Re: http://dancerscode.com/blog/why-the-open-code-of-conduct-isnt-for-me/
They, like all forms of political correctness, center around people being offended, sometimes about things like technical ability which can and should be spoken about frankly in any open source project.
Right, so there’s behaviour such as not accepting a PR and saying it didn’t meet review, or there’s telling a newbie that they shouldn’t write code because they’re a woman/trans/person of colour/etc. There’s closing a PR and there’s closing a PR with a joke containing something about a kitchen and a sandwich that we’ve all heard hundreds of times prior attached to it.
Judging and punishing the behavior of those who speak based on the sensibilities of those who listen is a standard which is inherently unfair to the speaker. This precipitates an environment where the exchange of ideas between people who differ is impossible if either of them thinks that the other may find the topic offensive. This carries with it the danger of stifling communication and learning between people who would otherwise benefit from a conversation that might just ruffle some feathers.
These CoCs are not saying “let’s get rid of any conversation that might be devisive.” They're saying: let's have a zero tolerance policy on unwelcoming behaviour and counterproductive offensive jokes. I think we can all agree that an exchange of ideas would go smoother if we dropped various cultural assumptions, like those yielding surprise about a woman or person of colour writing code. Here is where you say “but you have the choice not to be offended by the joke, it’s just a harmless joke.” Right, alright, let’s say I’ve chosen not to be offended. Where does this leave us:
- People continue to make these jokes, contributing to a pepertuation of harmful normalization (which is something targets cannot choose to stop.)
- This normalization contributes to a culture that is surprised when a woman writes software.
- Jokes and slurs continue to be added to a wave of garbage on the Internet, garbage that creates a barrier to these recipients from creating software. Think of a spam filter, we invented these because spam was noisy and counterproductive. So are countless microaggressions.
I am a Christian. When people speak ill of religion in general, and of Christianity in particular, I have a choice about whether to be offended, even when confronted with very vitriolic assaults on my core beliefs.
I choose not to.
The United States still has a Christian majority. People do not assume you cannot write software because you are a Christian. Being Christian does not bring you a constant stream of background noise to everything you do on the Internet. Your use of the Internet as a tool and platform is not hindered by your identity. Women, trans people, people of colour, etc, we see signs everywhere that we are not welcome in software because we see people putting more effort into letting a non-diverse culture be than actually changing it for the better. We hardly see action being taken. Where are the warning signs for you as a Christian?
I would consider it both rude and oppressive to try to create a world in which people who disagree with me are afraid or unable to speak their minds.
So do I, thus why political correctness does not hamper free speech: it enhances it. When I see things like this, I seee a defense of unproductive vitriol instead of actively welcoming more ideas into the community. What is so bad about saying, "knock it off with the inflammatory words so we can get more perceptions and ideas in this space?"
The listener’s perception does not equal the speaker’s intent. Conflating the two mindsets like this can lead to one person’s opinions being punished due to other people’s indignation.
Again, whether or not someone gets offended is not the whole point. Why do you want to defend people committing microaggressions? Why are you putting more focus on to the rare edge case where someone might misinterpret a harmless comment than actually stopping abuse and increasing the diversity of ideas?
Because opinions are subjective, it is very easy for people who wish to abuse these sorts of systems to choose to be offended by things they don’t like in order to demand punishment for those who disagree with them.
Due to how I see marginalized groups being treated, I basically read this as “As a white Christian, I don’t see racism, misogyny, or transphobia very harmful. Why not just let it continue?”
While it is true that sometimes people thoughtfully voice their honest opinions, people also tell jokes, speak flippantly, say things without explaining their reasoning, and employ language techniques such as idioms, metaphors, irony, sarcasm, and hyperbole. Given the inherent complexity and ambiguity of human speech, combined with the fact that any two people’s grasp of a language must necessarily differ, there is no guarantee that the offended listener has correctly inferred the speaker’s intent.
Right, so nobody here is saying “let’s ruin the careers of someone who says something sarcastic that was misinterpreted!” We’re saying: think about how others might see a community based on its content. If there is ambiguity in your culture that could make it seem explicitly uninviting to a group of people, why not err on the side of caution? We all put a lot of effort into crafting code, making it readable, your site’s tagline is even “Code should be elegant, too.” Why not put this same amount of effort into actively welcoming people who will bring new ideas and methodology to your craft? You’re a software engineer: resolving ambiguity is your day job. Why is this brushed aside when it comes to human language? A CoC is merely a statement of “be mindful of what you’re saying and how this might be perceived, how this might not welcome people who aren’t like you.” And sure, that’s hard. The reason you can write an article like this is because it is immensely difficult to see things from the lens of another person who experiences different things than you. That is why we ask that you err on the side of caution and strive to be welcoming instead of brutish.
It is not uncommon in criminal cases of harassment or slander for prosecutors to be expected to show not only that the defendant said or did the things in question, but that they did so with the intent or knowledge that it would hurt the victim. We can easily use the same system in a code of conduct, to weed out the same sort of negative behavior without resorting to judging one person’s words by other people’s thoughts.
You see, when you receive a constant foreground of slurs and assumptions against you because of your identity and a community that would rather put effort into explicitly condoning this behaviour than stop it, it tells me that the “intent” of your community is ignoring anyone that isn’t like its white, cis, heterosexual male members. Are you really trying to say that intent is the ultimatum? Without intent, there can be no harm? This isn’t how communities work. This ignores culture and the properties of collective entities, emergent effects.
This post may sound pedantic, but I think that the difference between intent to offend and being offended is an important distinction.
You're essentially saying that instead of condemning language that contributes to a marginalizing noise on the Internet, we're just going to tell people that they're choosing to be offended, and that there isn't actually any intent there, so it doesn't matter.
This is the internet, and I’m here to learn about other people’s thoughts, not be protected from them.
Look, we've already learned that tech isn't welcome to marginalized groups. We learned this after the constant stream of surprise we get when we're at a tech conference and not "with our boyfriend." We learned this after the two hundredth slur that instead of being met with a CoC, was met with yet another back to the kitchen joke. We learned this after being told "I don't hate gay/trans/queer people, I just don't really see the need to welcome them, I don't really want to see them, let's just code."
But I see an edge-case that could result in abuse and misunderstanding. I also believe that a Code of Conduct, like other code developers write, can benefit from constructive criticism. I think that code must be made durable to stand up over time, and I think the best code results from collaboration and many small improvements from people with different perspectives. This is mine.
So right now, tech has a problem of the people in "people with different perspectives" being predominantly white, cis, heterosexual, and male. We're trying to fix that, and it seems like we're on the same page with why that's a good thing — you just wrote why. So when people with these different perspectives show you the constant barrage of noise they get that inhibits them from doing what you’re allowed to do, with a community of similar people beside you, why not listen?