Things to notice (was Re: Code of Conduct: Is it time?, broken thread I hope)

Someone (never mind who, this isn't intended to be a blame-game
message) wrote:

> Am I, as a mere male […] :-)

Even with the smiley, _this_ is the sort of thing that causes
discussions to wander into hopeless weeds from which projects cannot
emerge. I _know_ it is tempting to make this kind of remark. But
it's not cool, it doesn't help, and it is exactly the sort of thing
that makes some people think CoCs are needed in the first place.

Suppose you were an uncertain young woman from a culture where men
have legal authority over you. Suppose the only interaction with
programming peers you get is online. (Yes, I know of at least one
such case personally.) This sort of sarcastic remark, smiley or no,
causes you a new uncertainty.

Just be sensitive to the fact that the Internet is bigger than your
world, however big it is, and things will be better. I am not a big
believer in written-down rules: I think mostly they're a fetishizing
of constitutional arrangements like those of the US and Canada (which
mostly don't work for those who are not already enfranchised). But we
can do something about that by thinking about that possibility much
more than we can do something about it by writing down rules.

Still, the exercise of writing down rules may help to notice things
one wouldn't say to a friend. And I hope we're all friends here.

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca