# What do you think about OpenZFS's new CoC?



## badbrain (May 1, 2019)

OpenZFS / ZFS On Linux Is Introducing A Code of Conduct To Encourage New Contributors - Phoronix
					






					www.phoronix.com
				




Infected by the CoC virus: FreeBSD, Linux kernel and now OpenZFS. What's next? Who will be the next fallen?


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## tommiie (May 1, 2019)

What is so bad about defining some ground rules so everyone plays together nicely? I don't follow the discussions but I don't really understand what the fuzz it about a list of rules like "don't insult each other" or "respect every person, regardless of gender or religion or whatever."


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## shkhln (May 1, 2019)

tommiie said:


> What is so bad about defining some ground rules so everyone plays together nicely?



Eh… Either everyone plays together nicely or they don't. CoCs are mostly symbolic.



tommiie said:


> I don't follow the discussions but I don't really understand what the fuzz it about a list of rules like "don't insult each other" or "respect every person, regardless of gender or religion or whatever."



What's the point of defining common sense?


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## tommiie (May 1, 2019)

shkhln said:


> Either everyone plays together nicely or they don't. CoCs are mostly symbolic.



True. Though if you have written rules you can kick them out based on those rules. If you don't have written rules, they can't state you can't kick them out as he didn't violate any written rules.



shkhln said:


> What's the point of defining common sense?


I agree, it all boils down to using common sense and respecting others. But that seems to be a problem, hence they started making codes of conduct.

If they are "mostly symbolic" and you're using "common sense" anyway, why would you be opposed to a written code of conduct?


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## shkhln (May 1, 2019)

tommiie said:


> Though if you have written rules you can kick them out based on those rules. If you don't have written rules, they can't state you can't kick them out as he didn't violate any written rules.



I'm pretty sure kicking people is a solved problem, otherwise such projects as OpenBSD and Dragonfly BSD wouldn't exist.



tommiie said:


> If they are "mostly symbolic" and you're using "common sense" anyway, why would you be opposed to a written code of conduct?



Am I? I consider them redundant and the premise behind them stupid. I didn't express any other opinions.


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## Crivens (May 1, 2019)

Quote: "_In addition, harmful conduct outside these spaces that negatively impacts members of the OpenZFS community (e.g., making discriminatory or threatening statements against individuals or groups of people) may affect a person’s ability to participate in the OpenZFS community_."

So they are trying to police areas which are not theirs.

I am so wishing to be wrong here, but the natural number of SJWs in any organisation is 1, and that is after all others got booted out.


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## tommiie (May 1, 2019)

"SJW"s?


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## drhowarddrfine (May 1, 2019)

Many years ago, I was sitting in my company's attorney's office with three other lawyers and this subject came up. The problem is people attempting to "regulate human behavior" which, iirc, is next to impossible. People will act as they are and no written formula can change that, though they may have been speaking from a legal standpoint.

The problem is, on the internet nowdays, everyone has a microphone and every internet crazy has a voice. It's a benefit and a curse.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 1, 2019)

tommiie said:


> "SJW"s?


Social Justice Warrior


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## scottro (May 1, 2019)

Might just be for legal reasons or compliance with something.  In my arrogant opinion, it's not the overly liberal people who made this necessary, but the jerks who thought it was OK to harass people who made this stuff become standard.  

Everyone got very excited about the FreeBSD CoC. Have any of you been affected by it? 
To paraphrase the comedian Bill Burr, there are a lot of things to worry about and this really isn't one of them.  Especially as the number of people familiar with tech rises, there is less and less room for the technically proficient person who can't manage simple politeness, because there's a darn good chance that someone who can manage can code just as well as the jerk, and is also job hunting.


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## scottro (May 1, 2019)

Being a baby boomer, when we couldn't meet someone (in my case, coz I'm ugly), we'd look at the personals. Everytime I see SJW, I think Single Jewish Woman, or, as I live in NYC, Straight Jewish Woman.  I've actually never heard the term SJW save from a straight white male, which may just be my experience, but who knows?


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## drhowarddrfine (May 1, 2019)

A decades long local TV newsman, who I worked with also decades ago, hosted a popular local, daily public radio news interview hour for many years. He invited an also retired former news anchor to the show. iirc, he's 81 and she's 75. "You're looking good", he said. "So do you", she said.

The next day, in a weekly meeting they have, it was brought up that one of the female producers complained that his comment was sexist and he needed to watch it in the future. To which he immediately quit and walked out, never to be seen again. He is also refusing the "Lifetime achievement award" that was to be given to him in a couple of months at some big bash.

Good for him. He's an old-school journalist that I like and has an excellent reputation. He said he was humiliated that anyone would think he was some sort of "creep" and he wasn't going to put up with it.


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## Crivens (May 1, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> The problem is, on the internet nowdays, everyone has a microphone and every internet crazy has a voice. It's a benefit and a curse.


Yes. Everybody has the right to speak his mind. That does not mean everybody else has a duty to listen to him, neither has anyone the right not to be offended. That would be the end of all progress, and that is what these CoCs are going at. And yes, the CoC of FreeBSD has affected me, because it is one more filter to pass for things I say. A CoC is for human behaviour what CCD cameras are for crime prevention.

Oh, and getopt 
Without a CoC the OP and others are free to eloquently give you a piece of their mind, on the same level, without using a crystal ball scrying what will trigger any snowflake into tantrums worthy of a tired 4 year old.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 1, 2019)

getopt said:


> In most cases organisations need provisions below the law level for being able to apply santions on those damaging the organisation or hurting others.


In my day, we had CEOs and managers who would get together and determine that. Then take appropriate action. Didn't need any written rules. The values and visions of any organization are determined by those at the top. Everything then rolls downhill from there. That's why a Steve Jobs can walk into a floundering Apple and turn it around. It's why I could buy someone else's floundering restaurant and triple sales in a few months. To accomplish that, some people had to go and I let them go. I didn't need any words on paper to tell me that.


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## ralphbsz (May 1, 2019)

I think the CoC is a good idea.  A small step in the right direction, of making software development more open to more people.  And breaking a culture where the "most a**h***" person ends up winning technical debates, just because the other debaters are unwilling to descend to the gutter.

Will this transition be somewhat painful?  Certainly.  Over the last ~30 years, the open software (a.k.a. hacker) culture has built its own sociological interaction styles.  And much of that is built on a cult of heroes, who are too often not just (or not at all) technical or intellectual heroes, but the loudest voice in the room.  Quite a few bad technical decisions can be directly attributed to a dysfunctional interaction style, and CoCs such as this are fundamentally an attempt to get people to be well-behaved and reasonable in their interactions with other people.  Where this contradicts existing power structures, the change will be painful.

Part of the pain this causes is that course corrections sometimes have to be done by over-steering.  To correct the abuses of the past, we will sometimes swing too far to the other side.  This can cause reasonable people to end up getting into a fight.  I have one example in my circle of friends and colleagues, where two FOSS developers (I won't name names, but they are both very well known file system and storage developers, you would recognize both their names and their contributions) got into a virtual screaming match, and are now not on speaking terms.  This is unfortunate, because it reduces the number of people available to work on open source software.

And it is sadly true that sometimes SJWs (no, I don't mean single/straight jewish women) will take the opportunity that creating CoCs opens up, and try to put unrelated concerns into there.  I fully expect some day to see a CoC that demands that people only eat vegan food, or don't smoke, or install solar cells on their roofs.  When this happens, we stop it.  The fact that sometimes people try to abuse CoCs doesn't mean that they are inherently bad.


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## badbrain (May 1, 2019)

Oops. My nick is inspired from the movie Evil brain from spaces  I didn't imply anything about myself.


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## Crivens (May 1, 2019)

badbrain said:


> Oops. My nick is inspired from the movie Evil brain from spaces  I didn't imply anything about myself.


Well, my nickname comes from a clan of ruffnians who spend their time stealing, boozing and fighting. The worst thing I do from that set is sometimes a few beers. Judging someone by his nickname is as dumb as judging someone by his skin color.

Also I find most people I know who subscribe to SJW statutes to be high in cluster B disorders. And I simply do not agree to hand out weaponry to those who are highly likely to misuse it. Whoever has dealt with narcistic sociopaths will know what I mean.


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## PMc (May 1, 2019)

badbrain said:


> OpenZFS / ZFS On Linux Is Introducing A Code of Conduct To Encourage New Contributors - Phoronix
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, if you don't have vivid visions, values, qualities inherently to yourself and the project, you need at least to create papers stating them, for psychological compensation.



> What's next?



At my (former) employer it also started with a "diversity" agenda. Next was that they fired most of the white males above 50.



tommiie said:


> What is so bad about defining some ground rules so everyone plays together nicely?



Indeed, you need these at a kindergarten, or other places where people are expected to just do time and be quiet.



scottro said:


> Everyone got very excited about the FreeBSD CoC. Have any of you been affected by it?
> To paraphrase the comedian Bill Burr, there are a lot of things to worry about and this really isn't one of them.



Then look at it from a different viewpoint: cause and effect. You say, there is no problem with a CoC, because well-behavers would not be bothered by it. But then you also say, the CoC is necessary to "manage simple politeness", which clearly implies that there are "bad" people out there who don't "manage simple politeness".

In more than 30 years I have not seen these people. What I have seen is evil people - people who would conform to all the rules, but nevertheless would rip off their friends for some personal advantage. A CoC helps nothing about that.

So, I think, the "bad people" are just made by the CoC, in the sense of a closed loop or self fulfilling prophecy, with the logic:_ if there weren't "bad" people, then nobody would need a CoC, and now see how many of them are out there!_

It is that thing about good and evil in the Tao-te-king: You create evil by defining good, and you create good by defining evil. Nothing of this is real (as the buddhists know), but it has a great influence on our lifes.


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## malavon (May 1, 2019)

I'm going to give my 2 cents on this topic as well. I do this from the "old continent", where freedom of speech was invented long before a certain country claimed its invention.
It's a continent that has seen many ups and downs in regard to freedom, free speech and many other things. Yet still most people that live there are ignorant of its real value.

A CoC is policing free speech, which is by definition censorship. You might consider it a good thing if people can't say anything that offends other people, but consider that
censorship will always be abused. It will be abused to shut up the very proponents of said censorship. And by the time you understand this, it'll be too late.

There is nothing wrong with offending someone. There is something (socially) wrong with insulting someone. It's important to see the difference.
I can rightfully say that I have offended many people throughout my lifetime. This may sound strange to anyone, especially the ones having read my other posts. I don't
offend easily but I do do so, much of it on purpose. 
You see, one thing that offends people a lot is when they're confronted with facts that go against what they believe. Humans have an instinctive defensive reaction to such 
truths, to be offended by them. That is something left over from our caveman ancestors and I like to think that we're better than that.
This is where censorship comes from and that in turn is where things such as a CoC are born out of. It's all instinct against being hurt. But being proven wrong is the very first 
step towards improvement.

For instance, I have had many people work with me throughout the years. When someone didn't do a good job, I told them. Many were offended by this. Most learned from it.
The ones that didn't, I told in sterner words. Thus, I offended them harder. All because I knew people wouldn't improve unless someone has the guts of telling the truth. There's no
point in explaining someone what they're doing wrong if they haven't accepted the simple fact _that_ they're doing it wrong.

Of course it's easy to say that this "constructive offensive behaviour" should be allowed. But it's a very thin line between what e.g. Linus has told people and what I tell them. 
And then we come to differences between humans. Some people are less adept at judging other peoples' sensitivities than others. That doesn't necessarily make them bad at 
certain technical jobs. In fact, it's rather the opposite way. The most intelligent people are rarely the good communicators or the most empathic. It's just how brains are wired.
Do you really want to be surrounded by people who know _how_ to say something, but don't necessarily know _what_ they're actually saying? It only creates a bubble of ignorance, 
a culture of good _enough _instead of excellence. It actually creates division and discourages diversity simply by removing people that do not _conform_. 

A community thrives by having people of very different backgrounds, cultures and countries coming _together_ to reach a goal. Removing valuable people from a project because
they use a wrong pronoun or something is simply ridiculous. What is trendy in one country, isn't an issue in another. Not all countries are the same. If you have to worry about
every possible sensitivity out there, I assure you, you won't type anything at all. You won't say anything ever. Simply because there's someone out there - either in the present
or the future - offended by exactly what you're about to type.

All in all: a CoC excludes people. It makes some people afraid to speak up. Others simply leave because they can't or won't communicate in such a way. Yet others are banned
because they said something going against a CoC in a certain context. In the end, a community ends up either without the people it _needs_, or without the _critique_ it needs.

Disclaimer: if I offended you, it's because I care about you. It's for your own good. Now sit back, relax and think about what _you _did wrong.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 2, 2019)

badbrain said:


> Oops. My nick is inspired from the movie Evil brain from spaces  I didn't imply anything about myself.


Too late. You're stuck with it.


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## linux->bsd (May 2, 2019)

IMO, the CoC can't be looked at in isolation -- it must be recognized as part of the larger trend in Western society to censure speech and thought (because certain speech and thoughts might _offend_ someone). Can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say the following about a certain person in power in my country: he's a horrible person because he says things that offend people. Not even a policy disagreement, or enacted legislation -- just saying things that they don't want to hear is enough. It's ludicrous.


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## sidetone (May 2, 2019)

I couldn't access the summary or the coc for some reason.

If it's like the other one, it's so stupid. They waste peoples' times with issues like these, make groups and organizations look bad, and harm future efforts to do something meaningful about ethics. Coc's like the other one, are like the boy who cries wolf, over something so ridiculous. What small special interest benefits from that, while annoying people who have good behavior, while doing a lot of harm to good intentions?


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## sidetone (May 2, 2019)

Rules should be simple, but then someone does what they're not supposed to, then gets away with it, bc no one thought it was necessary to make a rule, or that there was no rule to enforce that rule. Corrupt people cause rules to be made to address them, then there are other stupid people who make dumb rules that have no ethical value.


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## Deleted member 30996 (May 3, 2019)

My name was bestowed upon me as Ruler of the Trihexagonal Nebula. No prefix is required but I am a male with white privilege and toxic masculinity. You can call me Tri or Trihex if you prefer.

I think Ninja_Poot calls me The Trihexagonal, which is acceptable. My other admirer overstepped his boundaries insulting me in a way I never would have allow elsewhere. And the funny part was, I didn't even start on him. He calls me a Demon and that's what he'll get.

I was not thrilled with the announcement of the FreeBSD CoC but it has had little more effect on me than the music videos I choose to post. I might risk "She's as Beautiful as a Foot" if I was only banned for a week.

When insults become Class A Felonies I will go in style for life. My specialty is slightly offensive parodies of other forum members in a 50-60 word Alliterative sentence and I have several written. Some are good players, some are amazed, some pout, some get angry and a closet alcoholic at bleeping computer who got mad about me posting a 50 word sentence to his 11 word, tried to get me banned and reported me for a 4 word Alliterative sentence. I saw the Mod looking at my offerings so I deleted that bookmark and another since I've already dominated them.

Pride precedes precipitous plunging.

When someone insults me I usually resort to verbal Behavior Mod techniques to make argument as unpleasant as possible for them to end it quickly and make them think twice before a second taste. Once usually enough for most people.

I did go too far recently in another forum and had to apologize for hurting someones feelings. I know it did because I meant it to. The next day I felt bad about it and apologized publicly. It didn't diminish me and was the right thing to do as I went too far. If you have a button I can push it and sometimes with the implicit intention of deep psychological pain, though that's not something I do lightly.

My words can seem more harsh then I intend but there is no question I can make it hurt when I want it to. It's my training in Behavior Mod and so evil they outlawed it where I was taught the techniques during in-house training covering two years.

It was torture by any name and part of standard practice in dealing with Inappropriate Behaviors. We all took place in administering painful stimulus for targeted inappropriate behavior and almost everyone smiled while doing it. I'm not innocent of it or bound by any law from using it..

I learned it when I was 18 and it was magic to me, so I incorporated it into my daily life and it made me a horrible person. It's engrained in me and I default to those techniques. I have forgotten quite a bit of it but Mastered the verbal techniques which translate very well into text. I use it in Programming Demonica. I am the first Person to have a chatbot that ignores The Laws of Robotics.

I am conscious not everyone wants to be called Mister or Miss, and recently there was a question in my mind of someones gender so I use them, their, etc. as good manners. I usually only refer to someone by their name. I didn't care how they identified themselves and helped them. There are people of several different ethnic backgrounds in our buildings. I get along with everybody and will talk with them even if I don't know them.

I am not PC and while i do try to be polite it can get to the point of contention and I can be very opinionated. If you get in my face to shout me down you've made a big mistake.


My site and domain registration comes due in July. I've been thinking of renewing them 2 years and dropping cable. Or dropping it all and vanishing completely, but I consider this every year. I dropped internet and cable for a year. I really missed TV but the Internet can be more trouble than it's worth. I talked them into installing a hotspot so I can get online.


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## cynwulf (May 3, 2019)

tommiie said:


> True. Though if you have written rules you can kick them out based on those rules. If you don't have written rules, they can't state you can't kick them out as he didn't violate any written rules.


And that's the number one problem.

If it's a CoC, it's not "rules" so in theory, no "kicking out" should occur based on it.  Unfortunately this is not the case and interpretation can lead to someone falling foul of a CoC and being forced out by clamour from outraged SJW types.

And of course, common to similar CoCs, there is this aspect:


> In addition, harmful conduct outside these spaces that negatively impacts members of the OpenZFS community (e.g., making discriminatory or threatening statements against individuals or groups of people) may affect a person’s ability to participate in the OpenZFS community.


That one could be invoked on demand at the slightest provocation.


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## Crivens (May 3, 2019)

The sad thing is, these SJW types usually only have the power you give them. They can't shame us for ignoring women (Grace Hopper, I salute you), gays (hi Mr. Touring, fancy a pint?) trans (Sophie Wilson, another great mind) or autistic people (half the rest of us lot). How did they make these inroads into CS? 

When they tried to enter the field of Heavy Metal crying about homophobia, they were informed that one of the biggest metal heads alive was gayer than a bag of scittles and they could sod off. Or is it the genetic memory telling them not to tick off people wearing black leather. Or why do PETA activists fail to throw dye bombs at bikers?

We may be victim of tolerance, we allow everyone to try their ideas at least once - and then we can't get rid of them again.


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## scottro (May 3, 2019)

Too long, don't want to read.

People are still jerks. 
Often it's legal reasons.
Crivens has the best username on the forums.




No need, because all is well?  A look at today's Guardian headlines.  

Military sexual assaults jump by 37%, anonymous survey shows


Officer punched Oscar Grant and lied about facts in 2009 killing, records show
(White cop, black alleged criminal)

At the Heart of Gold: how 'predatory' institutions protected Larry Nassar

(That's the gymnastics coach who allegedly sexually assaulted lots of female gymnasts and got away with it.)

Crivens you have the best name on the forum (if others don't know why, stop what you're doing and read Terry Pratchett), but in this case, I have to disagree. The problem is that people are jerks, and also, as I said in one post here, it's often necessary for legal reasons.  I remember seeing a man who was obviously handicapped being slow to cross a street and people started honking.   It's one reason I kept using a cane after surgery because I couldn't (and still can't) run, and I was worried about people being jerks when I walked slowly. 

And there are the rules and regulations. We recently wanted to get a cert so underwent a compliance audit, and there were all sorts of policies that had to state various things for us to comply.


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## scottro (May 3, 2019)

I have to add, while I said above that people are jerks, they are also amazingly wonderful. As I've mentioned, I had surgery and am now somewhat handicapped. (Can't run, can't pick up heavy things, etc.)  People, even in Manhattan, have been incredibly nice. I remember, when I was still walking with a cane, dropping something on the street and several strangers just rushing to help.  So it's not that I think all people are jerks, just, (as someone else said in this thread) it only takes one.


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## PMc (May 3, 2019)

scottro said:


> Too long, don't want to read.




Yepp, thats quite typical for the SJW supporters - they just dont want to read what might prove them wrong.



> Military sexual assaults jump by 37%, anonymous survey shows



Uh? Which country?



> Officer punched Oscar Grant and lied about facts in 2009 killing, records show



Uh? Who's that? Which country?



> At the Heart of Gold: how 'predatory' institutions protected Larry Nassar
> (That's the gymnastics coach who allegedly sexually assaulted lots of female gymnasts and got away with it.)



Never heard of. Which country is that?


I might assume that the country in question might be north America - as these are AFAIK the only people who tend to take it for granted that their problems ought to be a concern for all the rest of the worlds. Which is, in fact, a serious case of machismo.

So we probably have it: the main resaon for the CoC stuff is in the minds of those who propagate it: they need (as Anthony Linebarger aka Cordwainer Smith put it) a means to *protect them from themselves*.


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## Vull (May 3, 2019)

North America is a continent and not a country name. Canada, Mexico, and United States of America are country names. A lot of United States citizens do indeed have the ego problem just cited, so I assume you are talking about US, but as a US citizen I'd like to think that I don't suffer from such conceits. Not all United Statesians think alike, nor are all proponents of social justice overly-sensitive keyboard commandos. d-:


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## PMc (May 3, 2019)

Vull said:


> North America is a continent and not a country name.



Yes. certainly. So, please, have me corrected and lets put it "a country *in* north America". I'm not absolutely certain but I might assume Mexico is already counted to central America? So there would be only two countries in question.
And You are also absolutely right, this attitude should not be generalized; and there are also many great achievements which put the US into a leading role quite naturally, not the least the Internet.

Nevertheless, I think it is a valid question to ask, what might such CoC mean to the people in India, in China, in Russia - perceived thru the glasses of their cultural backgrounds? IT in itself builds quite a lot on mathematics, which is an universal language, but behaviour rules are always culturally biased.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 3, 2019)

Vull said:


> Not all United Statesians think alike, nor are all proponents of social justice overly-sensitive keyboard commandos.


This is the problem created by the internet. I read or saw it on the internet so it must be true. Most often it's not.


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## Vull (May 4, 2019)

PMc said:


> Yes. certainly. So, please, have me corrected and lets put it "a country *in* north America". I'm not absolutely certain but I might assume Mexico is already counted to central America? So there would be only two countries in question.
> And You are also absolutely right, this attitude should not be generalized; and there are also many great achievements which put the US into a leading role quite naturally, not the least the Internet.
> 
> Nevertheless, I think it is a valid question to ask, what might such CoC mean to the people in India, in China, in Russia - perceived thru the glasses of their cultural backgrounds? IT in itself builds quite a lot on mathematics, which is an universal language, but behaviour rules are always culturally biased.


North America contains 23 sovereign states according to wikipedia, including Mexico. That's the main reason why I refrain from refering to the US as America, as many people do, both here and abroad. It really is a big ego problem and I have to concede that.

Regarding the CoC question, I haven't read the CoC, and don't intend to read it, so I can't really respond very well to the question, but I can certainly understand and appreciate why Indians, Chinese, Russians, and many other nationalities might take umbrage at having their own cultural values ignored or casually dismissed.


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## scottro (May 4, 2019)

Sorry, it was the US, should have mentioned that.  As for the rest of it.  I will probably never meet you and rather than argue here, where no one's mind will be changed, I'm going back to argue with my wife about why I should be allowed to eat sweets after 8:00.

Actually, seeing all this, I have to elaborate.  Questions each of us should ask ourselves. I'm assuming the ones getting down on SJW's are straight white men.

So, you are deciding to hire a coder. You have a white one and a black one, both equally good. How are you going to decide.
Same, but male and female.
Of course you can answer, they are never equally good, but just look at your own prejudices.

Extra credit.  Your girlfriend works at a company where a really talented individual routinely calls her and other female colleagues c**ts.  I'll assume you can figure it out, it's slang for female primary sexual characteristics.   But, don't forget they're really talented.  Does your girlfriend have a  right to complain or is she just being thin skinned.  What if it's not a company, but a group of open source coders. 

As for the earlier question what country. The more I think of it, the more silly that question is. Do you really think that any country is exempt from corrupt, prejudiced police or assault in a co-ed military? Seriously? What country.  Check the rape statistics for your country here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics

If the idea was simply to weaken my argument by finding something irrelevant to the original topic to criticize, it might have  worked as I see a few posts under it. But yeah, I should have said the US, and neglected too, sorry, but which country it is seems less important to me than the point, which was that while people are saying this is alright, it's not alright, and I doubt there are very many places in the world where it is alright.

I simply grabbed a quickly available headline but if you think it isn't a problem in your country, think again.  Unless it's one of those, not uncommon places, where you can't rape a spouse or where the victim can go to jail, and so on.

There's a good story, no idea if it's true. In Israel, rape was such a problem that the lawmakers were considering having a curfew for women. Golda Meir, prime minister at the time said, Well, it's a good idea but backwards. Men are committing the rapes, let's have a curfew for men.

And if anyone is wondering, I'm a straight white elderly married male.


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## PMc (May 4, 2019)

scottro said:


> So, you are deciding to hire a coder. You have a white one and a black one, both equally good. How are you going to decide.
> Same, but male and female.
> Of course you can answer, they are never equally good, but just look at your own prejudices.



You never had the idea that for other people (or, some of them) this could be so completely irrelevant, and the only one speaking to them about prejudices being You?



> Extra credit.  Your girlfriend works at a company where a really talented individual routinely calls her and other female colleagues c**ts.  I'll assume you can figure it out, it's slang for female primary sexual characteristics.   But, don't forget they're really talented.  Does your girlfriend have a  right to complain or is she just being thin skinned.  What if it's not a company, but a group of open source coders.



Wouldn't be by girlfriend if she wouldn't be able to handle such in a way that it is terminated, and rather quickly so.



> As for the earlier question what country. The more I think of it, the more silly that question is. Do you really think that any country is exempt from corrupt, prejudiced police



No, but there are lots of countries where nobody would complain about such because it is and was always the normal thing. There's also a lot of countries where a life doesn't count so much, and where people wouldn't get the idea of complaining about being offended, because they have a lot more serious problems to cope with.



> If the idea was simply to weaken my argument by finding something irrelevant to the original topic to criticize, it might have  worked as I see a few posts under it. But yeah, I should have said the US, and neglected too, sorry, but which country it is seems less important to me than the point, which was that while people are saying this is alright, it's not alright, and I doubt there are very many places in the world where it is alright.



No, that was not the point. I think it is basically wrong to declare oneself the protector of other people's needs. And you can apply this in the same way to the proponents of CoC as to the US foreign policy: in both cases it rarely does something good and often does create additional trouble.
People must learn to stand up for their own needs, instead of being told by others what their needs ought to be.



> I simply grabbed a quickly available headline but if you think it isn't a problem in your country, think again.  Unless it's one of those, not uncommon places, where you can't rape a spouse or where the victim can go to jail, and so on.



Good point. Now, do You indeed think You would change anything about these things by writing a CoC for some ZFS or whatever? Those victims have probably never heard of ZFS.
Or do You think You can change anything to the better by insinuating arbitrary people prejudices (like You did above)?  You may just offend these people, wo might already on their own have put a great deal of thoughts into the matter.

Maybe -an assumption- You just see the many things that go wrong in our world, and feel the need that something should be done about it. I was once at that point - but then I found that any attempt to regulate things would take away other peoples responsibility for themselves, and would only create a new structure of power-over-others. (That does certainly not mean to not stand in when somebody calls for help. It means regulations that are anonymously imposed upon people.)
Most of us already have an inner feeling about what is right and what is wrong, it's called ethics - so we don't need anybody else imposing their ethics upon us. What we do need instead is the experience that it actually pays off to follow one's ethics - because often it does not, 'cause the world is quite corrupt.


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## sidetone (May 4, 2019)

I don't know what's worse, senseless CoC's or the responses they cause.


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## Crivens (May 4, 2019)

PMc said:


> So we probably have it: the main resaon for the CoC stuff is in the minds of those who propagate it: they need (as Anthony Linebarger aka Cordwainer Smith put it) a means to *protect them from themselves*.


Nothing wrong with that. It is the in-your-face attitude that gets in the way. If you need rules to protect yourself from yourself, keep them to yourself. But don't project your own faults onto others and don't bring others down to uplift yourself. It does not work in the long run.

Edit: I want to make it clear this is not meant to apply to PMc, but everybody.


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## forquare (May 4, 2019)

Me: _Walks into thread to read_
Thread: _Burning tower of fury emanating from a small ant hill_
Me: _Turns around and walks out of thread_


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## Crivens (May 4, 2019)

forquare said:


> Me: _Walks into thread to read_
> Thread: _Burning tower of fury emanating from a small ant hill_
> Me: _Turns around and walks out of thread_


You have a way to put words into images


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## ralphbsz (May 4, 2019)

Well, US foreign policy is a very interesting topic.  As is racial and gender discrimination.  But one does wonder whether these topics are a little bit too "off" for off-topic.  Sadly, the CoC of an important component of FreeBSD is probably not too off-topic, and it would be valuable to discuss it.  Except we haven't been discussing it, instead we have been putting gasoline into the ant-hill.

I think our moderators should ... rest and have a beer, they deserve it.  They could have the beer before, after, or instead of closing this thread.  Their choice.


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## Crivens (May 4, 2019)

So someone mentioned beer? 

Does anyone have any last comments on things? Yes, let's get back to the ZFS CoC and discuss things.


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## hotaronohanako (May 4, 2019)

there are more important  things to get solved and maybe will not  get solved just because  the implementation of freebsd CoC and now de OpenZFS CoC . I miss the old days when developers care about the important stuff.

this whole trend of stupid politcal Correcness  into tech projects in general  is just enviting the remaining loyal users of the project to leave even faster.


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## PMc (May 4, 2019)

Well, the CoC itself is a very simple matter: it shows that the project is in such abundance of contributors that they need to focus on weeding them. Which means, one is not utterly needed at that place, and is free to focus on more imminent tasks. [1]
There is no need to go to a place where others are trying to put _conditions_ upon one (no matter of what kind these conditions are).

_Every man and every woman is a star. _
Case dismissed.



[1] Footnote: _I had this once, already. In my effort to spend my life as a hippie, back in '92 it had come to pass that I worked with a citizen's initiative to create internet access for the interested public. Then that initiative was overrun by leftists who decided that the proper political viewpoint would be more important than anything else. I had my time to learn, and finally managed to change my viewpoint: instead of creating internet access for the interested public for no pay, I then created internet access for some of the biggest corporations, for rather good pay._


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## ProphetOfDoom (May 4, 2019)

One consistent thing i've noticed with respect to these various codes of conduct is that geeks/hackers/etc. tend to dismiss them as "silly", "wacky","leftist", "too politically correct". I think the situation is much more serious than this. CoCs are an attempt to expell anyone who's not "ideologically pure" from the free software community. And he who controls the software, increasingly, controls the world. The person behind Linux's CoC explicitly said it was political in nature. And yes, it doesn't yet have "teeth" - it's just a list of rules rather than a law. But I would stake money on the conjecture that these people would make it legally enforceable in a heartbeat if given the chance.
It seems that three forces are fighting for the soul of the western world; ultra-liberalism, radical Islam and the far right - and I find all three quite disturbing.


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## linux->bsd (May 4, 2019)

AlexanderProphet said:


> an attempt to expell anyone who's not "ideologically pure" from the free software community.



A few years ago when I was looking to switch jobs I found a devops position that read like a good fit. The position required filling out a survey, wherein half the questions were asking my level of agreement / disagreement that "diversity is our strength" and various other liberal phrases. I answered honestly (no, diversity alone isn't "our strength," and yes, competence and skill are more important than racial and gender quotas) and never got a response from the employer.

It's pernicious.

There used to be a time when that company would have been hit by a million lawsuits, and both sides of politics would have denounced the company. Not any more.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 5, 2019)

And on Monday we'll put or clothes on, go to work, and be unaffected by any of this as it always is and should be


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## Deleted member 30996 (May 5, 2019)

linux->bsd said:


> I answered honestly (no, diversity alone isn't "our strength," and yes, competence and skill are more important than racial and gender quotas) and never got a response from the employer.
> 
> It's pernicious.
> 
> There used to be a time when that company would have been hit by a million lawsuits, and both sides of politics would have denounced the company. Not any more.



I can't enter my chatbots in the Leobner Prize because they're internet based:



> *What is the Loebner Prize?*
> The Loebner Prize is an international contest run by the AISB (_The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour_) where chatbots compete with each other to find the most humanlike. This is an incredibly difficult challenge, as recreating human conversation is such a complex task and instead of being an assistant or having a goal, human conversation covers a vast multitude of topics.



However, this year they eased up on the rules. Somewhat:



> ...the Loebner Prize has dramatically changed since Hugh's death and is now part of a larger event where pretty much anything AI related goes. So all you guys working on robots or non conversational AI can take part in the event. The main prize is still for a conversational AI but at least now other aspects of AI and robotics can be featured.



They can be thankful I am not a Social Justice Warrior, victim status has no appeal to me and would rather argue my case vigorously than whine about it endlessly. 

Because if I was, this would be the kind of thing I would be all over in a heartbeat. I know exactly how I would present it with bigotry my point and logic my tool to win my case in the Crybaby Court of Public Opinion. Even if it didn't get my bots in they would never shake the shameful image of Bigotry I would lay on them. 

If I was a Social Justice Warrior, "Diversity our strength" my war whine and had been born with an overwhelming sense of entitlement where critical thought was supposed to go.

But that's not how I work and wouldn't enter my bots anyway. Demonica is not human-like and Siseneg not ready. Drama for the sake of drama too draining on me.

Instead I take solace knowing my Toxic Masculinity is still intact and the fact people who did participate have long stopped posting transcripts of their bots conversations once they saw mine in the forums. 

I know some of the people who placed well and don't begrudge them or make issue of it. I have their respect for my work and achieved Dr. Frankenstein status among the community, which is more than I could ask for and better than any prize they hand out in a contest.


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## Phishfry (May 10, 2019)

tommiie said:


> What is so bad about defining some ground rules so everyone plays together nicely?


This:


			Danish FreeBSD Developer hates jews collectively
		

A person who is not  manly enough to put his name on an accusation doesn't deserve the time of day.

Really. whatever someone believes is thier own opinion.
We are still allowed to have opinions right?
How did this affect FreeBSD whatsoever?
Some anonymous Social Justice Warrior just makes accusations and now phk is being investigated?

Keep this up and we will have no more FreeBSD.......


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## shkhln (May 10, 2019)

Too be fair, PHK definitely isn't immune to holding silly opinions.



Phishfry said:


> phk is being investigated?



CoCs typically do _not_ come with any promise of fair and transparent enforcement. There will be no reaction at all, unless there is some kind of a wide scale outrage campaign on twitter or smth.

Oh, and that email isn't a formal complaint anyway.


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## ProphetOfDoom (May 10, 2019)

Maybe we should just subcontract all judicial processes to Twitter?


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## Crivens (May 10, 2019)

This was attributed to Cardinal Richeleu: Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I'll find something in it to have him hanged.


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