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posted by martyb on Wednesday June 10 2020, @01:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the setting-a-breakpoint-so-humans-can-try-to-debug-a-code-(of-conduct) dept.

FreeBSD has announced a new LLVM-derived code of conduct.

According to a 2018 survey "35% were dissatisfied with the code of conduct adopted in 2018, 34% were neutral, and 30% were satisfied." So, they held another survey at the start start of June:

Which code of conduct should FreeBSD adopt?

Retain the current code of conduct:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200108075747/https://www.freebsd.org/internal/code-of-conduct.html

RESULTS

  • 4% favoured keeping the current code of conduct
  • 33% favoured the Go-derived code of conduct
  • 63% favoured the LLVM-derived code of conduct.

Thus, the Core Team, following the preference of a majority of active
FreeBSD developers, adopted the LLVM-derived code of conduct.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday June 10 2020, @05:08PM (12 children)

    by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @05:08PM (#1005878)

    'Hi. I'm John Smith. Fuck off with everything else, let's get to coding.'

    Let's say Adam is an asshole.

    Let's say an issue is getting informal, and John feels comfortable letting slip that he's trans. Adam says some unkind things about that. Everybody gets into an argument about trans identity. Who is causing the issue in this situation? Adam, for attacking a fellow developer, or John, for bringing it up in the first place?

    It's no big deal, unless you make it one.

    Let's say John never said anything. What if Adam looks into John Smith's Twitter history and finds out he was born a girl? Does more internet research, finds his dead name? Starts insisting on calling John Smith "Sally" and calling him a she in the issue tracker? Everyone else is confused. John experiences emotional pain just logging onto the issue tracker. Everybody gets into an argument about trans identity.

    Who is causing the issue in this situation? Adam, for attacking a fellow developer, or John, for merely existing?

    I too like the idea of a pseudonymous internet, where everybody is just a bit stream and we don't have to worry about the petty bigotry that divides us in the real world. I think most developers like that idea. The problem is that we don't live in that internet anymore. It's not hard to find out who someone is in real life. And the assholes out there, the ones who actually hate the meritocracy because they don't like the idea that some "transracial transgender one armed blind illegal immigrant gay depressed retard" might actually write better code than they do, those assholes will find out. Those assholes will bring that petty bigotry into every situation they can.

    You can even attend conferences without need to 'out' yourself.

    Yeah, as long as you can look like John Smith the white man.

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:23PM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @06:23PM (#1005924)

    Okay. So let's get this straight. I have something that I don't want anybody to know or talk about. And I decide to (1) put it on the internet and (2) talk about it. Did you know people are getting more stupid? Quite literally [sciencealert.com].

    Beyond this, people need to stop lying to themselves so much. In general there's no real 'outting' of trannies (whom invariably are the source of this stupidity). It's just a collective game of The Emperor's New Clothes where finally the dumb little kid says, 'But mama - that's a dude in a wig!' to the gasps of the crowd who also know the exact same thing. This is true even in places like Thailand where they not only start boys on all sorts of drugs way early in life but where they also generally have a much more effeminate natural musculature and bone structure. Almost none of them pass or come even remotely close to it really, and they never will.

    If somebody wants to dress up and pretend to be a girl, even cut off their dick and get some silicon stitched on your chest - okay, people have the right to do whatever they want so long as they're not hurting anybody else. But trying to force other people to play in the delusion is dumb. And just man up to your own decisions. If somebody maliciously calls you Adam instead of Glamorous Gloria then you call them an ass and get on with your life.

    Yeah, as long as you can look like John Smith the white man.

    No. Once again what people choose to connect on the internet to their own persona is entirely up to them. See: Satoshi Nakamoto. Guy created, distributed, and led a world changing product. And nobody has any clue who he is in spite of *immense* effort at finding out simply because he chose to not mix real life and internet life. Clearly he's a wise man.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 10 2020, @08:24PM (2 children)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @08:24PM (#1005970) Journal

      Clearly he's a wise man.

      Yes, I agree. But a high degree of wisdom is even rarer than a high degree of intelligence, because you almost always need the latter to obtain the former, and most highly intelligent people just never get there regardless.

      So what we actually have to deal with is a world of only moderately thoughtful, usually only first-level thinking people who are repeatedly surprised by the consequences of their own actions, and the actions of others, and the consequences of those other's actions as well.

      In such a world, ingrained manners and respect would go a very long way towards insulating the vulnerable from such consequences, and the surprises delivered courtesy thereof, but... yeah, that's not the world we live in.

      In fact, the Internet at large (and real life) is expanding a bumper crop of deeper penetrations of social tactics in the vein of ostracism and discrimination [both based variously on age, race, color, gender, sexuality, superstition or lack thereof, tattoos, piercings, place of residence, country of origin, native language, accent, credit, legal issues, weight, body odor, politics, number of parents, number of spouses... and probably a whole lot more that don't come immediately to mind].

      These come in every flavor from silent elimination from consideration, to verbal/posted abuse, to sabotage, to outings, to assault, to murder and... really, everywhere in between. That's the reality of it all.

      So while yeah, it'd be faaaabulous if everyone was smart, and wise, and close-mouthed about their particular characteristics... and if the other side of the equation was peopled by those who didn't feel any need to abuse those who aren't perfect candidate members for their preferred clique... however, the world doesn't work that way and is moving further away from such things all the time. Sad to say.

      Hence codes of conduct. Because some (quite a few, actually) people behave poorly and without much — or any — concern for the people they are treating to their oh-so-correct points of view. Codes of conduct can, if done moderately well (perfection isn't going to happen, so it's pointless to even try to assert that only perfection will do), keep the nastiness down to a dull roar.

      In the end, it makes no sense to let things go further into the shitter because they "ought" to be some other way, when [A] clearly they aren't that way, and [B] there's no perceptible chance they're going to go that way in either the short or the relatively long term.

      If you don't want a code of conduct to bite you, don't be an asshole. Politeness and respect are their own rewards. They're always worth the candle, barring a pre-existing state of conflict. Sometimes, even then.

      For those who can't manage that... yep, that's why codes of conduct come into being. And no, it's almost certainly not because these codes of conduct are mechanisms to discriminate against anything other than discrimination itself.

      --
      Give me ambiguity, or give me something else.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @10:47PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @10:47PM (#1006045)

        Not sure intelligence is prequisite to wisdom.

        • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday June 11 2020, @09:20PM

          by meustrus (4961) on Thursday June 11 2020, @09:20PM (#1006600)

          Either intelligence or the good luck to follow only the right prophets.

          --
          If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Wednesday June 10 2020, @08:34PM (3 children)

      by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday June 10 2020, @08:34PM (#1005976)

      I have something that I don't want anybody to know or talk about. And I decide to (1) put it on the internet and (2) talk about it.

      Do you? Do you know what it is like to have a secret about yourself, something shameful that doesn't hurt anybody, something you can't change and you can't tell anyone about? Wouldn't it be so much better if you could just be honest with the world about who you are, and continue not hurting anybody?

      Don't think of trans people here, think of gay people. You're asking them to completely hide their sexuality at the same time you are defending your right to say sexualizing things about women. Isn't that a double standard?

      Or think of women. Are they supposed to hide that they are women? Do you seriously expect half the population to deep hide their identity on the scale of Satoshi Nakamoto?

      Almost none of them pass or come even remotely close to it really, and they never will.

      Well, I can't say that I've looked at all that many pictures of Thai trans girls, so I guess I'll have to take your word for it. It's the internet, though. Are we talking about trans women using their face as an avatar? Again, I can't say I've seen that, so I guess I'll have to take your word for it again.

      So I suppose that in the hypothetical situation where somebody is using for their avatar a photo of themselves in which you can clearly tell they are not a Woman™. Are you justified in saying what you see? Well, it's an avatar. When's the last time anyone said anything about anyone's avatar? And there's no reason to be uploading personal photos in any of these communication channels, ever, for any reason. So I really can't think of when would be an appropriate time to comment on a person's appearance.

      So maybe you call the trans woman "he". This one's situational. What pronoun is everyone else using? If the answer is "she", then you're being deliberately confusing. Even if you don't care that it hurts the trans person, surely you care that everyone else knows who you are talking about.

      Because if just one person is late to this group and doesn't have the amazing power you do to see a person's gender 100% accurately in tiny avatar photos, that person will have no idea who the fuck you are talking about. Someone will have to explain it, and there we go again, being an asshole has derailed the engineering discussion because we have to talk about gender politics again.

      I believe we have a word for being deliberately confusing so that we have to talk about something completely off topic and controversial. It's called trolling. It's destructive to communities. It has no place in any meritocratic system.

      --
      If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @10:29PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @10:29PM (#1006031)

        I hide the fact that I vaporize some ayrlcyclohexylamine (mostly Methoxieticyclidine, sometime Eticyclidone, use to do diphenidine but it's now as illegal as the grandaddy of ayrlcyclohexylamine: PCP) on Friday night and I am somewhat ashamed of this.

        But drug use is a core part of my identity equal in importance to my sexuality, yet I won't meltdown in tears if someone tell me something like: you are a crazy fryed brain drug powered zombie junky. I would just shrug it off.

        Maybe it's because I have a well paying job with gold plated working conditions, a house and a wife, but I have all that in spite of my drug use. I don't insist that people refer to me as the ayrlcyclohexylamine disciple, I don't require a special pronoun. I just do my "shameful" thing privately...

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:37PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:37PM (#1006393)

        Don't think of trans people here, think of gay people. You're asking them to completely hide their sexuality at the same time you are defending your right to say sexualizing things about women. Isn't that a double standard?

        No, because this is a software project, and nobody needs to talk about any sexuality in the first place, either straight, gay, queer, up, down, strange, quark, or peppermint.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:37PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:37PM (#1006490)

        You are aware of the Shia Labeouf flag incident?
        https://country105.com/news/4184230/how-4chan-defeated-shia-labeouf/ [country105.com]

        Given the drive many have to cause pain to those different from themselves, and how someone with specific differences might wish to show these things about themselves to one group, but not to another, it isn't hard to see that someone might present themselves in a potentially hostile environment differently then they would in another environment. They perhaps felt they could keep these two guises separate.

        That is, until someone feels the need to dig, and if the digger is better at their craft than the person that chose to present themselves differently to different groups is at separating those personas, then comes the uncalled-for attacks on a person's identity. Even the Army had "don't ask, don't tell," which while it instilled on people that things they do might be shameful, it also came down on those that attempted to hurt people by outing them.

        I think it is reasonable to have a CoC, that basically says treat people in a respectful fashion. We should be able to keep politics (and name calling) out of code writing.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @06:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @06:35AM (#1006783)

      Almost none of them pass or come even remotely close to it really, and they never will.

      Looks like somebody has had a "Crying Game" experience!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @08:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @08:34PM (#1005975)

    finds his dead name

    Reminds me of the recent election I worked at. Some guy named "Bjorn" wanted to vote but wasn't a major party member.
    Me to coworker: "He isn't a major party member."
    Bjorn: "She."
    Coworker to me: "He'll need to fill out this form then."
    Bjorn: "She."

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @09:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2020, @09:05PM (#1005992)

      Was he Bjorn again?

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:32PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:32PM (#1006385)

    Let's say an issue is getting informal, and John feels comfortable letting slip that he's trans. Adam says some unkind things about that. Everybody gets into an argument about trans identity. Who is causing the issue in this situation? Adam, for attacking a fellow developer, or John, for bringing it up in the first place?

    Yes.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"