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Could Go Community's Threat of Public Shaming, Lifetime Bans Make Go a No-Go?
theodp writes: At first glance, the proposal for A Code of Conduct for the Go Community (attributed to Google's Andrew Gerrand) seems reasonable enough. How can you argue with the goal of treating everyone with respect and kindness? But the Devil is in the detail, and the proposed Code notes there soon could be consequences for calling someone an "idiot" or saying something is "so simple even my grandma could understand it" (the latter "marginalises women and the elderly by implying that something need be simple for an old woman to understand it"). And the punishment meted out by the Go Code of Conduct Working Group to those who find themselves on the receiving end of an anonymous complaint could be anything from nothing to "a request for a private or public apology, a private reprimand from the working group to the individual(s) involved, a public reprimand, an imposed vacation (for instance, asking someone to 'take a week off' from a mailing list or IRC), or a permanent or temporary ban from some or all Go spaces (mailing lists, IRC, etc.)." And no, this doesn't appear to be a goof. So, might individuals and companies think twice about embracing a programming language whose community's Code of Conduct threatens to ruin reputations and ban people from technical support resources for life? Too late to get this added to the list of questions for Alan Donovan and Brian Kernighan?
Shaming a shamer is still shaming, you shame shaming shamers!
Shame on you!
Why are there so many little girls on these forums whining about how they are offended.
Languages and tools nowadays *are* their communities, pretty much. See jQuery vs. Prototype.
This kind of behavior has got to stop. Emotional censorship is exactly the kind of thing that can lead to one important voice not being heard and then one important bug being ignored. I will be dis recommending Go from any future roadmap decisions for our corporation.
"This is a departure from the typical proposal process, since discussions Around Codes of Conduct tend to devolve quickly. By restricting the discussion Of this proposal to 1:1 conversations between myself and members of the Community, I hope to better hear everyone’s specific concerns without generating unnecessary noise."
This is a typical excuse from people who want to push things through without public discussion. They call public discussion "noise". I have no idea who this guy is, but he sounds like an egomaniac. Well guess what? We are calling you out. You don't get "1:1 conversations between yourself" and everyone else. This is the Internet.
I'll tell you where they can "Go" with this code of conduct.
Answer is simple, be a decent person or face consequences for your actions.
Any community should live by rules of decency and aim to not hurt any member of said community.
How community managers decide to deal with transgressors is at their discretion and as long as it is stated in the rules and not abused there is no issue with that.
From what it looks like in the article, anyone fearing to be removed from the mailing lists / IRC need only apologize and learn from their mistakes.
So first of all this a code of conduct for the Go community spaces. It is up to the community to decide on this proposal.
On the other hand I just feel bad and threatened already if there will be someone going through my posts with a fine comb to search for
“Microaggressions,” the small, subtle, often subconscious actions that marginalize people in oppressed groups
This is taking the most extreme side in the conflict between free speech and the most inclusive environment. I am not sure which minority group would feel welcome in a community where subtle and subconscious actions could lead to strong consequences.
Of course we should eject abusive people from our communities and resources. Every place that doesn't have a policy like this disintegrates into a reactionary hatefest. See: reddit, twitter, this fuckin' place
You're absolutely right. The hypocrisy shown by those in the "tolerance" or "anti-bullying" crowds is often unbelievable.
The zest and zeal with which these people attack alleged "bullies" far exceeds anything that the so-called "bullies" could ever have delivered. It's made worse when these attackers fail to realize that their behavior is an example of what they claim to be fighting against.
This reminds me of the recent Open Code of Conduct debacle. Seriously, read the comments there. It's truly unbelievable, especially the parts of about "reverse-isms", which basically deems certain cases of discrimination to be acceptable and appropriate!
I guess one can take solace that this has as much relevance to the world-at-large as being banned from the Modula-2 community.
This is not adult behavior, this is childish behavior. They are attempting to coddle, marginalize, dictate speech, etc etc in an effort to control intent Adults can say that's stupid or you're a moron as part of normal healthy discourse it's intent that matters. Healthy razzing friendly banter etc etc is part of normal adult communication.
No sir I dont like it.
Being a rude bastard reflects poorly on ones character. For example, Linus' rude outbursts shows that he has poor emotional control and lacks character.
I'm all for not censoring people. I just ignore them and it's amazing how fast people can come to your defense when someone abuses you.
Even when they don't public ally, you hear it later in private. And it eventually bites them in the ass one way or another - even if it seems they are quite successful.
If he just removed the line about "microaggressions" and the following two lines (and examples), it would be a reasonable code of conduct.
Of course, that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The whole point of this exercise is to use the CoC as a means to promote an ideology.
Now, given all the complaints this will surely generate, do you think he'll take his own advice?
Somehow I doubt it.
No pun intended. Seriously, if the creators of Go become like a dictator, we can go take our ball somewhere else. Fork it. Or even use some other languages. Will not be the first time...
Who needs genius like Linus or Jobs...just ban them for saying things off the cuff and over the top....have fun in your vanilla world.
" So, might individuals and companies think twice about embracing a programming language whose community's Code of Conduct threatens to ruin reputations and ban people from technical support resources for life? "
Or might individuals and companies embrace a programming language whose community that is polite and professional?
Maybe it is time for people to understand that being straightforward and direct is not the same as being a rude jerk.
If you read the actual proposal you will see that they have a range of options if someone is out of line. I don't know about most people but I have no problem with a life long ban for someone that threatens to kill or rape someone online. And yes it does happen. In fact it has happened to me on Slashdot. It was an AC and it didn't really threaten me much but had it happened to someone else they may have actually been concerned.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"Go" fuck yourselves, 'kay?
Hey Andy, have you ever wondered why Plus failed so miserably?
Well, good news - You'll get a second chance to learn this lesson in the very near future!
In the real world people can be boorish and crude, grow up and get over it.
If someone insults you, stop clicking on their comments.
I do not KNOW any of you, and what you think of me will not change how much I make at my job.
It is when you rise to the Troll bait that the insults get really bad, do not rise to the bait.
Lastly: Post as Anonymous Coward.
Even Andrew's Grandma would think his code of conduct silly, he should talk to her about it
Anyone trying to push through a CoC into what is basically a public forum has already gone too far. The only reason for it is to punish people they don't like.
I simply cannot see how having a code of conduct based on treating other people in a respectful manner will result in discouraging desirable developers and companies from joining the community. Quite the reverse in fact!
Have no code of conduct
Shut up and program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Says it all.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"(the latter "marginalises women and the elderly by implying that something need be simple for an old woman to understand it")"
This is a joke, right?
If not, f*** yourselves.
...this has the possibility of backfiring.
I can be pedantic and blunt. This can irritate people. I have folks that don't like me; just because "there's just something about you that just pisses me off."
<shrug/> I can live with it. I'm not into expletive-laden diatribes. Not everyone loves me, but I don't tend to post stuff that can get me fired if it gets matched back to me.
Anyone who posts trollishness to a public programming venue; whether it be Go, C++ or even this joint, is asking for a sit-down with HR. I suspect that a lot of the worst behavior here is from students; either college or high school (or kindergarten, by the level of some of the spew). They haven't been in the workforce long enough to understand the laws of consequence.
That said, these kinds of rules can become very, very bent. I've seen it many times. Suppose you know that another poster works for a competing company. You stalk them, and write up every transgression anonymously. Maybe they are unwise enough to open an attachment that you send them, and you do a little "improvement" to their posting history.
People who are in the habit of pointing out undraped monarchs are usually the ones that suffer most from these rules. They are branded as "troublemakers," and banned.
A small cadre of like-minded zealots inevitably bobs to the surface of these communities, and then defends their position with a velvet-gloved iron fist. We've all seen it a dozen times over.
In any case, Google owns Go, and they will own the community. They will do with it as they will; regardless of anyone's opinion. The community does have a right to enforce its own policies; whether or not these policies are good or relevant.
The language has a decent chance of doing OK, simply because of the bully pulpit occupied by Google (see Apple Swift). This may or may not affect its chances for success.
I know the 'microagression' thing is a beloved trope of the left and fearless Social Justice Warriors. But the thing is, in order to show what a good person you are in this context, you have to keep moving and moving further and further to the left. It always comes to a point where it becomes ridiculous and counterproductive.
Remember the "Black Lives Matter" people who deliberately disrupted the furthest left presidential candidate America has ever had, the openly socialist Bernie Sanders? Yeah, that. If there is anyone who is a friend of the extremists in BLM, it's him - and yet they treated him like an enemy. Even if you're on the left, or the hard left, there are always others who are ready to show you just how far down the rabbit hole goes.
Now, this is just a programming language, this isn't the literal jackboot of oppression as employed by left-wing governments of the past. Nobody is going to be sentenced to slavery or sent down to the countryside for defying Andrew Gerrand. So, let's keep some perspective here. However, this is showing all the classic signs of the ever-ratcheting extremism that is a hallmark of the political left. They'll come for you too, even if you have a stellar record of social justice warrioring. A single offhand comment is sufficient. I thought I recognized the "theodp" account, and sure enough it's one of Slashdot's solidly left-wing contributors, with a long record of approved social justice friendly submissions. But even SHE is turned off by this kind of thing! :(
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Some people really love gigantic CoCs. It seems like big CoCs are the in thing right now, but personally, I find massive CoCs to be uncomfortable.
Dick jokes aside, while I'm in favor of having some community expectations of conduct, I'm not in favor of building a huge body of rules to cover every single situation. What you need are some simple rules ("conduct yourself with courtesy and professionalism", "don't be an asshole", etc) and a group of trustworthy moderators who enforce those rules fairly regardless of the political views of the person the rules are being applied to.
Even if your rules are well-intentioned, the trouble is that the larger and more specific the rule set, the more easily one clique or another will be able to manipulate those rules to their advantage. It's better, as a moderator, to be able to identify individuals who are toxic and remove them from the community than have a set of arbitrary and overly specific rules that you'll ultimately fail to enforce fairly. All too often, you'll end up deciding that you *want* to get rid of a particular community member due to them having an overall negative impact on the community, and then watching them like a hawk so that you can ban them for the tiniest violation of your rule set, all the while your regular (and less toxic) users are constantly committing tiny rules violations themselves.
To be honest, large rule sets *invite* toxicity, because a) people tend to see them as a challenge, and b) some people realize they're part of the in-crowd and can get away with flouting the rules while other people who *aren't* part of the in-crowd get banned for small infractions.
And this is to say nothing of CoCs which *aren't* well-intentioned. The GitHub projects CoC, for instance, explicitly carved out rights for people to bully others based on race, sex, orientation, etc, simply based on whether that person is part of the majority with respect to those particular attributes. I'm all for disallowing gendered and racial harassment, but I have to suspect the motives of people writing a CoC that gives certain people carte blanche to engage in that kind of harassment. Harassment is *ever a good thing*. You aren't losing anything by disallowing *all of it*.
This is bizar.
Anybody with 2 braincells knows that Linus' phrasing and wording of critique can be notably immature.
He admitted that himself!
Why does a PL need such a policy in the first place?
For instance, the company employing Linus can very well send him a notice, emphasising the fact that he is a public figure - wether he likes it or not - and should be careful when about to fall into profanity. They can offer him a secretary to cross-read his mails on delicate/enraging issues.
There is no need for a friggin' policy just because .5 % of people in coding MLs get childish and unprofessional in a post or two every odd year!!
Good heavens, could everyone just grow up?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
something is "so simple even my grandma could understand it" (the latter "marginalises women and the elderly by implying that something need be simple for an old woman to understand it").
No, it does not do that. It "marginalizes" my grandma, who indeed would need technical things to be simple, if she were still alive. Any community infested with SJWs is doomed. Cast them out or wither away.
(1) No, of course she isn't. - Disclaimer so Google doesn't ban me
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Hey all assholes who code in Go, we in the C and Perl communities would like reach an hand out and welcome you to join our communities!
In the C and Perl communities you can rest assure that you are free to be the uninhibited asshole you really are!
... but I'm going to exclude you from the discussion.
I'm starting to think that there might be a connection between the urge to create codes of conduct and what I'll call communal autism.
It's no secret that computer programming tends to attract the sort of people who often suffer from some degree of autism.
In many cases it's a mild, high-functioning form of autism, so these people can still lead relatively normal lives, yet they do suffer at least some impairment when it comes to social interaction.
When you get enough of these people together working on an open source software development project, some of the participants will contribute their autistic tendencies to the overall community.
So while not every participant will suffer from autism, there may be projects where the proportion of contributors with autistic tendencies exceeds that of those without such tendencies.
Those are the kinds of projects where we'll see see codes of conduct tend to arise.
Perhaps due to their inability to understand basic social interaction, we see the participants of such projects try to take a more mechanical, programmatic approach to interpersonal communication.
Instead of just letting communication happen naturally, like most non-autistic people would tend to do, people with autistic traits prefer a much more controlled environment.
They strive to take away any originality, creativity, differing of opinions, and the emotions that may be associated with such things.
They want discussion to go from being raw and powerful to something docile and uniform.
A code of conduct is the easiest way for them to try to achieve this.
Essentially, they aim to create a program that controls the flow of discussion.
Now, I'm not saying that anyone in particular involved with this code of conduct is an autist, or suffering from autism.
But I'm starting to think that, at a project level, the aggregate of the participants' autism (or lack thereof) will contribute to the rise (or non-rise) of codes of conduct.
If you are too dumb to understand that a minimum of civility is necessary for any society to function, fuck you, Sir!
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Bollocks! I say what comes to my mind and in any language I want to. If anyone does confuse my opinion with his or her self esteem then please go back to kindergarden. I don't know what kind of pussy came up with that kind of shit. :)
"t Adults can say that's stupid or you're a moron as part of normal healthy discourse it's intent that matters. Healthy razzing friendly banter etc etc is part of normal adult communication."
Among friends yes it can be. In a working group of developers without any face to face social interaction no. At that point it is just harassment.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Can I still say that something is so easy, a monkey could do it?
then that's what they'll get. I say let them move forward with their plans for ensuring non-offense. They'll get coders who prioritize how they communicate instead of what they're communicating, and the quality of their code and projects will reflect that. We'll see how long it takes for the community that matters to move on to something else.
We will never be the change to the weather and the sea
If anything this makes me MORE likely to use Go. Access to IRC, etc. is a privilege not a right. If you abuse it you get it taken away. Deal.
Good job people, you just turned half of the developers who might have bothered to learn Go into some of the largest haters of the language now. Let your code speak, not your blabbering, slobbering socio-political viewpoints.
Coding was so much more fun before the dickwads showed up in the past 10 years. I'm waiting for the IT industry to collapse again and these morons will be back in their place, flipping burgers.
Saying something is "so easy even my grandma could understand it" is not marginalizing anyone. It's MY grandma, not A grandma, and my grandma can indeed only understand the simplest pieces of technology.
Ha! I support this post!
Go enforces a certain cording style, has rules regarding what you should use and what you shouldn't use and now even specifies how you should behave.
Such uniformity makes sense if you have a company with well defined goals and want to promote teamwork. So yeah, it is very good for Google : they make a language the suits their needs, with rules that matches their company policies.
As for the outside world, then yes, for me it is a no-go. Putting rules beside what's necessary for compilers to work is a great way to make sure that the language won't be used for anything that wasn't intended while offering no guarantee of the opposite.
Maybe at some point, some people will take Go, say "fork you" to Google and start using it as they see fit. In the same way that Google said "fork you" to Sun/Oracle about Java for Android.
Lifetime punishments are unfair to people that live longer.
It is amazing to me that asking people to act like functional adults and not social misfits in a public forum is a possible death knell for ANY community.
Yes, because the people who managed to design, build, operate, maintain, and improve upon computers, the internet, and software in general for the last 60 years couldn't possibly have been adult. Thank goodness we have this guy to lead us from the darkness and save us from ourselves.
The devil is always in the details, so if they apply the ban hammer TOO harshly, it'll run people off, sure, but it's a little early to assume that, don't you think?
No.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
No, it's not. People are still people, even if they don't see each other. Calling someone an idiot when he makes a silly mistake does not magically become harassment because Internets.
There's no doubt he needs a code of conduct, and I agree with some of the provisions in there, but you have to read between the lines to get what he means, and it's not pretty. I'd like to quote them all, but there's too many, so I'll stick with the worst:
I sympathize here, as I agree: no everyone does learn English. However: you need to settle on a standard language, and English is the best choice most of the time. Forgive someone for writing sentences with a little awkward grammar? Definitely. Machen es so niemand kann mich verstehen? Nein.
Translation: judge a person on their social status first, and if they outrank you in developer status or connections, keep your mouth shut, no matter how bad the bug. (And yes, it will become this way.)
Hand in hand with the above. Make sure never to anything that could possibly start a confrontation, and if someone has a wrong answer or makes a bug, don't say anything for fear of making conflict.
Long list of things, but this is the worst. Basically, since anything could be offensive (because this totally specifies what's a ""microaggression""), always speak as reserved and uptight as you can, and never relax your guard.
Yeeeeah... Basically, never ever defend yourself, just immediately bow down and admit you were mistaken. The project leader is always right, he knows what's best, and never never ever ever never ever ever doubt him and his infinite wisdom.
YEEEEEEEEEAH... Okay. My grandmother uses that line a lot, and I occasionally do to. My grandmother lived through WWII, with a polish mother, and lost her entire family (save for her parents). I dare this guy to do what she did, to be even a 1/10th as badass. My grandmother and I never mean any disrespect when we say it, it's a very tongue in cheek thing, and only when this guy insists it's offensive does it become so. Why, you ask? I'd never take it serious before, because it's so obvious that my grandmother very well could do it, and yet he has the balls to seriously think my grandmother is not capable of, let's say, lifting a pan. That is way more offensive than the original phrase ever was, just wow.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
You forgot the role of thin-skinned Millennials. They tend to be the ones pushing for these CoCs.
Millennials are best described as a broken generation. They had the misfortune of being created and raised by the Baby Boomers, who are known to have screwed up pretty much everything they've ever done, especially parenthood.
The Baby Boomers created a hyper-protective environment for their children. From a very young age they instilled in the Millennials that the Millennials were somehow 'special', and that the harsh nature of the real world did not apply to them. The Millennials thus grew up unexposed to the real world, and thus unable to cope with it. Yet as adults they now have no choice but to face it head on.
So we've seen the rise of the extremely contradictory and hypocritical 'social justice' movement. We've seen the creation of CoCs. These are the products of sheltered, thin-skinned Millennials trying their hardest to cope with the realities of life.
Look at the software projects primarily created by non-Boomers and non-Millennials. We're talking about Linux, the BSDs, and much of the GNU software. These communities aren't known for being friendly. They aren't willing to play games just so nobody's emotions get hurt. No, if you've fucked up, they'll let you know! The quality of the software matters more than the emotions of individuals.
Now look at software projects primary created by Boomers and Millennials. We're talking about Rust, systemd, and most modern JavaScript libraries. These projects are all about CoCs and feeling good, even if it means the quality of the work suffers greatly. To them, it doesn't matter if the software is shitty, just as long as nobody's feelings were hurt in the process of creating the software.
For society as a whole, it's clearly better to take the non-Boomer and non-Millennial approach. We shouldn't pander to emotion, especially when doing so results in a decrease in software quality.
This kind of abusive and heavy-handed behaviour is par for the course for many militant Leftists. SJWs are abusive power-hungry extremists who want to dominate and subordinate the masses to their own desire for power. Having given up on 'organising' white workers (who they actually now despise), they organise brown people into power blocs, whip up politics of grievance and victimhood, and then engage in heavy-handed persecution of white people who dare to criticise their bid for power.
SJW extremists use a variety of nasty and underhanded tactics to control ordinary people. The most powerful, is public shaming tactics. Unfortunately for them, if you call somebody 'racist' too many times, it gets tuned out. Which explains why SJWs are getting more and more shrill and abusive as time goes on.
We are merely seeing more of this now, because these abusive extremist control freaks are trying ever harder and harder to defend their power bases in society.
Luckily, times are changing. If the Muslims ever succeed in doing another September 11, the SJWs will go to the wall just as fast as the Muslims.
I have a microagression for you. You're a worthless piece of shit and I hope you choke on a bag of AIDS infested dicks.
So you can be a good Go Go Girl or a Go Go Boy!
The rationale is literal counterfactual nonsense. Having an CoC is neither necessary nor sufficient for having a friendly or "welcoming" community. The proposal gives no evidence about problems in the community or about how these problems would be solved.
The CoC is a non-solution for a non-problem.
As someone who ordinarily tries to be polite and tries to be supportive even if critical (none of which is particularly on display in this comment), *forcing* me to be so does not make me feel welcome. I'd feel like I was walking on eggshells all the time.
As it says right in the proposal "Some people feel stifled by the general concept of a Code of Conduct." Yeah, I would. Furthermore, I think they're wrong that they stand to "lose a few people, but we stand to gain much more". I think it will be a wash. What you want is a group of people who can program and communicate. Period. People have different ways, some more abrasive than others, whether intentional or not. You have to widely cast the acceptable scope of communication styles or you will leave people out. If it becomes a serious problem, you deal with it. Otherwise it should be left alone, lest more time be spent on dealing with borderline supposed transgressions of the rules than programming. "So-and-so is breaking rule 4.3.c" "No I'm not" "No gender-neutral-pronoun is not" "Yes gender-neutral-pronoun is". Repeat until everyone is fed up. Ban people. Make them bitter. Make them have an axe to grind. Make them feel powerful. Hurray, "success". You have a forum that's more about making it look like you are acting "correctly" than it is about programming.
Narrow the scope of what's allowed too much and you'll lose participation. If a proposal like this gets accepted the Go community will probably get the reputation as being run by a bunch of unusually sensitive control freaks and once that reputation is established many people will decide they don't want to deal with that kind of drama and will stay away.
I can see a proposal like this, if toned down a bit and made into something that people are optionally *encouraged* to abide by, it could be useful. But if it's going to be used to impose order then good luck with that.
The idea is that the person on the other end can't hear your inflection, and we are supposed to assume they took the most offense possible. Picture the comment coming from a violent angry racist about to commit a hate crime, and that's what a lot of people get in their mind when they are insulted online.
Is this a distortion? Yes. People have severe mental health deficits in today's society. We can't just ignore the fact.
the proposed Code notes there soon could be consequences for calling someone an "idiot" or saying something is "so simple even my grandma could understand it" (the latter "marginalises women and the elderly by implying that something need be simple for an old woman to understand it").
No it doesn't. And if you think it does, you're going to have to back up that assertion with some kind of reasoning. No I'm not going to defend my own assertion (yet). You fired first, you defend first.
"t Adults can say that's stupid or you're a moron as part of normal healthy discourse it's intent that matters. Healthy razzing friendly banter etc etc is part of normal adult communication." Among friends yes it can be. In a working group of developers without any face to face social interaction no. At that point it is just harassment.
+1
I don't see anything wrong with the code of conduct, regardless of the extremely slanted summary.
It may come as a shock to some here, but it is actually possible to have a discussion, even a heated disagreement, without calling people names. And, you know what? It's actually both more pleasant and more effective! Rather than saying that a person who tossed out a dumb idea is a moron, you just call the dumb idea a dumb idea. It's not hard at all, just focus your criticism on the ideas, or code, or whatever, rather than on the people. This still means that people need to be able to take criticism, because when you say someone's code is shit, they may struggle not to take it as a personal affront... but when you call someone a moron it's impossible not to take it as a personal affront. Because it is!
It's certainly true that among groups of friends it's possible, and even fun, to use personal attacks. Everyone knows there's nothing in it, that we're all friends. But that's not the case on a public mailing list, with a random group of semi-strangers.
Look, I often defend Linus Torvalds' occasional aggressive outbursts. I think it's fine that he's blunt and outspoken. I also think he could be equally blunt and outspoken without calling people names. But it's his community, and he can run it the way he wants to. If people don't like it, they can create their own Linux kernel community, and fork.
The Go community is apparently trying to be a friendlier place from the outset and that is also perfectly fine, in fact I think it's better. Okay, so the banhammer could be used to exclude valuable contributors, rather than trolls, but is there any evidence it is or has been used that way? There is not. Go look. The rules are applied sensibly, and enforcement almost never has to go beyond a private message.
This is a good thing.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I've been around the ziggurat a few times, and unless things have changed in the last few days, it takes at least two willing participants to have a kerfuffle. And since this CoC is designed to protect victims, it will remove the professional victim's raison d'être. And in a world where some people believe that disagreeing with them is harassment, or the never clever "microagression", what we have here is what will end up being bullying in reverse.
The most sensitive and brittle and possibly even incompetent will become the leaders by reverse bullying for a short time, then it all falls apart. Because those selfsame people will make the decisions. And if you have a person serving as moderator, anyone the moderator makes a decision against will have defacto evidence the moderator was violating the code of conduct.
I'll take a Linus Torvalds any day over this kind of namby-pamby weirdness.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Get the "F" out.
I will not pass GO and you can keep your measly $200.
Furthermore fuck Go.
Two examples:
Read: "your conscious actions may show manners and a firm attempt to be decent, but your Id is racist/sexist/whatever so you need to apologize for things that you don't even consciously realize you are doing."
This actually came up in a Go discussion on Google Groups. The person who most firmly defended this point basically said that if you are offending someone, just stop. Period. There is no reasonable person standard, just stop and apologize.
That's not being your "best self" that is you being held hostage to the whims of every nutjob, asshole, etc. that wants to get their way. It's perfect cover for the hyper-sensitive to just flout the rules and then shriek "you are an ${VAL}ist" at you when you call them out.
So no, no company in their right mind would want to be involved with that. Heck, I explained the Joyent/Ben Noordhuis fiasco to my team and it's part of the reason we chose to minimize our use of Node. Why invest in a platform that has a strong representation of fanatical SJWs who go after core contributors over political minutia?
Java, .NET, C/C++ and many other mature platforms used for "real work" don't have these problems. It's mainly the platforms chosen by hipsters to do things like build the next great, overpriced web app that seem to find this worth fighting about.
Just copy and paste from Linus' Code of Conduct. Model your community guidelines on the most successful OSS community ever and go on with your bad self and write some excellent code.
The downsides being cited against Google's Go "poiteness" policy are all hypothetical. Let's let it play out, do the experiement and see how it does actually play out. You have to try something new or you'll end up where you 've always been.
If you are one who likes where things are, and I am not criticizing anyone who does, then things are as good as they're likely to get IMO. If you think the conversational tone and interactions online would be better if they were other than they are now, then you have to try something new.
Maybe this will work. Maybe it won't. Either way, we're likely to learn something useful.
Really?? Pulling the 'harassment' card out now??? What a moron.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
The means of communication has nothing to do with it. This is coddling people who have not yet grown up as far as their social interactions. Sure that's pretty common as hardcore programmers go.
No sir I dont like it.
Thanks ok... in the face of politicly correct censorship we can always turn to Orwellian concepts for inspiration, enter: GoSpeak
Now just need to write a Go program to normalise the various offensive synonyms on their forum... fixed no need to ban anyone.
Maybe we *should* just ignore it. Along the lines of "don't feed the trolls" rather than giving them an audience. We've become too politically correct, and its time for the pendulum to swing the other way.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Seriously, check out /r/Rust and other Rust-related spaces. They're already far more civil than the ones for Go, without the need for silly political correctness buzzword-compliance or egomania or even stifling debate or discussion... they just have a non-toxic environment because they moderate things like how things were done in an old-school board or forum. But then, they're not out to try to oversell their language and polarize people, but just make the most useful language they can.
The problem here is the same problem that plagues the rest of the Internet, and before the public Internet, dialup bulletin-board systems (BBSs): It's much easier to be a complete ass to someone when you don't have to do it in person to their face. People can and will say anything when it's just text on a screen, because there are few if any consequences. When you're able to be completely anonymous as well (no alias, just literally anonymous) it's even worse, because there are literally no consequences. Of course there's no help for it, as requiring everyone on the Internet to use their real name would destroy a large and very important part of what the Internet is all about. Civility and courtesy can't be legislated, they are qualities that an individual has to willingly adopt, and in my opinion the choice whether to do that or not is a great indicator of the character of the individual in question: Can you observe and respect the implied social contract that exists when you interact with people face-to-face, when you're interacting with them over the Internet?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
First they came for the BASIC programmers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a BASIC programmer.
Then they came for the go programmers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a go programmer.
Then they came for the canines, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a canine.
Then they came for me—and I told them to GTFO my mailing list.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
A mailing list, web forum, convention, what have you is not a public forum. It has moderators, and likely already has rules (if nothing else, spam and off-topic messages are likely not tolerated).
>It may come as a shock to some here, but it is actually possible to have a discussion, even a heated disagreement, without calling people names. And, you know what? It's actually both more pleasant and more effective!
I agree, for myself. But trying to *impose* that as a "code of conduct" on everyone is a bit much. People need to be adults in both senses: 1) try to be polite and respectful, 2) try to deal with it if people aren't always polite and respectful.
Assholes are people too, and some people are much too sensitive about mere words.
In the USA, this kind of crap has been going on for a lot longer than the boomers or the millennials. Americans just love a good shaming. From retribution-over-rehab to a good slut-shaming, nothing's more fun for us than boosting our own self-esteem at the cost of others, and at the highest possible cost we can manage to inflict, too. Extra points for completely ruining someone's life.
So, might individuals and companies think twice about embracing a programming language whose community's Code of Conduct threatens to ruin reputations
The Code of Conduct cannot ruin a reputation. That is just silly.
"You insulted old women. This is offensive to us. We want to publicly declare that we disapprove of your speech. Please take a week off."
This does not ruin a reputation. The only way that it can affect a reputation at all is if the original behavior/speech/etc. is damaging to a reputation. You can agree or disagree about whether the behavior/speech/etc. is acceptable, and whether the action of Code enforcement is appropriate or not. In any case, the effect on reputation is a result of the action/speech/etc., not a result of the Code enforcement.
Maybe we could have the avatars for people running foul of the new CoC overlaid with a scarlet "A"? That would make them easy to spot.
First they came for the aggressors, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an aggressor.
Then they came for the micro-aggressors, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a micro-aggressor.
Then they came for the nano-aggressors, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a nano-aggressor.
Then they came for me—and I meekly submitted.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I endorse the above post.
Although, every once in a while, I find it... stimulating... to beat a troll down into the mud, inevitably becoming one myself in the process.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
> Since Go’s release nearly 6 years ago
More like 6,000 years ago. Chinese checkers is pretty dammned old, man.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Even my grandmother could understand it's a reference to a generation brought up without pervasive internet and personal computing.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
No, locking people out of a technical community because someone is (or might be) "offended" is not a good thing. It is counter-productive and short-sighted.
A good thing is to encourage people to not think of themselves of fragile little butterflies who will be destroyed for life if someone says a harsh word.
There are now a whole lot of people that need to learn to tell the difference between the speech of people who are passionate about their ideas and people who are actually trying to cause personal harm. It seems that this ability has been lost, somehow. It's not a good thing.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...marginalises women and the elderly by implying that something need be simple for an old woman to understand it
I am deeply offended at your quickness to assume that my grandmother is "elderly" or an "old woman". I also don't understand how one can so callously write off all the people whose grandmothers do not self-identify as female. Whoever proposed such an intolerant policy deserves a lifetime ban.
This is coddling people who have not yet grown up as far as their social interactions.
So you're saying this would make it easier for a tech-savvy 15-year-old to contribute? Or a shy, socially-backward 30-year-old? Or a person from an abusive background? Or somebody from a culture in which profanity is a tool of bullies?
Sound like a good thing.
Now, would this coddling create some inconvenience or barrier that outweighs those positive results? Would it discourage and frustrate people with limited abilities to express themselves without f bombs? Would it inhibit clear communication when somebody needs to have a point driven home? Would it impair autistic people from understanding nuanced statements and questions? Would any of such consequences erode the quality of contributions to the community?
I ask seriously. What is wrong with coddling?
There is no first amendment that's says you have a the right to never be offended. If it takes harsh language to get the point across it make people laugh then Go for it.
The code of conduct in question goes WAY beyond prohibiting people from "calling each other names." It essentially prohibits any speech which someone (anyone really) could POTENTIALLY FIND offensive, whether it was intended to be that way or not.
"I think we should use a red font for comments in the IDK"
"I hate the color red. Can't we use green instead?"
"I find your hatred of the color red to be demeaning to me as a Native American. And I demand that you either apologize, or I'm reporting you to the moderator to be banned for life!"
Not really.
Any organization that is filled with functional adults really doesn't need codes of conduct, or have strong enough members to police bad behavior where it's found.
Having an official code of conduct that's enshrined within the officialness of the officiating body makes the assumption from the outset that without these rules, people don't know how to behave.
You know, like those darned atheists who don't have a god to tell them how to be nice to each other*.
If you need a code of conduct, you're telling the participants that they're neither functional enough nor self-aware enough to handle the responsibility of interacting with other adults like adults do.
I'm not saying all atheists are nice, or all theists are bad, just that it's a common argument for anti-atheism that suggests people need god or else they might degenerate into lawless troglodytes.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
My grandma is Grace Hopper!
Have gnu, will travel.
Sounds like an idiot made up those rules.
Do you even understand the definition of "harassment"?
Harassment, per Google is aggressive pressure or intimidation. An insult is not harassment.
If you call me an idiot, I'm not going to call that harassment. I might tell you to calm down. I might even ask you what I did (if I wasn't already aware of it) that made you call me that. Hell, maybe you're trying to get my attention because I'm a bit block-headed and can't see the forest for the trees sometimes. A lot of people need to inject something into the conversation to make it halt for a moment. Sometimes, it needs an emotional element (like an insult) to give people time to breathe.
However, if you call me an idiot repeatedly and without prompting, follow me around and start trying to goad others into doing the same, THAT is harassment.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Mellow greetings, special butterflies.
Today (not to disrespect those on the other side of the national dateline - when I say today, I mean everyone's today!) I (with full credit to everyone everywhere, of course) would like (this is not a statement of exclusion for things I don't like) to introduce SJW, the language you can share without fear (not that fear is wrong, of course.)
SJW:
o No insert() function: Instead, we have crafted a flawless nomeansno() function
o Fully complementary yesmeansno() and maybemeansno() functions
o No try:, because every function generates an exception!
o exit() has been replaced with aloha().
o Procedure calls have been replaced with the respectful request paradigm, which obey the global mood settings
o 100% private internal assumption for all functions; offering data requires guessing if the function will take it or crash (exceptions guaranteed)
o Every access from within a function to another function must be embedded in a call to politewrapper()
o politewrapper() implements infinite recursion by use of counters instead of ever returning up a level
o Every function ends with a sequence of calls to apologize(), cleanup() and washreturnvalue()
o All programs will be created equal: all code is treated exactly the same and does exactly the same thing, which is apologize for running.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No. CoCs are now about shielding children from reality. It's all about appealing to insecurity in order to control narrative (and thus the organization). Once implemented, they encourage people to say/do stupid shit and then hide behind 'oppression' or 'discrimination' instead of facing up to mistakes and fixing them. Really, the end goal is to burn the project's resources in 'signal boosting' particular political ideologies towards society at large. The more relevant the group, the bigger a target it becomes.
This probably started at the topmost institutions in society (government, ivy league, corporates). Most of the individuals pushing these at lower levels are probably clueless about it, but some are not. These would be the 'crusaders' that've been discussed here before.
The easily offended are rarely civil.
... he's hoping he can please all the people, all the time? Yeah, there shouldn't be a problem accomplishing that. It's not like people have been famously saying that that's impossible for the last 150 years or anything. Proceed.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Anybody else disappointed that this article turned out to be about the programming language and not the board game?
There are plenty of online dev communities with little to no face to face. They razz each other all the time and things are fine. In fact, they are probably some of the most honest communities you'll find anywhere, face to face, or online. The razzing keeps things from getting too stiff and acts like a filter that keeps the whiners out.
I'm offended by the mailing list name golang-nuts because "nuts" is a slang term used to refer to testicles. By naming the mailing list golang-nuts it indicates that it's a male dominated mailing list where women (those without "nuts") are not welcome. Please change the mailing list name to be more inclusive.
You have been roused. Remember to use the f-word, SJW, etc and lots of anger in order to get full modded up.
Thankyou, the f-word acts as a trigger for me when it's written out in full. Lucky you didn't write fucking...oh, shit.
I'm on my last warning for wanking in the office.
I've been assuming it was the game Go until it became clear it was some programming language I'd never hurd of.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Go won't be used for Linux kernel programming anytime soon.
Have gnu, will travel.
I mean, we should be sticking with the standard code of conduct, where the people who are bullied, insulted, or otherwise made to feel unwelcome are the ones who are effectively barred from the community.
Just think of how this can be abused. If one woman or minority falsely complains that a white man hurt her feelings and that man is mildly reprimanded, that cost would far outweigh any good that might come of this. And, in the end, shouldn't all codes of conduct be about protecting the feelings and prominence of white men??
as a CTO, i am just going remove now "go" from the approved platform list. Its now a #go,went, gone.
Respect is something that is taken, not just given. If you have to ask for it, it isn't respect. It's pity.
Lumbergh: Yeah...I'm gonnna have to...say...nnnnoooo to this one.
Seriously, if some tool is spouting off and needs to be called on it...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I do not give one milli-micro-nano-fraction of a fuck what race you are, what gender you are or identify as, who you want to sleep with, how old you are, what your height or weight is, what if anything may be different about your body or brain, what language you speak, what country you're from, what God you pray to, where you work, how much money you have, et fucking cetera. Is your contribution any good? That's all that matters.
There is one exception to the above rule: If you're an asshole, you're banned from the project. Permanently.
If your contribution is not accepted, and you start whining about how it's "actually" because you're of some-or-other gender/race/religion/nationality/whatthefuckever, you are attempting to have the deck stacked in your favor because you're "special." That makes you an asshole. And you're gone.
This project explicitly rejects the "Open Code of Conduct" as published by the TODO Group. Anyone complaining about this is an asshole, because who the fuck are you to tell me how I should run my goddamn project? And you're gone.
I reserve the right to change this as I see fit...but anyone who tries to force me to change it in ways that are offensive to me is an asshole. And they're gone.
(Reprinted from my Quora blog)
Be who you are...and be it in style!
behind the clever words, the real face is hiding of feminists.
In this practical world - the feminism says- 'anything which female accuses becomes truth, and male is a priveleged class - which can not be tormented by a female.'
We have seen this in Adria Richards case in pycon.
I am not going to fuck around with social justice scum at work.
of be nice or be gone. I don't believe everyone should be PC all of the time but I do believe you can't be nasty all of the time. No one should be expected to put up with that especially in a technical forum.
Which is why they said "Healthy razzing friendly banter etc etc is part of normal adult communication.", not "unhealthy razzing". I hate it when people are politically correct to me. They're too wishy-washy to tell WTF they are trying to communicate. This is of course for peer communication. This is not a good approach to inter-group communications.
It also requires a certain amount of trust. People communicate much better when they don't need to worry about hurting someone's feelings. If you want to get into a group, be prepared for some healthy hazzing, it's one of the ways trust is built. Say it how it is. If I'm talking nice to you after you had a fuck-up, it's because I don't trust you.
This branch is 16 commits ahead, 778 commits behind torvalds:master.
"Harassment" is an actual word that has actual definition.
That definition is not, "Somebody in a working group of developers without any face to face social interaction arguably said something mean."
And THAT is the problem with this kind of thing. "Harassment" inevitably gets defined downwards to reflect the standards of the most sensitive, because those are the only people who care.
Google groups is bloated crap anyway
When there isn't a body!
Isn't that an obvious rule of life?
No it isn't. Harassment is repeated, deliberate, unwelcome attention. Rudeness is just rudeness.
I read through the section titled "Examples of CoC issues and their resolutions" in the proposal, and most of the listed examples seem to end with a step that boils down to "person A admits that people's feelz are all that really matter, and not only apologizes for being a boor earlier but also accepts the technical proposal offered by person B without further argument, and discovers that unicorns exist if we just believe in them hard enough".
I think they're missing the step "person A experiences massive head trauma" right before that.
Why not just have offensive text displayed at 20% black, or even in proportion to how offensive and irrelevant it is? Try it, most people will soon learn to not even see the text unless they specificity want to know what is in content of that low a value.
The more I see of the actions of Social Justice Warriors the more I have contempt for their intellects, they are self righteous, petty and aggressive, their actions are immature and lacking in finesse.
Here is a life lesson for you kids, picking a fight only starts wars, it does not solve problems, until you have totally destroyed the people you attack by which time you have become what you hate. Whereas giving low value content only limited recognition places it where it belongs without you risking looking like totalitarian hypocrites.
SJWs start out as what they claim to hate, so they're way ahead of you there.
...now takes a political left turn. Let's see - men accused of rape are guilty by definition. If some nebulous "entity" takes exception to something you write under your own open name they, too, will be able to bring down the lightning without any accountability on their part. Yup. Same mentality.
All of you, say it with me now: "Down with groupthink!"
... it's also a religion.
The Go-liban
Evan-Go-icals
I had employees who called me an asshole, told me when I did stupid things, and rewrote my entire code as well as kicked me out of my own server room.
I'm eternally grateful.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You can't wrestle with the pigs without getting dirty.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Bah, next you will tell us you care about project success. That is sooooo yesterday.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I've been told to shutup when I couldn't stop talking when we were discussing an issue with another senior from another sibling department. He apologized later, but I thanked him. I knew he didn't say it out of spite. It helped me be a better listener. I still talk too much, but I'm better.
The mailing list is golang-NUTS?? This is a perfect example of cis white male ableism patriarchy! As a non-binary fluid gender attack helicopter, nuts is a very offensive term, and I am a big deal in the North American culture-sphere so my opinion matters. Also as a club footed koala I find the term go ableist. I hope they do enact this CoC so I can join the mailing list and demand that they change the mailing group name to not offend my sensibilities! Golang-nuts, fuck you. http://tech.slashdot.org/story... https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s... //end sarcastic rant
By some definition of "working group". Close-knit groups went to work best. People fall into their natural roles instead of assigned roles. There is a time and a place, but if you want to become part of the group, be prepared to get treated like the group.
I think that "shut up" would have bothered me, internally at least. I don't mind correction (in fact, I welcome it) but being silenced is a problem. I suspect our behavior is different, however. You mention that you speak too much. I tend to shut up and listen before being told to do so. So, to me, it probably would have had to have been an entirely different situation? I guess...
My favorite, and probably not verbatim, "Code comments go in the code, not on coffee soaked index cards, asshole." It did take me a little to shut up and listen. My code base was my baby. My server room, in all its mayhem, was my mad science lab. Eventually, I was busy enough to no longer have the time to do those things on my own. I hired people that seemed to be the best (that I could find).
With enough insight and prompting, I learned that I'd hired them to do things I could not and that they were far better and more efficient than I could ever be. It was hard but I accepted that my code needed to be rewritten - sure, they kept some of it but the whole thing was so much better (and vastly easier to read and maintain) when they were done. I accepted that I didn't need to know the admin passwords and be involved in every detail in the server room.
It was like watching your kid go off to school on their very first day. Awesome but nerve wracking. I could still guide but I did not micromanage. It was tempting to do so and, indeed, I sort of tried at first. Then, well, I'd hired professionals. Get the hell out of the way, shut the hell up, and give them the tools they ask for so that they can do the job.
I don't mind being told I'm wrong - when I'm wrong. I don't even mind it being gruffly done. The way I look at it, it's done because they care enough to ensure it is done properly, otherwise they'd just let me keep going in the wrong direction. I'm amicable enough but that doesn't mean others have to be and, frankly, I'm kind of similar in that I do not like telling someone the same thing twice. I just don't get gruff, I get quiet and slow and enunciate clearly...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What can I say? I believe in old-fashioned values like working code. ;-)
Be who you are...and be it in style!
do not seek to disagree
If someone takes issue with something you said or did, resist the urge to be defensive. Just stop doing what it was they complained about and apologize.
if someone asks you to stop speaking to/at them, you must stop immediately
How is a discussion even conceivable under these rules?
Mr. Gerrand, your proposed rules are highly offensive to a rational mind. Do not seek to disagree with me. Just stop posting this crap. Don't talk back. You are allowed to apologize briefly. Then you must immediately stop speaking.
J is a regular poster to the golang-nuts mailing list.
[emphasis mine]
Isn't the very name of that mailing list, golang-nuts, a microagression towards those with some form of mental illness? I can only assume that as soon as the CoC is approved, Andrew Gerrand et. al. will disappear in a puff of recursive logic...
- T
I've never met a talented programmer in my life who cared about what kind of words were used. Seriously: 1) Talented programmer 2) Polite social skills. Choose one.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Wil Wheaton's Law says "Don't be a dick*". A committee that constantly insults people inappropriately is not going to be as productive or have as diverse a range of ideas as one that values contributors. If having a code of conduct says that rude annoying people don't participate, because they're afraid that someone in the future might tell them not to be a dick, well, mission accomplished. If they don't like it, they shouldn't be so thin-skinned.
* Yes, you can say that that's technically a sexually biased insult. The people who are most likely to say that are the ones who pretend to be thick-skinned and not care. So don't be a dick.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've been thinking about picking up GO.
Now I'm not.
I made a comment that included the word "porn" while discussing playback on a Gentoo IRC. I didn't discuss porn, or details of porn, but I got a ban just for using the word "porn". Then when I complained it was "strongly suggested" that I make a personal apology to the offended party. When I refused my "one month ban" was upheld.
But three years later my "one month ban" is still in force.
So the "personally offended" person, being an "important person", got me that treatment.
So at least Go is being up-front about the sort of interpersonal bull that actually rules other "overly correct" projects.
I call it "being exclusively inclusive".
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
If you have a Code of Conduct, it means your community has failed to treat people well in the past and is not able to change this without strict rules (so it's still failing). Fix your community, not the COC.
The community can get fucked, nothing but a self-reinforcing pity party, inflicting mutual psychological self harm. The only benefit they provide is great cover, because of the stereotype of being awful, obvious, and dysfunctional. As for the umbrella: bunch of weekend warrior fetishists, lacking any conviction in their own identity, trying to steal validation from those who live it 24/7.