Re: Code of Conduct: Is it time?

On Mon, 11 Jan 2016 11:00:23 -0800
"Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:

> A CoC is not about being offended. The act of being offended is
> purely a recipients response and usually because the recipient is
> more interested in being a victim than moving forward.

I've seen text like the preceding in over 10 messages in this thread. I
could be interpreting them wrong, but they seem to be saying the
offended recipient is more interested in being a victim than moving
forward, or with some of the responses, the recipient is being a cry
baby.

In my opinion, this is a much easier position to take when it's the
other person regularly spoken of as "misinformed", "ignorant",
"neckbeard", or whatever. Much harder position when your technical
posts are regularly greeted by such personal insults, and few folks
rise to your defense.

Well, whatever, survival of the fittest. 90% of the time, the party
being personally insulted silently leaves, and is not missed. But
sometimes the community has something to lose. Let me tell you a story.

=============================================
=============================================
12 years ago, one guy in my LUG continually replied to me in
what I think most reasonable people would call an insulting
manner. Some of his posts called me "ignorant", "unprofessional", lack
of "checking my work", "committing libel", "lies and hypocracy", and
"reinventing history".

I called for the LUG's Executive Committee to reign in his rhetoric,
explaining that it had gotten to such a point that I could no longer
bring friends, or possible business associates into the LUG because
they would be hearing a constant barrage of anti-Litt rhetoric, and
some of it might stick. The Exec Committee told me I was being too
sensitive and I should just let it slide.

So I got a new domain name, started a new LUG, drew membership both
from the old LUG and from the greater area. Immediately those same
people who said I was being too sensitive begged me to cancel the new
LUG and they'd institute anti-personal-insult rules.

But it was too late: I'd already done it. Over the next several years,
the new LUG grew and still meets every month, maintaining an active
mailing list and IRC channel. Meanwhile, the old LUG lost membership,
lost their nonprofit corporate status, lost their mailing list, lost
their domain name, and their remnants hold an "installfest" once a
month in a venue with no Internet (it's BYOI).
=============================================
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Most of the time, chalking things up to "recipient is more interested
in being a victim" does the community no harm. But every once in a
while, the costs are considerable.

All because somebody just *had* to personally insult someone else,
repeatedly, and nobody thought that was a bad thing, and when the
recipient finally objected, the objection was chalked up to him or her
valuing his/her victimhood.

About a CoC, here's what I want to know:

What *possible* value to a free software community could come of a
sentence structured like the following:

"You <something negative>"

What possible harm would it do to ban such sentences? What features do
such sentences introduce into the software? Why is it difficult to
discuss features instead of people on the mailing list? How many
potential contributors have silently left after seeing personal insults
to themselves or others?

My opinion: Whether you call it CoC or mailing list rules or anything
else, some degree of it is needed, because the community allowing a
wild west of personal insults fails to achieve its potential at best,
and disintegrates at worst.

SteveT

Steve Litt
January 2016 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
http://www.troubleshooters.com/28