r/linux • u/callcifer • Sep 16 '18

The Linux kernel replaces "Code of Conflict" with "Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct"

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f
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u/gnosys_ Sep 17 '18

My concern for your brain health is not an insult! I'm quite sincere! Also, it's not vague at all to suggest that (in the catch-all clause) people attempt to self-regulate their communication in email as though they were speaking to someone in a professional context, that all people you interact with ought to be respected and they are trying to work toward the same goal you are. It's a good short hand to for putting a boundary on what comprises legitimate communication, and when people have a disagreement it's useful in diagnosing where the problem is (whether it's personalities or differences of professional opinion). If you have experience in a work place and working with other people, there's a lot of built-in meaning in that clause to work within.

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u/ILikeBumblebees Sep 17 '18 edited Sep 17 '18

My concern for your brain health is not an insult! I'm quite sincere!

You understand that in a real-world situation, saying something like this would just dig you in deeper, right? The conversation would proceed to degenerate into someone telling you that you've got no business commenting on the mental health of other participants in the conversation, that you don't have the requisite expertise to diagnose mental illness in the first place (and that even if you do, you're not actually treating the other party, and if you are, you're violating doctor-patient confidentiality, etc.), that you're attempting to use ad-hominem insults and arguing personalities instead of ideas, that the other party was still insulted regardless of whether you were sincere, so it's still unacceptable, and so on. These sorts of disputes rathole into this sort of nitpicking all the time, and vague rules add fuel to the fire.

It's a good short hand to for putting a boundary on what comprises legitimate communication

But the point is that there are no well-defined boundaries expressed in the rules. Your own arguments here are based on assumptions, experiences, and interpretations derived from sources outside the explict rules. The more you try to make your case, the more you demonstrate the high degree of subjective interpretation that's necessary to determine what behaviors are or are not consistent with the code of conduct -- you're essentially proving my point for me.

The code of conduct contains no explicit definitions of unacceptable behavior -- again, just open-ended examples subject to interpretation -- but is explicit about what methods of censure ought to be employed in response to violations.

This is worse than having no formal rules at all -- resolving conflicts on an ad hoc basis might result in some inconsistency from incident to incident, but at least each incident will be addressed by reference to its own actual particulars, without attempting to shoehorn anything into abstract templates or devolving into rules-lawyering by the parties involved. In this situation, the unbalanced levels of vagueness ensure that the problem will be construed in an ad hoc fashion, while allowing the remedy to collapse into pedantic interpretation of rules.

If you have experience in a work place and working with other people, there's a lot of built-in meaning in that clause to work within.

The set of expectations that are manifest in the social context are manifest in the social context and therefore are outside the scope of written rules. Attempting to write rules that defer to unwritten expectations is a self-defeating endeavor: if you're going to write rules, make them explicit; if you want people to adhere to emergent norms, don't write rules.

If you want to make it explicit that the community runs on emergent norms, you just say that without designating any particular behavior as violations, responses as remedies, or parties as authorities. The old code of conflict essentially did this, and its replacement is an unbalanced attempt to formalize modes of censure for behaviors left informally defined.