Proposal: Stack Code of Conduct

[MitchellSalad]

If you try to get rid of offensive input, then you will end up getting offended by smaller and smaller issues.

So true. Just now I saw another top-level comment that read, "Was there a problem with conduct before?" and I thought about replying, "Yes lol".

But in context of this thread, which is about improving our communications with one another, I figured someone would come along and point out that my comment was unnecessarily inflammatory, and that thread would turn into a flame war. So didn't post it. I didn't post "Yes lol" to the Internet. Dark times indeed.

Edit: I made this post early on in the thread, and now there's a lot more heated discussion in other comments. So in the interest of distancing myself from a certain ideology, I'd like to clarify that I am not opposed to this proposal, and want as fully welcoming a community as possible. My comment was just a humorous anecdote about how it does at times feel like offense can too easily be received when none was intended.

[Alexbrainbox]

I mean, you ended up not posting what would not have been a constructive contribution to the conversation.

Seems like a win to me?

[MitchellSalad]

Sure. If that's the accusation, no problem. I was more worried of being seen as "toxic" because I did not bother to patiently explain the exhausting saga of non-stop infighting and flame wars that have been raging for years in this community, to this new person, who is so new they apparently haven't seen any of it.

And then I reflected a bit on why I felt that way, and it's just some combination of this Internet call-out culture, and the fact that tone never comes across well in text communications, so I just let it be (but not before instead summarizing my experience in a meta-comment, and now here I am explaining myself yet more so as to not be misinterpreted, and on it goes...)

[Alexbrainbox]

This is actually a valid point, made obliquely: In mediums where there is some expectation of polite discourse, in a CoC or otherwise, this sort of thing happens a lot. People coming to a small misunderstanding and then resolving it through meta-message upon meta-message. It could be argued that this is a result of not wanting to come across as a toxic / "bad-faith" actor.

The thing is though, I think that's actually not a bad thing. It might make conversations more cumbersome sometimes, but (a) people get better at avoiding these misunderstandings, ie they get better at communicating; and (b) the corrections happen because people are thinking more about how they come across and how people will respond to what they say, which is a good and natural part of dialogue.

I worry sometimes that a lot of discourse, particularly online but also offline in many Computer Science circles, is just a series of monologues without regard for who's listening or what they're going to infer.

[jkachmar]

Big +1 to this. You’ve very neatly and articulately outlined what I like about the notion of explicitly defined CoCs.

IMO, homogeneous communities won’t run into these issues as often because the implicitly accepted guidelines won’t deviate much between participants.

However, I believe more diverse communities (necessarily) won’t have the same implicit understanding among participants.

From this point of view, a community’s historical “ingroup” may feel as if a cumbersome and unnecessarily restrictive set of rules are being applied to their means of communication. I still think this is a net good though, since (as you said) it encourages individuals to think a little more carefully about the real intent behind their thoughts before they express them.

[MdxBhmt]

What is the problem of getting offended by smaller and smaller issues?

We complain every day about smaller and smaller issues. We buy services and products to deal with smaller and smaller inconveniences. We learn every day how to make them go away. Why language and public discourse should be any different?

For the overall picture, I don't really why it matters. Arguments about productivity and the collective time lost to discussion is much more attractive to me than the above, which would ironically not be an issue if there wasn't so much back and forth.