I really have no patience for | bad behavior. | | Directness is the opposite of snark. If you think something is | a bad idea, propose an alternative. Or work with the person. | Anyone can throw out snark, it takes a "really skilled" person | to do something productive instead. | smoldesu wrote: | Companies hire you because you're opinionated, and they retain | you because you're obedient. You can mix and match the two to | reach whatever desired effect you want, but them's the rules. | awb wrote: | Freedom of speech is important but I think some underestimate how | destructive hostile speech can be towards collaboration and | constructive conversation. | | With a little effort it's possible to use non-violent | communication (NVC) to express yourself fully without blaming or | criticizing others. | | And sure it's also a worthy goal to not take things personally, | but collaboration just works better IMO when we're as kind and | respectful as possible. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | I personally find non-violent communication to be the most | insulting way anyone can ever communicate. It's infantilizing | and incredibly demeaning. | google234123 wrote: | One thing I dislike about our new moral arbiters is their view | that intent doesn't matter. They will use anything (e.g. a | microaggression, a usually inadvertent tiny slight) to justify | cancelling someone. Tolerance for them also only has only one | meaning: tolerate us. | Spartan-S63 wrote: | It's the paradox of tolerance. If you tolerate intolerance | (regardless of intent), you pave the way for intolerance to | take hold. | light_cone wrote: | Of course, no one has ever felt to be the intolerant one in | the story. | Jtsummers wrote: | Oh, that's not true. I lived in a town, briefly | fortunately, where the folks did, in fact, know they were | intolerant when they ran off black families that dared to | move in through various harassment tactics (horribly, | mostly directed at the children since the adults had | thicker skin). They just didn't care. | RattleyCooper wrote: | >If you tolerate intolerance (regardless of intent) | | So should people tolerate people who don't tolerate the | intolerant? And should other people tolerate them? | | I feel like Mr. Garrison's take on it sums it up really well. | Tolerating someone doesn't mean you like them or support | their views. It just means you have to live with them. And | you kind of do, or you have to be willing to remove them from | society by any means necessary. And at that point, you're | kind of worse than the intolerant people so long as they | aren't actively trying to remove people from society by any | means necessary. | | I guess it all depends on how you define intolerant. When I | hear the word I take it as "refuses to tolerate and will not | allow coexistence". If that's the case, and that form of | intolerance is what cannot be tolerated, then it's a full- | circle mind fuck that makes no sense unless you put yourself | on a pedestal where you're brand of intolerance is the only | intolerance that must be tolerated. | | And yeah, I don't think that kind of intolerance should be | tolerated, however I don't think it's as common as people | make it seem, and I feel like people conflate too many things | with the genocidal form of intolerance than they do with | someone who might think something is morally wrong but | doesn't actually do anything about it. For instance, I know | some religious people think being gay is morally wrong but | they don't care what people do or if they can get married. I | think they're morally wrong for having those beliefs but so | long as they don't violate the rights of gay ppl I don't see | why it matters. I mean, I can judge them as much as they can | judge me. | light_cone wrote: | I agree, that is exactly what I think people always | misunderstand about tolerance: You cannot tolerate | something you agree with. That is called agreeing, not | tolerance, by definition. | | Tolerance is the wise behavior you should have, reserved | for things you don't agree with, or even detest. | [deleted] | sreque wrote: | You should read Michael Knowles' Speechless: Controlling | Words, Controlling Minds. Political radicals have explicitly | defined tolerance to mean "don't tolerate dissenting views". | I don't have the exact quote on hand at the moment or I would | share it, but they were very explicit about their censorship | goals. | | The book also discusses how there has never been unbridled | free speech. There has always been a standard of speech that | allows something said and disallows other things said. What's | changed over time is the standards themselves, and many would | argue they have changed for the far worse in recent years. | jsight wrote: | I only dislike it when its asymmetric. Our policy says intent | doesn't matter for you, but the policy itself is vague and only | works if you trust the implementers intent. | | I don't see anything obvious in this policy that would cause | such an issue. | awb wrote: | Intent does matter but it's only half the picture. The impact | is the other half. If you don't intend to run over someone with | your car, but you do, you still get in trouble (assuming their | intent want to get run over). You need to be more careful | because your actions (even unintentional ones) impact others. | | From the post, they say that they have a conversation with | anyone that's the subject of a complaint at which point if you | express some interest and concern about the impact you're | having on the community, your intentions will probably be | respected more than if you just want to focus 100% on your | intent, impact be damned. | jchw wrote: | But this case is interesting. Because when you run someone | over, you can physically observe the damage done to them. But | when you communicate in a manner that upsets someone, it's | impossible to objectively observe the impact. And worse: it | is strongly personal. | | And that is where a truly ridiculous but also entirely | reasonable question comes in: how much of someone being | impacted by speech online is really kind of their | responsibility? It can't be zero because zero would be | completely incompatible with free society; protected speech | can necessarily cause discomfort or pain, and realistically | with increasingly many perspectives you're bound to find | someone hurt by something. It probably shouldn't be 100% | either, because there's no amount of thick skin that can't | ever be broken. Somewhere down the middle is a spot where | people have to conduct themselves reasonably, but there is | some expectation for personal resilience in the face of | adversity in communication. | | I suspect that a whole lot of conflict regarding CoC's, | moderation, etc. comes from people who believe more or less | responsibility belongs with the person who is impacted by | given speech. And it is not culturally universal, either. | People may scoff at the concept but if your vernacular | differs in a way that is upsetting to someone due purely to | cultural differences, there may never be a position to stand | in that is truly "inclusive to all." | | Effective inclusivity in a community without some degree of | compromise by its members is probably impossible, and I worry | the group dynamics of modern communities does not mesh | terribly well with this concept, on an internet where | everything is constantly decontextualized. | RattleyCooper wrote: | The "you didn't mean to hit someone with your car" thing is | certainly a fun way to look at it, but what about people only | get tapped by the bumper and then act like they flipped | through the air 500 times before slamming their head into the | concrete? And before anybody pretends like these people don't | exist, let's think about the football(soccer) players that | act like their leg is broken when someone sneezes near them. | And if ppl will be that petty and insincere in a professional | sporting event, it's fair to say that ppl will do it on the | internet. | sreque wrote: | A better analogy is if you don't intend to run over someone | with your car and they jump out in front of you, then you are | not at fault, nor were you doing anything wrong. | | Results do matter more than intentions, but sometimes results | are out of your control or even disconnected from your | actions. You may say something perfectly reasonable and yet | someone takes unreasonable offense. Who is to define what is | reasonable to say and what is reasonable to take offense to? | In the past decades, the political left has taken us too far | in the direction of giving a small minority tyrannical | censorship power to silence by taking offense at whatever | they dislike, and then cancelling the person who said it. | lifthrasiir wrote: | > if you don't intend to run over someone with your car and | they jump out in front of you, then you are not at fault, | nor were you doing anything wrong. | | Not if you are in a pedestrian crossing (especially | unsignalized one). | awb wrote: | What? I can't call someone a "f*** f*" anymore? | | Every generation thinks the next generation's rules are | tyrannical. Speech and culture is messy and it's not black | and white. To say it's all been bad is ignoring a lot of | violent speech that is no longer acceptable and the benefit | that has brought to the the same small minority groups | you're referencing, from being less subjected to verbal | attacks. | RattleyCooper wrote: | >What? I can't call someone a "f** f*" anymore? | | If this is what you honestly think they're referring to | then I feel like that says a LOT more about you then it | does about them. They were very clear that they aren't | talking about situations like this one you've just | described. | | Are you being disingenuous or do you honestly need | someone to explain what they meant? They're talking about | crybullies who will disingenuously misinterpret what | someone says and take offense to it. Very much like | you've just done. | SquishyPanda23 wrote: | > our new moral arbiters | | Can you be specific about who you are referring to and what | your concern is? | profmonocle wrote: | > They will use anything (e.g. a microaggression, a usually | inadvertent tiny slight) to justify cancelling someone. | | Are there any examples of this happening in a prominent open | source project? The debate over COCs is a few years old at this | point, so if this type of abuse were a common problem I'd | imagine there'd be some major examples right now. (I freely | admit there may indeed be some, and I'm just not aware.) | type0 wrote: | > Are there any examples of this happening in a prominent | open source project? | | Open Source Initiative itself expelled Eric S. Raymond (a | founding member) from their mailing list | grey-area wrote: | Well one of the people who helped draft this coc have | themselves been banned from go spaces using it: | | https://mobile.twitter.com/peterbourgon/status/1438597459383. | .. | | I don't know all the drama in this case and don't | particularly care to know but the punishment seems excessive | and arbitrary. | | This coc seems excessively wordy to me, and subject to | arbitrary interpretation and enforcement, and thus a waste of | time for all involved, I don't plan to read it or abide by | it, but instead to use common sense. IMO community rules are | enforced by example and gentle encouragement, not by encoding | a long set of dos and don'ts. | gunfighthacksaw wrote: | Plus the arbiters tend to be the least moderate, and most | forthright in their views. It's considered ridiculous when a | small town dweller attempts to force their morality on the | world, but apparently perfectly fine when it comes from the | Californian chattering classes. | TheCondor wrote: | Doesn't this address inadvertent slights and micro aggressions? | google234123 wrote: | The concept of micro aggressions is based on teaching people | to feel harmed by inadvertent slights | _moof wrote: | I agree that cancelling someone over an accidental | transgression is a vengeful overreaction. Separately, let me | ask you this: If I step on your foot, does it hurt less if I | didn't mean to? | type0 wrote: | that depends if you are wearing high heels or not ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-16 23:00 UTC)